<p>D is planning to do EECS (Computer Engineering). She thinks MBA may be on the card directly after or after a 2-3 stint on a job. We are a full paying parent that means paying around $52K. Doing a MBA directly after college might mean we have to go on paying for another 2 years.
What is the best option for all of us involved? If she wants to go directly after college, is it right to start thinking about it now? What are the steps involved other than GMAT.
Is any particular extra curricular activities or internship is helpful?</p>
<p>You might want to go to the websites of some business schools and take a peek at their applications. They should show you what criteria, recommendations, etc that they are requiring.</p>
<p>top MBA programs do NOT want to take students who don’t have a few years of work experience under their belt. Your D’s top priority is to get a good job after college, and get a very good mentor and executive level champion who will write wonderful rec letters for her. That’s what I did for a few of my former subordinates when they were applying to the likes of Wharton and HBS.</p>
<p>If she is lucky, she can get her company sponsor her for MBA. that’s how I got my MBA: full time salary, including bonus, paid while I was working half time and getting the degree and time off needed for the degree. However, these days, many companies don’t want to do that anymore, and, they usually do that for top rated employees in their mid career point, not new employees with only 2-3 years with them. </p>
<p>(exception: in the high power wall street banking field, top employees with only 3-4 years with the companies get this treatment, but then again, the stakes are much higher, and the expense of the MBA sponsorship was proportionately lower for them in relation to the salary/bonus they are paying already so they seem to do it for young employees. This is what I recommend for my S1 with a clear Wall Street ambition. He is also a college freshman. I think my old company altogether spent about $350K- $400K for my degree, including salary, tuition, traveling & living expenses, etc)</p>
<p>Way too early.</p>
<p>Given the current trend for students to get MBAs only AFTER working for several years following college graduation, this is the one type of graduate school that you do not need to think about early on.</p>
<p>In fact, when the time comes, the choice may depend on which MBA programs one’s employer is willing to subsidize, on specialties within the MBA program, or on the geographic location in which one wants to work after getting the MBA – none of which can be predicted during the first year of college.</p>
<p>My daughter is a junior in college who knows that she will eventually want an MBA, but thinking about where to get it is far from the top of her agenda right now. The more important things are her current schoolwork, seeking a relevant internship for this summer, and investigating possible jobs for after graduation.</p>
<p><a href=“exception:%20in%20the%20high%20power%20wall%20street%20banking%20field,%20top%20employees%20with%20only%203-4%20years%20with%20the%20companies%20get%20this%20treatment,%20but%20then%20again,%20the%20stakes%20are%20much%20higher,%20and%20the%20expense%20of%20the%20MBA%20sponsorship%20was%20proportionately%20lower%20for%20them%20in%20relation%20to%20the%20salary/bonus%20they%20are%20paying%20already%20so%20they%20seem%20to%20do%20it%20for%20young%20employees.%20This%20is%20what%20I%20recommend%20for%20my%20S1%20with%20a%20clear%20Wall%20Street%20ambition.%20He%20is%20also%20a%20college%20freshman.%20I%20think%20my%20old%20company%20altogether%20spent%20about%20$350K-%20$400K%20for%20my%20degree,%20including%20salary,%20tuition,%20traveling%20&%20living%20expenses,%20etc”>quote</a>
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<p>There are also some top-ranked consulting firms that will subsidize MBAs for high-performing employees at a fairly early stage in their careers (notably, Deloitte). So high-powered students who want their MBAs paid for can choose between the 100-hour weeks of investment banking and the constant travel of consulting.</p>
<p>Way, way, way too early. Most top business schools don’t want anyone unless that person has a few years of work experience under his or her belt, anyway. You don’t just go from undergrad into MBA school. Get that out of your head, immediately. It’s just not done. </p>
<p>Anyway, I’m sure a young lady as talented as your daughter would be able to find employment at a company that will subsidize her MBA, either in an evening program (which is what I did) or in a day program.</p>
<p>Wharton has a submatriculation program in which you get an MBA and a bachelor’s in 5 years. This program is incredibly difficult to get into, so in effect, what most of these members are saying about having to work for 3-5 years is correct.</p>
<p>However, the added value of an MBA over an undergraduate business school is dropping - it’s only worth going back to school if you want to “redirect” your career. I would advise your daughter to try to go to Haas if she really wants to try business.</p>
<p>Also, while some firms do subsidize or pay for MBA education, they will make you sign a contract in which you are obligated to return to the firm after you get the MBA degree. This is not a wise move in most situations. The big advantages of getting an MBA are a) the professional network you establish and b) the chance to “redirect” your career. Both of these are taken away if you sign to go back</p>
<p>I don’t believe MBA is worth only to redirect career, meaning changing the industry (if the above poster means “redirecting career” as in “moving into the business side of the same industry”, then s/he is correct. If you want to finish your career as an engineer, the value of MBA is negligible. </p>
<p>I am in high tech. Engineers rule, and many engineers move up in the management chain. However, if smart engineers also get a good MBA degree along the way, they are on an excellent path to blossom into the management/senior level executive path in the high tech industry. Undergrad technical degree combined with a high powder MBA is an elite course for senior executive career path in the high tech industry. Or, the candidate can go and join the VC firm or a consulting firm: dealing with the same industry as a subject matter/industry expert but with added business insight. This is very good.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, company sponsored MBA does not mean that the employee will be an indentured slave to that company. Often, they require X years of staying with the company after the program is over, and if not, they require the employee pay back all/part of the expense. In my case, there was no such stipulation, and I left the company within a year. In some cases, I have seen the company who wanted to recruit the candidate with that kind of obligation giving sign up bonuses that were meant to cover the pay back to the former employers who paid for the MBA education. </p>
<p>For the OP’s daughter, I cannot recommend strongly enough that she first launch her career in the tech field for a few years. Both to get into the top MBA program, and also to get the maximum bang for the bucks for the MBA. Employers really value engineers with real life work experience that is further fortified with business insight through MBA degree. If she get an MBA right after a undergraduate degree, she loses firepower both of her undergraduate tech degree (because she did not validate her education with real work experience) AND the MBA degree (since that business education has no real industry context to make it applicable). </p>
<p>If I were to hire a business manager in my high tech industry and see two resumes: one with only a tech degree with a few years of work experience and the other with MBA immediately following a tech under grad degree with no real work experience, I would go for the former since the latter is neither here nor there.</p>
<p>Oh, dear; it’s much too late if she’s already in college to look into MBA programs! You should have started her junior year in high school at the latest, so that she could have some years of running her own small company under her belt first. Honestly, most MBA-worthy kids start in middle school. She’ll be competing against others who made their first million by the time they were 15 or sold their first company before their senior year of high school!</p>
<p>She might be able to get her MBA online if you work really hard from now until she graduates from college, but it won’t be easy playing catch-up now.</p>
<p>Has she started prepping for the GMAT yet? If not, better get cracking!</p>
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<p>No, not necessarily. I had my MBA studies paid for with absolutely no obligation to remain at the company I worked for (other than to finish out the quarter, of course … since I fronted the money for each quarter and then got reimbursed by the company once the quarter was over). Some other competitors reimbursed 100% for an A but less for a B, etc. Policies are SO very different; you can’t say that there is just one way for companies to pay for MBA degrees.</p>
<p>It is kind of early, but many schools like Harvard has direct admission…i.e. you apply before you graduate (when you are Junior). However, Harvard requires that you have to work for 2 years after BS.</p>
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<p>Seniors can apply and are not required to have work experience. </p>
<p>My wife enrolled in a top MBA program directly from undergrad.</p>
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<p>[College</a> Students - MBA - Harvard Business School](<a href=“http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/collegestudents.html]College”>2+2 Program - MBA - Harvard Business School)</p>
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[Who</a> Are We Looking For? - MBA - Harvard Business School](<a href=“http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/]Who”>Admissions - MBA - Harvard Business School)</p>
<p>The most important thing you can do as a freshman is to secure summer internships. It may also be helpful to get a job with a faculty member - it’s a good way to make connections and get recommendations. She should go to the career office and find out what sort of opportunities freshmen typically get. But it’s way too early to be worrying about business school.</p>
<p>YES . . . IT’S LATER THAN Y0U THINK . . . after all, there’s so much competition these days given the size of her cohort that getting a heads up NOW for things that will start occurring 4 years from now is a bit late; here’s a general list for you to work on for your child for the next 20 years, just in case she doesnt develop a similar obsessive reliance upon preparing for future success:</p>
<p>Year 1 - research the most common ECs among Wharton MBA matriculants and have daughter join those clubs . . NOW . . .before they fill up </p>
<p>Year 2 - analyze success rate of acceptance into HBS of private coaches and conduct interviews with the “best of the best” consultants </p>
<p>Year 3 - take initial practice GMATs under a false name just in case score choice is revoked for GMAT; begin researching bridal planning services</p>
<p>Year 4 - ensure that earnings at 5 year, 10 year and 20 year intervals from alums is a core part of MBA research </p>
<p>Years 5 - 10 - develop a “forward biased” econometric model charting likely spousal earning power; optimize dating services to achieve those results, and only date people who fit that profile; begin researching Manhattan private kindergartens that are most successful at Ivy matriculation</p>
<p>Years 11 -15 - get married; prospectively investigate IVF procedures in case usual coital practices prove useless; start initial 55 and older retirement community research (only 25-30 years off!!!) </p>
<p>Years 16 - 20 - determine optimal post-vitality career path, optimizing charitable giving to ensure maximal length of post-mortem Wikipedia biography entry</p>
<p>Seriously, here are two suggestions:</p>
<p>1) It may be best to encourage daughter to find ECs that she “likes” or “enjoys doing with friends”; these kinds of activities have no specific forward positive graduation matriculation bias but may yield results known as “happiness” or “fulfillment”
2) Now that she’s in college . . . you are pretty much done fashioning her life. If she asks for help, offer some advice . . . but the best thing you can do for her now is to help her figure out how to run her own life without your “child coaching.”</p>
<p>That said, I anticipate that withdrawal from intensive college searching activities can be difficult, so maybe we need a 12 step for CC?</p>
<p>Kei</p>
<p>It is too early, and I am also a proponent of letting them enter the real world, and like pizzagirl did, go through corporate opportunities. I know for a fact the Lockheed pays 100% for a Masters including books, as long as you have a B gpa. For an EE Lockheed would definetely be a dream corp.</p>
<p>I got my Masters many yrs later and I am glad I did. Master classes are not like undergrad, they are practical in purpose, where you spend more time discussing the real life implications of JIT within your organization, or how the 7 causes to release a union worker affects how the HR dept operates. </p>
<p>Your child is fortunate to have you pay for their education, but at a certain time, your responsibility ends, and they need to take over.</p>
<p>We have said to ours if you want your Masters than you will do the joint 5 yr program at the university you are currently at, it is their option, otherwise they are on their own. A Masters is not on par as law or med, parents know full well that there will be follow on education. Engineering with an MBA really is not going to help them straight out of college. The kid who entered 2 yrs earlier and got the MBA going to night classes will be at a higher position than someone who went straight to an MBA because they came in on the ground floor as an EE and the company has been able to groom them into the management position with background experience from an operational standpoint within the organization. Your child will not have that experience, thus, will need to take a lower step to get that experience. In essence, 3 yrs later, both have an MBA, yet one has work experience, and the other has only book experience, which one would you choose? Don’t jump to the leap that you can only go to 3rd tier universities for a Masters at night, my cousin got hers at Georgetown at night.</p>
<p>Too early. Ditto, getting a year or two under the belt in the workforce. Ditto, many companies will pay some or all of the costs for an employee to work on an MBA if it is beneficial to their advancement. Ditto, most MBA programs prefer students that are or have been in the workforce.</p>
<p>One other thing about getting a year or two’s experience under her belt (something I support) is that she may not know until she gets out into the working world what kind of graduate degree will best suit the needs of the career she wants to pursue. She may develop totally new interests in college for one thing, and no longer want the MBA, or she may get a job after college and discover that the MBA is not the most beneficial way to go. Best to get some experience and have a little breathing room so that when she gets ready to drop the cash on a post-grad program, she knows she’s getting the most bang for her buck.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for responses. It is not that I’m trying to handhold D through college. I never did that during HS too but I really believe in analyzing data and planning for the future. She likes to plan too and ask for inputs on her plans. </p>
<p>Recently she sent me some information regarding a double major in finance or at least a minor along with her major in Computer Engineering.</p>
<p>I was more inclined to MBA after BS than double major or major/minor as that might be unnecessary stressful, hence I thought of posting this thread.</p>
<p>So if MBA is not right just after BS, will a double major/minor in finance help or hinder her success in securing good jobs?</p>
<p>She seems to have already started a paid fall semester research internship at one of the lab at her college. She might be able to extend that into the spring semester. She has not made up her mind for the summer yet.</p>
<p>I know people who have gone both routes at MIT – double majors in a technical field and management, and single majors in a technical field who worked for a few years and are now going back to Sloan or HBS for MBAs. My subjective feeling is that the latter group has been more successful, but my numbers are fairly small.</p>
<p>You might want to check out the [graduating</a> student surveys](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation.html]graduating”>http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation.html) for the past few years to see where students have ended up. This data set doesn’t identify double majors, but it is useful nonetheless.</p>
<p>Only you know if she can handle that pressure to double major. I have a double undergrad and grad, but the difference was they are in the same cores. MBA and HR, is not like and MBA and IT, since they do not share many pre reqs. I would think that is true for finance and engineering. Our DS is double majoring, Govt and Politics and Military History (he is full ride AFROTC so it is tied to his future job), but both of those have the same core courses, thus, he only has to take extra courses for the 2nd major, which some also can be used as electives in his first major. Either way he carries 20 + credits a semester and since he is a “scholars” student he is required to also do internships, that take up time since he must commute to Capital Hill.</p>
<p>You need to look at the course curriculum and decide if it is doable.</p>
<p>I would think a minor in finance with a major in computer engineering would be fine, unless her goal is to go into finance, than not so much. What is her goal for her career? Even with an MIT degree, high end companies that would hire her will still bring her in at entry level, unless she parlays that internship for the next 4 yrs. She is not going to enter mid management for the big boy companies like Lockheed. They look for a lot more than just the diploma, most of that comes from internally within the company. She will move up the ladder faster with that MIT degree, but the degree will only take you so far, her interpersonal skills will be the force behind the promotions.</p>
<p>If she is interested in an “earlier” b school matriculation (most top schools have an average of 4-5 years work experience) – as a female, I was certainly interested in doing it a bit earlier since I think my priorities may have shifted by the time I’m 27, 28, 29. and I certainly want to be out of b-school by the time I’m 30) – many top programs have earlier acceptance dates and are pushing for a younger cohort, primarily to improve their female:male ratio. The ones that pop to mind are the HBS 2+2 program (work for two years out of undergrad, then guaranteed acceptance to HBS), Yale Silver Scholars (directly from undergrad), URochester Simon Early Leader Program, etc. If that’s something that’s on the radar, as a freshman she doesn’t need to be doing anything specifically, but she could be looking around for a program she likes.</p>