<p>After reading a couple posts, I came to find that it seems that econ majors have an edge in getting into a top MBA program compared to business majors (Finance, Accounting). Why is that?</p>
<p>Its not true.</p>
<p>jesus christ.</p>
<p>the only reason econ majors are more represented at top schools is that more of the well recruited schools only have econ programs, and many crappy schools have business programs.</p>
<p>but if you look at the top 10 or so USNews buisness schools they'll be able to get you into top MBA programs.</p>
<p>MBA programs all depend on the kind of work experience you get. As long as your program is well recruited, in whatever major, your shot at buisiness school should be fine. MBA programs care mainly about WORK EXPERIENCE. BEING ABLE TO GET A GOOD JOB AFTER COLLEGE IS MORE IMPORTANT. Case in point, I go to a school which has a USNews top 10 business school. We also have an economics program in our school of liberal arts. In terms of career prospects, the business school utterly dwarfs the economics program. </p>
<p>In some of the higher ranked business schools the difference in opportunities may be more level, I could definitely see this happening at a school like NYU but still, I'd give Stern.</p>
<p>Now if someone is faced of the choice between an economics program at a top school (Any Ivy, UChicago, etc) versus something like a business major at Arizona State, they should go to the economics program at the top school. </p>
<p>Do you see my point? Before evaluating what you should be studying the most important thing will be where you can get the best job. What's the point of studying something with the hopes of graduating to go onto a business career if you can't get a job afterwards?</p>
<p>because business schools want a diverse student body.</p>
<p>liberal arts and engineers are more welcomed than business majors.</p>
<p>Also, business major seems to score really low in GMAT (probably due to the reason business major are taught how to "do", and economics majors are taught how to "think"), therefore their chaces are lower.</p>
<p>This reasoning could also apply to Law school (another type of professiona school). Pre-law major is probably one of the worst major for law school because law school don't really care about your knowledge of law (since you're going to learn what you learn in pre-law + much more in the law school), law school want intellegent people who are also critical and analytical thinkers.</p>
<p>man abcboy70, most of your post was bull.</p>
<p>pre-law is a bad major because it's really vague and isn't actually a real subject, it's literally a stepping stone for law school. undergraduate business majors are different, in some cases they can allow you to bypass going for an MBA all together. Also typically pre-law is a major at bad schools where you'll have bad students who simply wont get into a top law school. This isn't the case with business programs, some, especially the USNews top 10 are quite strong and recruit into careers that are well represented at the MBA level.</p>
<p>as for business students being inferior? try telling that to the kids at Wharton, Ross, Haas, etc. They're great intellectually.</p>
<p>Doing well on the GMAT depends much more on your individual ability to take standardized tests. Your major isn't going to help all that much.</p>
<p>if you've got good interesting work experience you'll have a good shot at a top MBA program. That's where the diversity comes from, not the major you did. Why don't you understand that? Typically majoring in history, or any liberal art for that matter will put you in the unemployment line. This is different at top schools, especially ivies where you have consulting and banking firms recruiting everyone. In this case it's not a matter of your major but your school which is getting you that job, and the MBA program is looking at the job you took as the biggest factor in admission.</p>
<p>thank you, come again.</p>
<p>lol, why get insecure all of a sudden? my post aren't bull, and all of them are facts.</p>
<p>business school do want diversity (and do mean in terms of major), that is what all the schools say exactly and i don't think there's any dispute on that. Engineers and liberal arts majors all have an advantage because there's always considerable less people from these disciplines applying to the MBA in contrast to a business major (who can usually only pursuit professional degrees such as the MBA).</p>
<p>Business majors do have one of the lowest scores in GMAT and the only reason to explain it is because business is a pratical degree that trains and give you skills to be employed immediately after graduation, but not necessarily intellectual knowledge a traditional math or english type of degrees that gives you.</p>
<p>Why do biz undergrads want to take MBA? WHat more do you get by taking MBA other than salary increase?</p>
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Business majors do have one of the lowest scores in GMAT and the only reason to explain it is because business is a pratical degree that trains and give you skills to be employed immediately after graduation, but not necessarily intellectual knowledge a traditional math or english type of degrees that gives you.
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<p>Or maybe, business is offered at a lot of low ranked programs with dumb people who will score badly.</p>
<p>and all of your posts are bull, you look at the data but you look at it from a one sided perspective. Engineers, I'll grant that they get in due to diversity since they come from careers in a technical field and are different. But most of those history majors and english majors are going to be coming from the same careers as business majors and that's what is getting them the job, not their major for the most part.</p>
<p>Normally what would a history major allow you to do? especially if you majored in it at some medicore school. You'd probably be a history teacher. Does that allow you to get an MBA? No -- maybe if you're lucky you can (I believe there was a teacher who made it into Harvard's '06 class). </p>
<p>Those jobs that the history majors and english majors are getting are ones that depend alllllll on the school they're going to and not their major.</p>
<p>And that's why when it comes to recruiting the kids at Wharton are going to have the edge from the Harvard liberal arts kids because they will actually know things that matter.</p>
<p>Anyway, you can argue the merits of majoring in something intellectual and thought provoking but at the end of the day i'm always going to take the better paycheck over some academia bs.</p>
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Why do biz undergrads want to take MBA? WHat more do you get by taking MBA other than salary increase?
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<p>Salary increase and career switch would be the two big ones.</p>
<p>your one crazy dude, dcfca.</p>
<p>firstofall, business majors aren't the only major that is offered at "crappy schools".</p>
<p>if there's one major that is offered in every school, it would be economics (and all of the liberal arts and engineering).</p>
<p>and do not look down people in lower-ranked school in general, that only show you're an igorant SOB.</p>
<p>ooo wow, calling me an SOB, that's a great way to prove your point there.</p>
<p>At crappy schools you're going to have more kids majoring in business because it's more clear cut in terms of career prospects compared to majoring in english or history. Do you think someone's going to go to a school like the University of Houston and say "Ooo let me major in history and then i will embark on this career in buisness and take the GMATs!" No. It doesn't happen. The english, history, and other liberal arts majors who are taking the GMAT will most likely be the kinds of people coming from those ivies so they're going to artificially inflate the scores. The kids from University of Houston type schools who will be taking the GMAT will be those business kids looking to make a career change and probably aren't that great at standardized tests who will deflate the business major average GMAT score (sure, there will be a minority of people who are at the school for personal reasons or financial reasons that are brilliant, but these will be a biiig minority -- especially in cases where there are stronger business programs surrounding you geographically)</p>
<p>i dont understand this, i get a warning about a possible ban from the site for telling a kid to look up winter weather facts himself with google, but this crap goes and nothing happens. </p>
<p>I would have to disagree with you on those last few sentences. Local socal collges IE long beach, fullerton and sdsu are considered bottom barrel compared to other publics, and brilliant people are hardly a minority.</p>
<p>Econ versus Finance (accounting, whatever). The bottom line is most Finance majors don't need grad school as the majority work in the financial services sector. They're given adequate knowledge of accts rec. and accts payable...straight line methods..all that garbage. Whereas Econ majors learn about finance from a macro perspective and grad school is almost a necessity to their cause in order to learn the theory on a micro scale. Or case in point, Goldman hires a brilliant poeple person to their global client, only he lacks a few basic neccessites and dont think that "art" degree will look good when they have to post his stats on the management site someday, so essentially they send him back to grad school, to get his MBA from Harvard. Hopefully this makes sense, i've had one too many drinks tonight, go SDSU...haha.</p>
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I would have to disagree with you on those last few sentences. Local socal collges IE long beach, fullerton and sdsu are considered bottom barrel compared to other publics, and brilliant people are hardly a minority.
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<p>I never even touched california -- california is a weird state with a weird educational system. But generally the people who go to low ranked schools (lets say sub USNews 55) aren't great students, it's reflected in their admissions requirement -- for instance I think UH has an open admissions policy and you notice it in the SAT score and type of job opportunities/grad schools the kids go onto. </p>
<p>I'd say typically the brilliant kids who go to those schools are kids who are going because it's not their choice. I know plenty of people who were confined to Houston because their parents did not want them to leave home, so their next choice was Rice University which only excepted a few of them. The rest were stuck with the other local universities which aren't exactly great. Some other friends of mine simply couldn't afford to go off to one of the better schools for 4 years so they spent 2 years at UH before applying to transfer to somewhere like UT.</p>
<p>Top business schools have about a third of their incoming class from investment banking and consulting (in particular) since many of them are encouraged to go back to business schools. Aside from that, any college major will do since diversity is embraced at top programs. </p>
<p>As for top schools whether you should do business or econ, I would say a top econ program at an elite school would be better than a mid tier business program. What is is important is to do well in rigorous classes since in top econ classes if you receive top grades it shows that you have the analytical and quant skills to succeed in your first year courses in a top mba program.</p>
<p>If you don't go to a top school or have a softer major (business schools love engineers since their analytical skills are very transferable) then a high GMAT score is a must.</p>
<p>After that, solid recommendations, superb essays, strong career progression where achievement and leadership skills can be displayed and acing an admissions interview is key. Top MBA programs get far too many applicants with 700+ GMAT, high GPA from top schools that its the interview, essays, and recommendations that set students apart. Not coming from a top school isn't going to prevent you from a program but it puts more pressure on all other aspects of your application to make it past their "first rounds" of screening.</p>
<p>"I would have to disagree with you on those last few sentences. Local socal collges IE long beach, fullerton and sdsu are considered bottom barrel compared to other publics, and brilliant people are hardly a minority."</p>
<p>This is very subjective because we all measure and evaluate intelligence differently. However, I believe he made his comment in reference to top public schools (Berkeley, Mich, UVA) vs. (SDSU, Long Beach, Fullerton) that if a rigorous standard was established, the amount of "brilliant" students per capita is significantly higher at the top schools.</p>
<p>Who are you to judge brilliance? </p>
<p>Grades and brilliance serve no correlations-- to me-- it shows one person was interested in boring work (to satisfy their need to fulfill their self-evaluation - Grades), whereas, the other only studied thoroughly what he/she was passionate in (and in turn retained more of that information). As you know i'm a student at San Diego State and I always resented the school regiment. I believe that creativity and learning are loss in strict regiments such as memorization. We only retain on average 12 percent of the information given to us. While you were pointlessly memorizing animal names and characteristics that you've now mostly forgotten, I was reading material by Peter Lynch. Lynch also proves the pointlessness of most theory one learns in Business schools.</p>
<p>Basic things such as -</p>
<p>CAPM (capital assett pricing models), creating basic Financial Leverage Models, Adding, Dividing, Multiplying are all very important.</p>
<p>Obviously reading comprehension is something you lacking since you failed to read what I had stated. Let me refresh your memory:</p>
<p>"This is very subjective because we all measure and evaluate intelligence differently."</p>
<p>What makes you think that every student at a superior school than yours lacks complete creativity and isn't passionate about what they are learning? Do you automatically assume that you are the ONLY one with those attributes? The point of finance related firms to use grades is merely a screening agent since many firms believe that top grades at top schools show that you have "ability". Most skills are taught in house, all they are looking for is smart ambitious person, essentially an overachiever and those are found easily at top schools. </p>
<p>Do you want an award for reading Peter Lynch? It is common knowledge that most people forgot a majority of what they learn in terms of the details. You didn't need to read a whole book to tell you that. Grades serve as a measure of ability, if you received top grades in lets say an econometrics class, most firms will deduce that you are comfortable with quantitative skills. Does it mean you will succeed? Maybe....that depends on many other factors but at least the firm can assume that you should be able to handle basic math skills.</p>
<p>NextMikeSays,</p>
<p>You hit it right on the nose. Even though the correlation between grades and perceived success in most situations is low (we're talking R coefficients of less than .5, here...), grades are one of a very few indicators we have. Since we can only go with very WEAK measures, we go with them anyway, since no better ones exist.</p>
<p>A person with better grades is statistically more likely than one with dismal grades to succeed. This is not because the person with better grades is ipso facto more intelligent, but it reflects a certain amount of ambition and willingness to take responsibility.</p>
<p>Intelligence and brilliance are two different beasts. You stated more "brilliant" students per capita. If someone is truly brilliant why would they waste their time studying and memorizing the names of different groups of organisms, if they know this is a subject matter that they never intend on using/or being applicable to their life. I think their is a vast difference between brilliant and purely intelligent people. We will only meet a select handful of truly brilliant people in our lifetime. Do you even know who Peter Lynch is? His book has nothing to do with memory retainment, you really should read One Up On Wall Street it might change your perspective a bit, same with Monkey Business another one I recommend. But if you truly want to understand a brilliant mind, Newton's Gravity of Genius or any book that talks about the philosophy of Einstein. Yes, I want an award. I know you enjoy being rewarded for everything you do, so i'll give you a pat on the back for your assessment of my comprehension skills. This next comment I admit is rather harsh and should not be taken as criticism but moreso advice. Step out of your helpless vault.com-high school-trying to figure out "how to get ahead" ******** and go try networking...then come talk to me.</p>
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If someone is truly brilliant why would they waste their time studying and memorizing the names of different groups of organisms, if they know this is a subject matter that they never intend on using/or being applicable to their life.
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<p>Because we all have to do things we don't want to do. Besides, it trains memorization skills, which are important.</p>
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But if you truly want to understand a brilliant mind, Newton's Gravity of Genius or any book that talks about the philosophy of Einstein.
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<p>This seems like a bit of a red herring to me...</p>
<p>Thanks for the input UCLAri, but I was trying to carry on conversation with Nextmikesays, who I presume is on the east coast. I get annoyed when people take paragraphs apart, sentence by sentence, I suppose you've done that a few times in your 5,725 post tenure. Red Herring, possibly? It was more of a recommendation. I might be a suffering from this - the fact that people are usually more convinced by reasons they discoverd by themselves than by those found by others, so after this post i'm done. Goodbye.</p>