"…Aspiring executives who want to add an MBA degree to their resume but are nervous about their chances of getting into business school can find reassurance in the following fact: There are some full-time MBA programs that admit the vast majority of applicants.
At each of the 10 graduate business schools with the highest acceptance rates in fall 2017, more than 80 percent of full-time MBA applicants were accepted, according to statistics that 126 ranked programs submitted to U.S. News in an annual survey." …
So many schools have MBA programs that it’s hardly worth having unless it comes from a top 10 program. This is a club that only graduates from schools like Wharton, Harvard, UChicago etc. get invited into.
Not only are these programs not worth attending full time, these programs are also not very marketable for a good MBA type job. With the tremendous student debt, one would be worse off, especially, if one does not have a job lined up after the MBA.
@CU123: I disagree with your assertion that only MBA degrees from Top 10 MBA schools are worthwhile. Just check out the placement statistics for the University of Washington’s MBA program for an example of a non-Top 10 MBA program with outstanding placement numbers.
Other non-Top 10 MBA programs with strong placement include Michigan, Duke, NYU, Virginia, Cornell, Texas, Emory, UNC, WashUStL & CMU. There are many others as well.
@CU123 Where are you coming up with this stuff? If you look at job postings, nowhere will you see “MBA from top ranked school required.” Who comes up with these rankings anyway? A masters degree is accredited exactly the same regardless of school, and speaking from experience, employers know that already.
@coolguy I don’t think you’ll ever get this because you live in the world of the “normal” like I do. Two of my friends (one being my college roommate) went to Wharton for their MBAs, both characterized it as becoming part of a club (with a $250K membership fee). They both retired in there early 40s with enough beans in the bank to no longer worry about collecting them. This is not the world of the normal. I also have an MBA, but mine is not from Wharton or any top MBA school, it is only slightly above worthless. I do fine (I am now a full pay university parent) but certainly not retiring anytime soon.
I could be mistaken, but aren’t Duke and UMich tied at #10. No intent to be picky, but a relative of mine is applying right now and we just discussed (argued mainly :)) the MBA rankings this past weekend.
@sushiritto: Yes, Michigan & Duke are tied at #10 in the 2019 US News MBA rankings. However, in the very recent past, neither was among the top 10. And Dartmouth Tuck was among the top 10 but currently is not.
M-7 MBA programs are: Harvard, Stanford, Penn-Wharton, Chicago-Booth, Northwestern-Kellogg, MIT-Sloan & Columbia. I note the M-7 because typically those who argue that only the most elite MBA programs are worthwhile focus on this group, and not on a “top 10”.
My point is that post #1 in this thread is a bit misleading.
As an aside, the top 5 cities for new jobs was just released this morning : Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC & Seattle ( I cannot recall the fifth city as I heard the news story in passing). Seattle’s vibrant economy has dramatically impacted the University of Washington’s Foster MBA (currently US News #21) program’s placement statistics.
If you track the M-7 over the many years, generally, the M-7 comprise of the same schools, but in many years a different order from 1 to 7. For example, I recall NWU was number 1 in a past year or Chicago or Stanford another year.
I still believe if you graduate from a top 20 to 30 MBA program, the job placement is high and it is not a waste of time and money to get the MBA. However, the highest paying firms, i.e., investment banking, generally target the M-7 and probably the next 8 to 10.
Back in my day, “elite” employers of MBAs would recruit from among the top 15-16 MBA programs for line jobs, and locally/ regionally for back-office jobs. For the line jobs the emphasis was on the higher-ranked 7 or so, but great applicants from the others in that pool could get in.
Outside of the recruited schools, one could always ship them a resume and sometimes people got in that way. But iot was a lot less common.
Graduates of other MBA programs had a mostly regional market and had a far lower pay horizon.
A number of those people eventually did get into the high-flying companies though, by being stars at their companies and managing to get noticed while working on deals with the high-fliers, eg. Those people would never have gotten in straight out of MBA though.
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