MBA Salaries Rising for New Grads of Top MBA Programs

MBA Programs such as Columbia, Northwestern-Kellogg, Chicago-Booth, Harvard, Virginia-Darden, and NYU-Stern are reporting record median salaries for newly minted MBAs according to reports on Poets & Quants website.

Columbia MBA grads Total Median Compensation is reported to be a record $177, 970. Basic structure is $150,000 base salary and a $30,000 signing bonus.

Northwestern-Kellogg School MBAs report offers at about $165,000 with a substantial increase of placement into PE (private equity).

Chicago–Booth reports median pay at $163,900 for new MBA graduates.

Harvard Business School MBA median pay is at $172,090.

Virginia–Darden is reporting median offers of $162,000 for new MBAs.

NYU-Stern reported a median base salary of $140,000 and median signing bonuses of $30,000 for new MBAs.

Most Columbia MBAs are hired by the top 3 consulting firms–McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co., and Boston Consulting Group, followed by Deloitte, then PwC Strategy &, then by Goldman Sachs, Amazon & JP Morgan.

Boston Consulting Group loves to hire Northwestern–Kellogg MBAs. Hired 52 this year, up from 33 last year according to a Poets & Quants article.

McKinsey & Co. hired 28 Northwestern–Kellogg MBAs for its worldwide leading consulting practice.

Northwestern–Kellogg’s top employers for recent MBAs are:

Boston Consulting Group–52
McKinsey & Co.–28
Bain & Co.–21

Google–13
Amazon–12
Apple–10

JP Morgan–9
Goldman Sachs–4

PepsiCo–5
Kraft Heinz–4
Nike–4

98% of Northwestern-Kellogg MBAs were employed within 3 months of graduation.

31% went into consulting.

26% into finance.

18% into financial services.

7% into healthcare.

8% into consumer packaged goods.

3% into retail

2% into non-profit sector

2% into manufacturing.

In comparison, first year attorneys who land an associate’s position with a biglaw firm in a major US city start at a salary of $190,000 plus a year end bonus of $15,000.

Pay raises and bonuses increase in lockstep for one’s first 8 years as an associate.

^More debt for lawyers, typically, and they are locked in to a career path.

The big change from over a decade ago is the increase in hiring by consulting and the drop in hiring by IB.