How marketable is an NYU-Stern MBA?

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

<p>Hey guys,</p>

<p>In the interests of going from a theoretical discussion (that 4th-best school thread) to a practical one (i've been admitted to Stern), I'm trying to apply some healthy skepticism and get some informed opinions.</p>

<p>Here's what I know, Statistically:</p>

<p>check</a> out the spreadsheet i just made.</p>

<ul>
<li>The 13.6% admit rate for the class of 2010 is the 3rd-lowest of all business schools behind Harvard and Stanford, just edging Haas. Wharton is 9th at 16.2%.</li>
<li>The 37% who go into I-Banking suggests that anybody at Stern who really wants an M&A or Capital Markets job at an i-bank can get one. Goldman, Citi, JP Morgan, BofA, Morgan Stanley, etc are very big customers.</li>
<li>The 54% of Sternies who end up in Finance is tops among all leading business schools</li>
<li>There is essentially no significant technology, real estate, or entrepreneurship presence at Stern by comparison to peer schools.</li>
</ul>

<p>Here's what I know, Anecdotally:</p>

<ul>
<li>The top 8 business schools are generally considered to be H, S, W, Columbia, Chicago, Kellogg, Sloan, and Tuck, in some order. Stern is not usually mentioned among that group.</li>
<li>As a result of the economic downturn, many top employers are reducing the number of recruits from MBA programs and the number of MBA programs they recruit from. Stern can't avoid the former, but is more likely to survive the latter - in a downselecting of the list, places like Dartmouth will go before Stern.</li>
<li>As an indirect consequence of my (NYC-based) job, I've been going over a lot of resumes of people coming from wall street, business development, corp finance, and hedge funds the last few months, and I've seen a trend of Stern MBAs almost as often as Wharton MBAs.</li>
<li>There's no appreciable difference in the quality of the employers within BB/MM financial firms who recruit at Stern vs those recruiting at other top places. Plenty of people land at Goldman, Lazard, top PE/hedge funds like DE Shaw, etc.</li>
<li>Nourriel Roubini has gotten a lot of publicity lately for his call on the economic downturn. He kinda stinks as an instructor though, having sat in on his class.</li>
<li>A lot of students I met at admit weekend, and others I met during my interview or my visits to the school, turned down Columbia, Wharton and/or Kellogg to attend Stern. Biased sample of course but there was by no means a landslide.</li>
</ul>

<p>So I guess the question is, what am I missing? What are the drawbacks? Where can Stern be considered much weaker than the traditional top 7 or 8? Is it research? Long-term salary ROI? Intellectual caliber of students? Someone explain this to me.</p>

2

<p>You have nearly 3000 posts on this forum and you can’t really answer these questions yourself? I find that hard to believe.</p>

<p>Over the long-term, no matter which top b-school you have attended, your ROI will be similar because after a few years where you end up is a result of your ability rather than where you came from.</p>

<p>As for “marketability”, this is extremely individual based.</p>

3

<p>Well, sakky, prestige, wildflower et al just got done talking about the marketability of Yale, Haas, etc over on the 4th-best-school thread. At least, I hope they’re done :slight_smile: I figured I’d borrow that terminology.</p>

<p>That spreadsheet I put together should be food for thought - I gathered the class profile and employment report info and put it together in one place for 12 top b-schools. At the very least, there should be things in there that surprise people.</p>

<p>posts on a message board is by no means an indicator of expertise. And I may be capable of making my own decisions, but I find the opinions of others here interesting and helpful. the questions i ask are very subjective (unless you ask a Stern admissions officer). But the quandary of “why exactly is Stern not considered to be in the list of top schools” is a question with, I presume, some sort of answer.</p>

4

<p>

I wasn’t trying to be condescending by any means. It’s just that many times I have read your posts and found them to be quite informative myself. In that sense, you’re the one giving me advice so I was curious as to why you’d be asking about NYU Stern.</p>

<p>Take that as a compliment.</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>Well it’s good that some of them took my advice. I was blasted on this board for stating that I would attend NYU over Kellogg if I was interested in Ibanking. Later, I was blasted for saying that Kellogg is the #4 school. Objectivity is not looked upon favorably here.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Huh? Your own spreadsheet shows the drawbacks, if you just compare where NYU grads go compared to HSW grads (who have the most access to the top jobs)</p>

<p>NYU is the only school on that spreadsheet with 4 red cells (5 if you count entreprenuers). Three of those areas (4 if you count entreprenuers) are areas that at least 2 of the 3 HSW are green or semi-green in (VC/PE, Mgt Consulting, Real Estate, Investment Mgt).</p>

<p>VC/PE
14% HSW vs 3% NYU</p>

<p>Management Consulting
22.9% HSW vs 14% NYU</p>

<p>Entrepreneurs
5.2% HSW vs ? NYU</p>

<p>Real Estate
3.1% HSW vs 2% NYU</p>

<p>Investment Mgt
9% HSW vs 4% NYU</p>

<p>Also worth noting,</p>

<p>Technology
6.7% HSW vs 3% NYU</p>

<p>The best area for NYU is Ibanking. However, that happens to be an area where 2 out of 3 HWS cells are red or semi-red.</p>

<p>Investment Banking<br>
13.9% HSW vs 37% NYU</p>

<p>Also would think that NYU would be even less desireable now than in past years given everything that has gone on with the investment banks in the past year.</p>

6

<p>well, it’s funny. I heard from two friends of mine at Wharton that a strange thing happened with recruiting this year - the assumption in the fall was that banking would be terrible, so everyone basically went for consulting jobs. The result was, the competition for consulting jobs/internships was tremendous, and many people ended up without a single offer, whereas those who stuck it out for banking often had multiple offers and found the process much easier.</p>

<p>Perhaps a happy medium hasn’t been found yet, but the investment banking industry isn’t going away and still recruits plenty of people. Just fewer than, say, in 2004.</p>

<p>As for the substance of your analysis, OK, I grant that HSW folks have better access to VC/PE, and we all knew that. The real question is, what is the pecking order? Surely many more NYU people would go into buyouts if they had that option open to them, but most don’t have the previous transactional experience to realistically pursue that. </p>

<p>Consulting is a different matter. At admit weekend there were a large group of people who gravitated towards consulting-oriented events or tables or people, but browsing the list of students attending the admit weekend (about 240 out of an admitted class of ~600), I see the following people coming IN from well-known consulting firms:</p>

<p>


McKinsey & Co     - 0
Boston Consulting Group - 0
Bain & Co       - 0
Monitor         - 0
Mercer (any)        - 0
Booz Allen Hamilton - 5
Deloitte Consulting - 7
Mars & Co       - 2
Huron Consulting Group  - 2
NERA Economic Cons. - 2
Accenture       - 4

</p>

<p>What that tells me is that they basically don’t have anyone coming from top consulting firms (Booz and Deloitte excepted). That’s a bit of a knock on Stern, as those people are the most easily employable at top consulting firms. Perhaps that’s perception of quality, perhaps that’s a perception that they shouldn’t go to Stern unless they want to do banking. Perhaps if we looked at the top employers list (which I can’t find online, even for previous years), McKinsey, BCG and Bain would be prominent behind some of the top investment banks - not sure. But if not, then I’d be more concerned about the Consulting number representing lack of opportunity rather than lack of interest.</p>

7

<p>

most of the dialogue in this forum is between working professionals and high schoolers or college students dreaming about an MBA. There are relatively few people posting here who are making serious applications to top MBA programs.</p>

<p>Thanks for the compliment. Even the best posters here need advice of their own from time to time.</p>

8

<p><em>bump</em> hey, would Sakky / the<em>prestige / Wildflower / Vectorwega / Calicarter / Ivy</em>Grad / any other knowledgeable poster around here care to share their views on NYU-Stern?</p>

9

<p>Denzera,</p>

<p>First of all, congratulations. You made the cut in an incredibly competitive year, so kudos to you.</p>

<p>Are you waiting on other schools? Have you been accepted elsewhere? It wasn’t clear to me what your other options are. Also, it might be more helpful to know what your post-grad plans are. Definitely i-banking? More open? Not sure?</p>

<p>Knowing nothing else, NYU is a fine b-school, in particular if you want to go into finance and even more so if you intend to do so in New York (obviously).</p>

<p>Having said that, I wouldn’t go as far to say that you would be wise in choosing Stern over, say, Wharton or Columbia. Perhaps over Kellogg, particularly if finance is your goal.</p>

<p>It might be more helpful to list out your options (potential options) first – but even if you don’t have any other options, you are a smart enough fellow to know that NYU is a top b-school (perhaps not absolute top tier – but good enough nonetheless) and more importantly you are bright enough to break into the industry.</p>

<p>p.s. the Ivy_Grad handle has officially been retired (in case that wasn’t clear to peeps)</p>

10

<p>Denzera, </p>

<p>First of all: Congratulations!</p>

<p>My quick thoughts…</p>

<p>What’s your goal? (It’s bound to remain a theoretical discussion unless we can ground it on something…)</p>

<p>NYU is a very solid university, and so is Stern in terms of b-schools. If you want to go into i-banking, I wouldn’t think twice about it. (Probably the same for PE and i-management, provided you don’t mind doing i-banking first and then moving on to PE or a HF). If your goal is VC, however, I would think twice before jumping in (potentially the same for MckBainBCG). As far as entrepreneurship, well, as you surely know you won’t even need an MBA for that…</p>

<p>I think Stern is such a solid b-school that unless you read b-school rankings every year (few people who matter do…), the particular ranking any given year won’t matter much (unless NYU dropped significantly in the future). I view Stern in the tier that follows the trinity HSW, and I think of it, vaguely, as a solid top 10 MBA program. And even if it dropped significantly in the future, if you are staying in NY, you can’t go wrong with it…</p>

<p>And if you want work in finance, the ‘trinity’ is, imo, Wharton, Chicago, Stern… (not HWS)</p>

<p>Besides, Ivanka Trump’s last bf (current?) got his MBA from NYU… at least you’ll have one well connected alum! (until they break up…) :)</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>Columbia has to be included.</p>

12

<p>agreed.</p>

<p>If there HAS to be a finance “trinity”, it’d be Wharton / HBS / Columbia.</p>

<p>don’t discount HBS for finance – take a look at the top PE firms – they are virtually run by HBS grads.</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>Well, if you include Columbia you have to include MIT… and then it’s no longer a trinity…</p>

<p>But, sure.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>PE, including both early and late stage, is not “finance” per se. There is a very strong ‘management’ aspect in both LBOs and VC. By “finance” I am referring to more traditional finance jobs, eg i-banking, i-management.</p>

14

<p>The buyside is at the very top of the finance foodchain (PE / VC / Hedge Funds / LBOs) and the people in it are the best of the best.</p>

15

<p>Agreed. And if that’s one’s goal, the ‘trinity’ is the traditional one: hbs/stanford/wharton. (In that order)</p>

16

<p>No Haas ?</p>

17

<p>hey guys, thanks for the kind words. I was hoping for a more theoretical discussion because I went to some effort to put together some objective numbers in a nifty comparison for everyone, but i’m happy to make it more personal if people don’t find the spreadsheet worthy of comment.</p>

<p>My personal background is a bit of a dual experience in tech entrepreneurship and strategy consulting. I paid my way through a math degree at columbia by doing freelance IT consulting with self-generated clients. The short story is: I’m good at math and tech-y stuff, but I don’t love it. To continue in that after college would have typecast me as a techie, so I sought (and got) a business-consulting position at a boutique after graduation. Spent a year there, hated the industry, and quit because I thought I wanted to be in private equity. Took a certificate course giving me some modeling, financial law, and research experience, but found out that nobody breaks into high finance on the back of a no-name-no-brand certificate course. Meanwhile, Deloitte had head-hunted me into a position in their Strategy & Ops practice so I went back there in August 2007 and liked it a helluva lot better than my first firm. Had some great projects, some great managers, two of whom wrote me recs for b-school apps. In between and around the edges i’ve worked for a number of startups, in both consulting and business strategy roles, so I really do have expertise in both fields.</p>

<p>Anyway, what I want to DO is a bit more of an open question. I’ve long considered VC to be a fantastic industry and one which could meaningfully apply my skills as both a business-strategy and IT-strategy knowledge worker, as well as my desire to be on the investment side rather than the operational side. At the same time, buyouts interest me for completely different reasons - few things **** me off more than an inefficiently run large business, and the restructuring that LBO firms do, both financially and operationally, to me is fascinating.</p>

<p>The problem is that both of those fields seemingly require several years of M&A or Capital Markets experience at an i-bank to be actually qualified for the position. Through my industry awareness efforts I’ve seen a number of VC pre-MBA associate or analyst positions float through, all of which focus on people with a banking background rather than a consulting or tech operational background. This surprised me, since I’d long believed that the VC industry was more interested in operational or strategic expertise rather than transactional expertise. Not so, it seems. So in that sense, if I’m not going to Harvard or Stanford, the best path to my goals seems to run through an M&A Advisory role on Wall Street, post-MBA.</p>

<p>Tactically, my situation is that i’ve been admitted to Stern, waitlisted at Wharton, and have yet to hear from Kellogg. (Kellogg’s a funny situation - I submitted about 3 hours after the R2 deadline, which seems to have placed me in the R3 bin, despite being assured otherwise when I called the next morning). I’ve been calling in favors re: Wharton, and if admitted would obviously go, but in my mind the jury’s still out on whether I would attend Kellogg over Stern. I live in NYC now, but have been here 7 years and would be perfectly happy with a change of scenery to Chicago or Philly, so location isn’t the real concern, it’s career opportunity.</p>

<p>Hope that helps stoke the fires of conversation around here. All inputs welcome.</p>

18

<p>Having obtained an MBA from one of the eight schools you initially mentioned earlier this decade, congrats on NYU-Stern and you have done way more comparisons between the schools than I ever did for my apps. I think NYU-Stern has moved from a top 15 MBA school to a top 10 MBA school since I applied. I am a little surprised by the acceptance rate being lower at NYU than some of those other schools but maybe I’m just used to NYU being more of a traditional back-up school than it now is. It’s really surprising that Kellogg’s acceptance rate was so high last year. When I applied, I think it was just more than half that figure; however, maybe that bodes well for your probability of acceptance. </p>

<p>I think the measure that maybe separates the schools best is how many get the most sought after jobs (PE+IM) as you lay out on your spreadsheet.</p>

<p>On that basis, it comes out to something that I would view as more traditional relative rank:</p>

<ol>
<li>Stanford (31%)</li>
<li>Harvard (29%)</li>
<li>Columbia (17.6%)</li>
<li>UChicago (16.2%)</li>
<li>Tuck (15.0%)</li>
<li>Wharton (14.2%), it’s really surprising IM is so low</li>
<li>Sloan (12.7%)</li>
<li>Yale (10%)</li>
<li>Haas (9.1%)</li>
<li>Kellogg (9.0%)</li>
<li>NYU-Stern (7.0%)</li>
</ol>

<p>Maybe, as NYU-Stern’s selectivity permeates through more classes they will become more competitive on this basis. As you say, much of this is determined by what the grads did pre-MBA, which helped get them into the more selective schools in the first place, so it’s kind of a self-perpetuating process.</p>

<p>You raise a good point about people shying away from IB, so it has become less competitive. I think this is why I would pick Kellogg over NYU because it is traditionally a more diverse class, which would be more interesting to me and would actually be less competitive to get an IB job (and it’s not like no one there is going into IB). After working in NYC after UG too, I personally valued the change of scenery a lot as well. Best of luck on your pending apps.</p>

19

<p>Assuming your data is correct, shouldn’t you be able to answer your own question with your own data?</p>

20

<p>gellino, I’m curious why you think Investment Mgmt is such an elite, high-demand field. I understand PE and VC, as they’re both clearly things that people would prefer to banking. But I’m not sure that the average top MBA would prefer, say, an associate portfolio manager role at Fidelity Investments to an M&A Associate role at JP Morgan. Some schools call out “hedge funds” explicitly, and maybe you can argue that those are in the PE/VC league as jobs preferable to ibanking, but I’m not sure IM generally can be thought of that way.</p>