The 4th Best Business School

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 10, 2009, 9:00am

The_prestige, you still are not bothering to read what I actually wrote - I never said all programs are the same. In fact, I have repeatedly emphasized that there are many programs which stand out in one respect or more. I simply disagree strongly with your assertion that well-known programs are superior in, as you put it - ‘nearly every conceivable aspect’. If that were so, we would see the top positions of every manjor corporation dominated by those happy few. That we do not proves empirically that the contention is flawed.

sakky · July 12, 2009, 3:10am

Allow me to point out that, first of all, the entire premise is this logic is flawed from a technical standpoint because it is simply impossible to obtain a “3.0” at HBS, or any other sort of traditional GPA for that matter. The HBS grading system is an idiosyncratic system in which no formal cumulative GPA is ever calculated, but rather only Roman-numeral grades are assigned, from I to III (or the practically unheard of failing IV), and in which it is mandated that at least 65% of every class must receive a II. While I suppose that one could manually calculate a cumulative GPA by equating Roman numeral grades to letter grades (A=I, B=II, etc.), as a practical matter, that is never done; the registrar’s office certainly doesn’t do so. But furthermore, even if one did you could find that the HBS student with the 3.0 is nowhere near “dead last in his class by simple mathematical calculation”, in fact, by definition, he is somewhere in the middle, for as stated above, most students will receive II’s which equate to B’s and hence to 3.0’s.

But even putting that technical matter aside, an even more important systemic problem exists: most students don’t care much about grades, the reason being that most recruiters don’t care much about grades as long as they’re not terrible (i.e. you’re not getting straight III, or worse, IV’s). Frankly speaking, that’s why the students spend so much time drinking and socializing instead of actually studying - they know that grades aren’t particularly important relative to far more salient task of building their network. I have to believe that MBA students - particularly at Harvard - aren’t completely irrational; if they knew that recruiters really cared about grades, the students surely wouldn’t spend so much time on raucous partying and instead actually be studying harder.

But even if recruiters wanted to see the grades, most could at best see only a small sample of them, if any at all. Keep in mind that a full-time MBA program is only 2 years long. Most full-time recruiting for the most popular employers in consulting or finance is finished around January, which means that not only can they surely not see the grades of your final winter semester - during which MBA programs are notoriously replete with ‘senioritis’ - but they can’t even see the grades of your final fall semester either, as, at HBS, those grades are usually not published until late January or early February. At best the recruiters therefore have only 1 year’s worth of grades upon which to rely. Practically speaking, they often times have even less than that. Many of the more popular employers will largely fill their recruiting classes with interns from the previous summer, and so it behooves those MBA students who are looking to enter those firms through those internships. Yet the recruiting for the 1st year summer internships is generally run between January & February, which means that recruiters have, at best, only a single semester’s grades with which to decide, and perhaps not even that much, depending on when recruiting is completed. Those who do well on the summer internships will leave with a full-time offer in hand, regardless of whatever their final grades happened to be. No employer is going to reason: “As a summer intern, your performance was fantastic, but since your final MBA grades were subpar, we’re not going to give you a full-time offer.” Never happen. You got your foot in the door, your resulting performance was strong, and that’s all that matters.

But of course you first have to get your foot in the door, which means that your school needs to have access to those recruiters in the first place. See below.

Since you mentioned Wharton, it should be pointed out that at that school, grades are absolutely 100% ignored for the simple reason that Wharton practices a (student-initiated) grade nondisclosure policy. You can be absolutely dead last in your Wharton class, or your class at Stanford, Haas, or Chicago and employers would have no way of knowing that.

[Grade</a> Non-Disclosure Wins 94% of the Wharton Vote - News](<a href=“http://media.www.whartonjournal.com/media/storage/paper201/news/2007/01/22/News/Grade.NonDisclosure.Wins.94.Of.The.Wharton.Vote-2667915.shtml]Grade”>http://media.www.whartonjournal.com/media/storage/paper201/news/2007/01/22/News/Grade.NonDisclosure.Wins.94.Of.The.Wharton.Vote-2667915.shtml)

Actually, I think you meant to say that a company will be interested in all of the contenders they can find within reason. No company has an infinite resource set with which to conduct a completely exhaustive talent search. There isn’t a company in the world that recruits at every school in the world, and, after holding employer size constant, the better employers tend to recruit at a more constrained set of schools. Many of the most desirable employers - i.e. the most elite VC/PE firms or hedge funds - hardly actively recruit at all, instead relying on students unearthing a pathway to them, usually through social networking. They certainly are not interested in considering all or even most of the candidates who are trying to join them.

I am not trying to argue that the top schools actually teach you more than do the lower-ranked ones. I personally have serious doubts about the value of the curricula of the top schools, not that students could possibly learn much anyway when they’re always half-hung-over and/or spending more time planning their weekend ski trips.

But what I am saying is that networking is a tremendously powerful tool, and certainly is more important than grades, which is why MBA students spend so much time building the network. Many - probably most - MBA students spend more time networking than they do on their studies, which has to be an indication as to the relative valuation of each of those activities, as networking isn’t always enjoyable. (It can’t be fun to drink every night, as some students seem to do.) I know students who studied hard and got top grades but were nevertheless beaten out for their desired jobs by students who barely studied at all and earned far lower grades, but who, wisely in retrospect, spent their time meeting people and networking their way into the company. That’s how the game is played.

The Aggie MBA may well provide extensive opportunities, but then the question is whether those opportunities come to fruition, and in what fields. Those considering TA&M would therefore be well-advised to carefully consider the placement statistics of its graduates, relative to the graduates from any other school they are considering. The data seems to indicate that somebody who is interested in a career in oil/gas in Texas is obviously well-advised to choose TA&M. However, those who want a job in the financial services industry - that is, not just a finance/accounting job, but a job in the financial services industry, which consists of VCPE, investment banking, investment management, and the like - or the consulting industry are well-advised to prefer Kellogg or Tuck.

Since you mentioned international work, I would point out that a far higher percentage of Kellogg and Tuck grades take jobs in foreign countries than do TA&M grads.

[Employment</a> Statistics of Kellogg Graduates](<a href=“http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/Programs/FullTimeMBA/Why_Kellogg_MBA/Employment_Statistics.aspx]Employment”>Career Development | Kellogg Full-Time MBA)

<a href=“You, only better”>You, only better;

[Tuck</a> Careers - Full-Time Employment Statistics](<a href=“http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/careers/statistics/employment.html]Tuck”>http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/careers/statistics/employment.html)

<a href=“You, only better”>You, only better;

What makes careers in consulting or financial services so appealing to MBA students apart from the hefty pecuniary rewards is the fact that those careers are generalist career paths by which they can find and flexibly shift to whatever industry they really want to work in. Let’s face it - most MBA grads don’t really know what industry they actually like, and a stint in consulting or finance allows them to delay a decision. It’s not so easy to start a career in oil/gas and then decide a few years later that you want to shift to, say, the health care industry. But you can certainly do that after a stint in consulting or Ibanking, if you had the opportunity to work on an appropriate project (i.e. a health care industry merger).

Well, actually, you basically do see that. Not among the ‘major corporations’ as you put it, for as I mentioned before, most MBA grads at the top schools don’t want to be general managers. They want to be consultants and financiers, especially at the most powerful of firms. Like I said, of the founders of all venture capital and private equity firms in 2007, more than 27% were graduates of Harvard Business School alone, not to mention the ones who from Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, MITSloan, and the other members of the rarefied coterie, and those sorts of firms are where the real power lies in the economy. Why be the management of a major corporation when you can be the private equity doyen who tells that management what to do? Why make $2 million as the CEO of a major corporation when you can make $20+ million as a partner in a VC/PE firm, and avoid public scrutiny?

Now, to be clear, I don’t agree with the current state of the economy. I fret for the long-term macroprudential future of a country in which far more money is to be made in managing and directing capital than in actually producing anything tangible and in which financial innovation trumps technological or managerial innovation. But what can I say? I didn’t make the rules. As long as the financial occupations continue to pay far more than do careers in general management, MBA students will continue to rationally prefer the former.

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 12, 2009, 11:38am

Interesting, sakky, I was not aware that some schools hide the grades. Again, speaking from the world of work, it occurs to me that this will matter to some companies, especially since a poor student will be discovered in the interview process - however you spin it, a student at the back of his class will simply not be sharp in his interviews, and my point remains the same - a candidate from an “average” school who shows he knows the business will still be more attractive than a candidate from a “top” school who cannot answer the questions completely or properly.

And by the way, in the internet age the resources for finding qualfiied applicants is far broader than ever before.

And since you spoke of partying as a major component at the “top” schools, I should remind you again that more and more companies consider the personality fit before hiring someone - more than one guy from a “top” school sabotaged his job search by putting inapprpriate material on Facebook or flunking a drug test. To reprise the line from Animal House, “fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life”, and more than one school pays attention to that behavior for the student’s better interests.

sakky · July 12, 2009, 12:38pm

HBS did the same until just recently. Even so, it’s highly unclear as to whether the new grade disclosure policy will make much practical difference, for as I said, most employers can view, at best, only a year’s worth of grades before they have to make a hiring decision for a full-time position and often times can’t see any grades at all before they make a hiring decision for the crucial summer internship.

I’m actually not entirely sure whether such a correlation exists, and if anything, the correlation may actually be the reverse - that ‘poor’ student in the back of the class may actually perform better from a recruiting standpoint than the students who do simply because that ‘poor’ student is actually cunningly spending his time not studying but reading papers/articles/blogs that are actually pertinent to his desired industry or networking his way into the job he wants, often times by contacting (and drinking with) somebody who works in the industry and thereby learning how to ‘crack’ the interview process. Like I said, I know quite a few MBA students who got high grades but were nevertheless beaten out for the jobs they wanted by other students with far worse grades but who were savvier networkers. I’ll always remember one who, bitterly disappointed at not getting the job in the industry he wanted despite top grades, rued how much time he had spent studying and should have rather spent his time building his network.

This all gets back to one of my central criticisms of the MBA process that I and many others share: much of the curricula is, frankly, not a highly value-added activity, and students and, more importantly, the employers know it. That’s why many students don’t spend much time studying but would rather devote their time to more productive activities (i.e. networking). (Heck, some of the latest course material such as modern finance portfolio theory has not only been proven to be not useful, but is actually downright hazardous to learn, having recently sundered many student’s careers as well as the world’s banking industry as a whole.)

So while I agree with the basic premise that students need to first obtain the interview and then demonstrate knowledge within that interview in order to secure the job, it is not at all clear how much that has to do with class performance.

But that doesn’t seem to matter, for face-to-face recruiting and networking seems to be more powerful than ever. Heck, I would argue that the internet has made social networking an even more powerful tool for it allows you to cut through the clutter.

I’ll put it to you this way. How often does anybody actually obtain interviews from the top VC/PE firms or hedge funds - which are probably the most coveted of all MBA jobs - via purely internet channels? Probably never. Practically the entire entire interview process for those industries is performed through social networking and personal introduction, and in fact, arguably the most difficult aspect of being hired in those industries is simply figuring out how to obtain the interview in the first place.

There is no doubt that personality fit is a key factor in hiring, and that’s precisely why many companies actually prefer hiring partiers, for that demonstrates strong social networking skills. Like I said above, the true root of the problem is that most MBA curricula don’t really teach you much that’s actually useful, and both the students and employers know it. Furthermore, many MBA jobs, frankly speaking, aren’t really that difficult from a purely mental standpoint, and success often times predicated more on social capital rather than on intellectual capital. The old saw of “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” could not be more apt in describing many (perhaps most) MBA careers.

Whatever you want to say about the drinking and carousing culture characteristic of the top MBA programs, what is undeniable is that it works. I can think of quite a few former ‘borderline alcoholics’ who were nevertheless hired for killer jobs at the most rarefied of employers. Maybe it shouldn’t work, but it does.

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 12, 2009, 2:08pm

Two thoughts. First, in my experience the companies make two kinds of decisions - internships and position hires. Not all MBA graduates are looking for an intern position, some have experience that means they can shoot for a full-time post, bypassing the internship. There is a school of thought, most notably voiced by Jack Welch, that a better career move is to work in the world before earning the MBA, then seek a full-time post equipped with a resume that shows more than just potential. The second thought is that getting the internship is much different from gaining a fast-track position. You seem to be playing down the importance of grades, and I agree if you mean the types who memorize and parrot back stuff from the text without really learning to understand the trends and new advances, but if the school is really a superior school a student will have to show critical thinking and a higher order of analysis than the average student. If HBS or Wharton is really producing students who just learn from books and lectures without an appetite for real-world advances and the current needs of major corporations, then those schools would not deserve their “top” reputations at all.

I disagree in the strongest terms. I’m 49 and have seen first-hand what alcohol and drugs do to a career; some of these guys start out strong, yes, but they always burn out and sometimes do a lot of damage to their company along the way. After all, Enron was here in Houston and I heard about a lot of the Harvard and Wharton guys who absolutely destroyed their careers and hurt many of their colleagues. The major players here have learned from that and similar lessons (Worldcom, etc.) and background checks now look into behavior at school involving drugs and alcohol; the school won’t advertise it but the companies can and will find out through various means - background checks are far more complex now than before. My company uses a firm run by retired FBI agents to screen out management contenders. They can find and screen out the alkies and the druggies, and the party culture guys, because such behavior falls into patterns and more and more companies are aware that they need to keep such people out of decision-making positions. Companies do a more thorough check than ever for executive positions, which is one reason it commonly takes four-to-six months to fill an important post. A guy might be able to slide through school and get an internship or entry position while boozing as much as he wants, but companies are watching out for that kind of guy now, because he’s a liability in every sense of the word.

sakky · July 13, 2009, 1:11am

Putting aside the issue of whether those schools truly deserve their top reputations, the fact of the matter is that whatever the students are learning - whether from the classroom or otherwise - is clearly working as the top employers continue to hire them. I would surmise that students quickly realize - if they didn’t know already - that much of the material imparted in the classroom is of limited utility, a point echoed by Pfeffer & Fong 2002, and so the students quickly figure out that they’re better off spending their time on more productive activities such as networking. After all, if you want a job in private equity, it’s probably far better to be meeting and buttonholing classmates who used to work in private equity rather than listening to a prof who not only never worked in that field, but may not have held a full-time industry job before in their entire lives. {It still utterly baffles me that B-schools, particularly the top ones, hire faculty who have never actually worked in business and whose only claim to legitimacy is a bunch of theoretical research papers that nobody ever reads.} That students will then choose to ‘teach each other’ is entirely consistent with the norm that any good school will provide an environment that students will learn from each other just as much, and probably more so, than they will from the school itself. Social networks serve not only as gateways to interviews - a key advantage in and of itself - but also serve as crucial sources of information.

But of course if you attend a school where nobody - neither the faculty nor the students - has any experience in private equity, then you’re stuck for you have nobody to talk to.

The vast majority of students at the top schools do have prior work experience. Yet that hardly detracts from the importance of the summer internship, if for no other reason, you have to do something during the summer, so it might as well be in the field that interests you.

I disagree in the strongest terms. I’m 49 and have seen first-hand what alcohol and drugs do to a career; some of these guys start out strong, yes, but they always burn out and sometimes do a lot of damage to their company along the way. After all, Enron was here in Houston and I heard about a lot of the Harvard and Wharton guys who absolutely destroyed their careers and hurt many of their colleagues. The major players here have learned from that and similar lessons (Worldcom, etc.) and background checks now look into behavior at school involving drugs and alcohol; the school won’t advertise it but the companies can and will find out through various means - background checks are far more complex now than before. My company uses a firm run by retired FBI agents to screen out management contenders. They can find and screen out the alkies and the druggies, and the party culture guys, because such behavior falls into patterns and more and more companies are aware that they need to keep such people out of decision-making positions. Companies do a more thorough check than ever for executive positions, which is one reason it commonly takes four-to-six months to fill an important post. A guy might be able to slide through school and get an internship or entry position while boozing as much as he wants, but companies are watching out for that kind of guy now, because he’s a liability in every sense of the word.

Then we’ll have a lot of future crises in the future, for the fact remains, employers continue to hire plenty of top MBA’s in the strongest terms, despite their infamous partying lifestyles. For example, in 2008, an absolutely eye-watering 25% of the entire class at HBS went on to jobs in VC/PE or hedge funds, which represent the juiciest filet mignon of the jobs available to the student cohort. The vast majority took jobs in some sort of high-end business services, whether consulting or financial services, with only a small minority taking regular general management positions. And frankly, from what I can tell, it seems that it the most party-prone of the students are precisely the ones who seem to end up in consulting and finance. Hence, whatever you want to say about the student culture of the school, they’re now managing capital flows in the economy or providing advice to companies.

I said nothing about a drug culture (although I’m sure it exists), but what I would say is that that sort of lifestyle fits quite well in the sort of industries that students want. Wall Street itself is, frankly, a culture prone to excess in all respects, certainly drinking, and sometimes also drugs, in which a hard-partying atmosphere is pervasive. (Maybe that’s why they’ve managed to sunder the world economy). I’m not defending the practice, I’m just telling you how it is. What makes the problem especially pernicious is that the finance industry is predicated on relationship-building and networking, for it’s really a sales culture, which means that those living a straight-edge lifestyle probably won’t fit in.

[T.G.I</a> Friday’s in Financial District served cocaine and marijuana with their cheeseburgers](<a href=“http://www.examiner.com/x-649-Manhattan-Food-Examiner~y2009m3d9-TGI-Fridays-in-Financial-District-served-cocaine-and-marijuana-with-their-cheeseburgers]T.G.I”>Examiner is back - Examiner.com)

[Wall</a> Street Masters of the Universe seeking addiction help, hallelujah | Schizo America](<a href=“http://schizoamerica.com/2009/03/wall-street-master-of-the-universe-seeking-addiction-help-hallelujah/]Wall”>http://schizoamerica.com/2009/03/wall-street-master-of-the-universe-seeking-addiction-help-hallelujah/)

But the larger point is that, while I certainly don’t condone the rife drinking culture within the top MBA programs, what is undeniable is that it is pervasive. But not only that, as much as you and I might like to change it, the students have no reason to do so, for if they drink their way through two years and yet still obtain top jobs anyway, then that’s all the empirical evidence they need.

* what do MBA students really do besides “networking” events (eupheism for a lot of drinking)? *

[A</a> Marshall MBA’s Blog on Marketing, Entrepreneurship, & Changing the World thru Business](<a href=“http://www.andrewmchoi.com/labels/Day%20in%20the%20Life%20of%20an%20MBA.html]A”>http://www.andrewmchoi.com/labels/Day%20in%20the%20Life%20of%20an%20MBA.html)

When not in class, I’ve been spending time with my classmates. Activities have included drinking at The Windsor, drinking at The Volunteer, drinking at The Hobgoblin, drinking at the school’s own MBAr, or going down to Picadilly Circus to go… you guessed it… drinking. Again, keeping in mind that in the MBA student world, drinking together is an important part of the course and is thus referred to as networking.

[Inside</a> the London MBA - Bloggers at London Business School: 2% of credits finished! (The first week is over)…](<a href=“http://mbablog.london.edu/mbablog/2008/09/well-the-first.html]Inside”>http://mbablog.london.edu/mbablog/2008/09/well-the-first.html)

*"Crainer and Dearlove (1999), in their critical overview of business education, described the “Wharton Walk”–a drinking ritual in which the students at the University of Pennsylvania business school visit 10 bars in one night. They concluded, “This is what happens in business schools. Most students simply get drunk.” *

[AMLE</a> - The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye - Vol. 1, No. 1, Sept. 2002](<a href=“http://www.aomonline.org/Publications/Articles/BSchools.asp]AMLE”>http://www.aomonline.org/Publications/Articles/BSchools.asp)

*The sound system at the Fort Point Channel warehouse is blasting power ballads on a Friday night in October, and the future titans of industry are wasted. This is understandable, because the future titans of industry are wearing pink feather boas, fishnets, and amateurishly stuffed bras. It’s the night of Harvard Business School’s Priscilla Ball, an annual rite that calls for the men to dress up like women, and the women to dress up like whores. There are some variations among the sea of cross-dressers: French maids and cheerleaders, uniformed schoolgirls and Hooters waitresses. But there are more constants: botched mascara applications, abbreviated swatches of skirt over hairy legs. And frantic attempts to slam as many Jack-and-Cokes as necessary to make the outfits bearable.

…“So people may seem insufferable for a few days. But after you’ve all gotten drunk together, everyone gets over it.” The one thing many never seem to get over, though, is an affinity for libations. “The drinking here blows my undergrad days out of the water,” says one second-year student.

Said drinking, it turns out, does not involve the brandy snifters and ascots that an outsider might envision. Brian Dutt, a second-year student from New York City, was instantly struck by his classmates’ embrace of a decidedly unpretentious style of entertainment. “You’re surrounded by incredibly diverse, high-achieving people, but they’re all totally game for a jarty.” (This, for the uninitiated, is a party at which attendees clad themselves exclusively in denim.) Plenty of wild parties “involve a keg and Beirut tournament,” he says. “You look back at some nights and you could say it happened at the University of Florida or you could say it happened at Harvard Business School.”

In true collegiate fashion, HBS fosters a peculiar predilection for costume parties. Current students advise incoming first-years to dig out the ridiculous getups that have languished at the back of their closets since the end of their undergrad careers. In addition to an obligatory Halloween party and the Priscilla Ball, there’s an annual April cruise around Boston Harbor that inexplicably demands Austin Powers dress-up. Regardless of the actual motif, as Godden points out in another Harbus article, there’s inevitably "a group of girls who seem to have been told that the theme is ‘Slutty.'"Befitting a campus full of type-A go-getters, competitions extend beyond merely conjuring up the best costume. A recent graduate recalls two über-achiever classmates from the class of 2007. One had a consulting and private equity background, and the other worked at a hedge fund. The pair apparently set high standards for themselves across the board: For the first three and a half months of the fall semester, they went out drinking every single night. On the 101st consecutive night, to commemorate their accomplishment, they threw a party to which some 250 of their classmates showed up. “A lot of students egg each other on,” the graduate says. “A lot of them studied really hard in undergrad and now are looking to redefine their image a little bit.”

Plenty of them were also pretty broke while undergrads, and now, after a few well-compensated years in the working world, have the resources to re-create a better-off version of their halcyon days. “A lot of these people are 26, 27, have half a million dollars in the bank, and are completely burned out from all the 90-hour workweeks,” says a recent grad. “They really just want to have a good time.”*

[Ain’t</a> No Party Like an HBS Party - Boston Magazine](<a href=“http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/aint_no_party_like_an_hbs_party/]Ain’t”>http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/aint_no_party_like_an_hbs_party/)

Again, to be clear, I am not defending the practice, in fact, I decry it. But what can I say? They have no reason to listen to me. After all, they can and do inevitably pull out the ultimate trump card - that, whatever problems may exist within the MBA student culture, it works. They get the jobs that they want, and that’s all the matters. Like I said, in 2008, a whopping 25% of all HBS grads took jobs in VC/PE or hedge funds. As long as the most desirable employers continue to hire HBS MBA’s, regardless of whatever shortcomings may exist within the program, what incentive do they have to change?

…thoroughbred MBAs joining the largest private equity shops command base salaries and bonuses as high as $450,000. Add to that, of course, the real payoff: the equity. “More equity is flowing downtream to these new hires,” says Brian Korb, a partner at New York executive search firm Glocap Search, co-publisher of the 2007 Private Equity Compensation Report. “Especially for the all-stars. It’s just like in sports.”

[What</a> B-Schoolers Lust For Now](<a href=“Bloomberg Businessweek - Bloomberg”>Bloomberg Businessweek - Bloomberg)

storch · July 13, 2009, 3:49am

this back and forth resembles a boxing match between vanilla ice and mike tyson

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 13, 2009, 9:57am

I wouldn’t say I agree with that. There is no objective definition here for “top employers”. Big 4 Accounting firms, for example, take graduates across the country. Fortune 500 companies do the same for their managers. There is a general agreement that a school with a famous name will get a better job offer for the graduate straight out of school, but given the debt and subsequent levelling of the promotion field, it’s difficult to call it a good ROI. And as I pointed out earlier, most of the top executive positions at Fortune 500 companies are filled by graduates of nominal schools - UCLA has as many CEOs in the top 500 as Northwestern or Wharton, for example, Virginia as many as Stanford.

Also, it seems from your constant reference to Venture Capital and finance, that such is the center of your universe. Fine and all if that’s your path, but the plain fact is that the MBA offers more choices than that. It’s a bit myopic to ignore the management concentration, for example, given the name of the degree.

And I have to say that I find your lack of confidence in the ethics of MBA graduates disconcerting. The people I know and work with who hold the degree, earned it in hopes of earning more money sure, but they also accepted a higher professional standard of conduct with that degree and the positions they took in companies. If all the East Coast schools are filled with such moral degenerates as you claim, then it appears that such schools are of lower quality than is pretended here. Ethics is real in my industry and company, and while there are always lousy individuals in any large group, on the whole we stand for improving CSR and governance. If you don’t see that where you work, may I suggest you should look for a more responsible employer? Because where I live and work, the good guys far outnumber the bad guys.

gellino · July 13, 2009, 12:18pm

I offer evidence that is contradictory to your statement; so all you can come up with is it is not germane when it was precisely germane to what you stated and you say I’m the one who looks down on anyone who doesn’t agree with them? How convenient. I find it amusing that you would impugn my attitude within the context of some of the other posters on here. All I’m doing is reporting on my experience of what I have seen. If you look through my prior posts, I have said repeatedly what school the degree is from becomes less important over time but that still doesn’t change the fact that people are here because they want to learn and optimize their chances every step of the way.

Having attended one the schools discussed in this thread and having considered and possessing many friends from a couple of the others, I think your characterization of no study, all party is not exactly accurate. While an MBA, does not have the academic intensity of PhD, MD or even JD, there was still a lot of work, it’s just that people are not that concerned about grades and concerns revolved more around the time to get it done; not its difficulty. Also, in my experience to the extent that people did go out drinking and partying, it was because they enjoyed the company of their classmates and their personalities fit these pursuits, not because they had a callous, insincere agenda of they better go out now to potentially help their career down the road. I would say some approached their Summer internships that way but not the actual school year itself or at least that approach was never apparent to me.

roneald · July 13, 2009, 2:04pm

You can argue it however you want, but I think there is little denying that the most desirable jobs (and with correlation the ones that provide the highest income) are all in PE/VC. Therefore, it is simple logic to deduce that the students retaining jobs in these sectors are, at least directly out of their MBA programs, the most desirable.

That is not to say that careers in other sectors are not as important or as prominent. However, it does say that if most MBA grads had their choice of job, chances are most most would probably choose something in VC/PE.

Also, I do not tend to be rude in anywhere, but I think it is a bit unprofessoinal to refer to sakky’s position as myopic. I’m not sure what field she comes from, but if it was what she worked in shouldn’t that be where the bulk of her personal experiences have come from? To be fair a large percentage of your own anecdotes have been related to either industry or school in Texas, whereas hers are centered in Wall Street. Not to say one is better than the other, but there’s no denying most MBA grads from a top 20 school (the hopefuls of which mostly compile the readers and users of this board) would choose a career based in the latter compared to the former.

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 13, 2009, 2:17pm

So for you it’s all about the money?

That’s sad. Really.

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 13, 2009, 2:21pm

If we were discussing medical school, it would be myopic to only discuss, say Orthopedic surgery.

If we were discussing law school, it would be myopic to only discuss, say, Contract Law.

If we were discussing accounting, it would be myopic to only discuss, say, financial statements.

So, however it sounds, yes it is myopic to only focus on only one aspect of the MBA as if it represented the whole spectrum or even most of it.

roneald · July 13, 2009, 3:15pm

I did not saw that I myself would prefer these positions; on the contrary I said the average MBA grad would, and it is no coincidence that these jobs produce the highest salaries.

Based on what I ascertained from what sakky wrote, you’re missing the point here. Her aim was not to have the PE/VC branches represent the only parts an MBA was good for. Rather, your argument was based on the differences between the top business schools and the median ones, and sakky’s argument went something along the lines of:

<ol>
<li>PE/VC jobs are the most desirable for MBA grads.</li>
<li>Students at H/W/S place the best at these jobs, and are are the main ones who even get a shot at them (regardless of grades).

therefore 3. Immediately following the completion of their MBA’s, HWS students are still the most successful.</li>
</ol>

There is nothing in there that says that the reputations of the schools are deserved, nor whether they are learning anything at HWS they are not learning at another MBA program. Rather it is a testament to the power of the networks at those schools, and the power they still hold in the community.

This is again, not to disregard the importance or validity of management jobs (or any other sector for that matter). It is simply saying that if given the chance, most MBA grads would prefer a job in VC/PE, so therefore that should be the standard against which they should be judged.

To set up a similar analogy: Let us say we a had a graduating class at two high schools within a city. Our goal was to measure the “success rate” of students in college admissions. Let us also assume that each class only has 40 students. For argument’s sake, let us say these two schools come from similar socioeconomic neighborhoods. Now, let me give you the statistics for the attendance’s of each school:

School A:
Ivy League + Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Chicago- 33 kids
Every other school in America: 7 kids

School B:
Ivy League + Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Chicago: 10 kids
Every other school in America: 30 kids

For sake of efficiency, I will hear on refer to “Ivy League + Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Chicago” as “Group 1” and “Every other school in America” as “Group 2”.

Now, proponent of School A says, “My school did better because we sent 33 kids to ivy’s!” However, proponent of School B says, “No, my school did better. You’re sending 33 kids to the same 8 schools, which only represents a fraction of a percentile of the total schools in the world. In my opinion you’re being totally myopic by only using those schools as a measuring stick, and totally disregarding the value of every other college in the United States”.

So who do you think is right?

Well to start off, our data is flawed. We only have the data of where the children are going, not where they were accepted (just like how we don’t have data of what what percentage of job offers grad students had in each sector, only what job they ended up taking).

There is a definite possibility that some of the 30 students from School B got into the first group of schools, but did not decide to go (just like how there are some MBA grads who might get jobs in VC/PE that might opt to work in another sector).

However, every student that got accepted into the first group probably had a very strong chance of making it into the second group (just like how many grads who get VC/PE jobs would have done very well in the job market for other sectors as well).

The proponent for School B has a definite point that out of the thousands and thousands of schools in America (job market for MBA grads), Group 1 (PE/VC jobs) represent a very minuscule percentage of the total picture. However, there is no denying that if given the chance, most of the students in Group 2 would have rather been in Group 1, but almost all of the students in Group 1 COULD HAVE been in Group 2 if they wanted.

So then, do we use the less than 1% top elite schools as our measuring stick, or the rest of the 99%?

Notice some of the parallels to be drawn between this example and the one in our current discussion. We have no specific data testifying to how the 25% of Harvard grads that went into VC would have done if they applied against the rest of their graduating class, but if they got VC jobs they probably would’ve done well in the other ones as well.

At the same time, a large percentage of the other grads who got jobs in other sectors did fairly well, but is it reasonable to believe that the only reason they weren’t being beaten out of those spots by Harvard grads was because they were too busy getting (to them) more desirable jobs?

Finally, is not clear cut that because School A did better amongst the best of the best, that we can claim that for whatever reason, the students of their school did better in college admissions than the other school?

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 13, 2009, 3:34pm

Let’s start with a clear point for debate.

What is your basis for claiming that, other than desire for money?

roneald · July 13, 2009, 3:48pm

I won’t lie and say that I’ve had years of experience dealing with MBA’s, but here are a few of my reasons:

1) Brother and wife both have MBA, spoken with them and their co-workers on the subject.
2) I haven’t seen anything to tell me that there is any position that pays better, and I would assume the average MBA grad who just paid near $100,000 is looking for the job that makes the most moeny.
3) I know for a fact sakky has had experience in this field, and it is indeed their claim that I am supporting, not my own. I would like to hold that they had solid justification for this statement in the first place based on their own experiences.

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 13, 2009, 3:49pm

Another point to consider:

Sorry, but that’s a false logic. It’s like saying that because everyone who bought a Bentley could have afforded the Lexus, that this means the Bentley is better and more desirable than the Lexus. But that would not be true, at least on that argument.

Let’s go back to the real world, the Fortune 500 to be precise.

Here’s a list you could use, for example:

[Fortune</a> 500 Companies Executives List](<a href=“http://www.0-0.com/Categories/Categories_Lists/Fortune_500_Companies_Executives_List.htm]Fortune”>http://www.0-0.com/Categories/Categories_Lists/Fortune_500_Companies_Executives_List.htm)

Now if you work your way down that list and see where these leading executives went to school, you might be surprised to see how seldom the “top” schools show up. Oh they do have representation, but no more for the most part than many “common” schools. When you dig through the list, what you find is that the so-called “best” schools just don’t live up to the hype, especially if you are not first in your class.

Sakky made the point about some schools hiding grades. That, however, only proves my point. If you have done well, you will want everyone to know; that’s the reason for distinctions like cum laude, magna, and summa. This “student-supported” notion of hiding grades only demonstrates a desire for average students to evade discovery of their true level of ability. Sakky also suggests that a bit of cramming before the interview is just fine, but as a manager of 20+ years I can tell you that sooner or later the frauds are found out. What is the use of a degree that sounds wonderful if it turns out you don’t know the work well enough to justify your job?

gellino · July 13, 2009, 4:13pm

Students agree on this before classes have begun. The MBA schools I am familiar with have no summa, magna, cum laude distinctions but the award of some type of scholar if you are top 10-15% of your class (depending on the school). The policy is in place, so that recruiters don’t lose sight of the fact that everyone they are interviewing is in the top 2% of the country in the first place.

In most out of MBA positions, you learn most of what you need to know on the job. The use of the degree is that it put you in a position to land the job for the opportunity of proving yourself that you otherwise would not have had.

roneald · July 13, 2009, 4:14pm

In my opinion that’s the fallacy of False Compromise; you’re correlation between the two is that because people pick their cars and pick their colleges a parallel can be drawn. However you miss the fact that unlike cars (and like jobs), the college process is first a two way street, where the college must select the person first. A superior car cannot tell an owner not to buy it. However, a better college (or higher ranking job) can say no to an applicant.

As far as your Fortune 500 Companies list goes, I think that ties directly into my argument. It’s like Fortune 500 list is the UCLA of my analogy, it is extremely high ranking and prestigious and to the average person it is the best you can think of, but behind the scenes VC/PE jobs make more money and are far more desirable (and as a result top grads are going for these jobs rather than your management jobs).

Also, whether you accept my above argument or not, the other fact to think about is this: in our argument we were comparing where Harvard + other grads went right after college; a CEO/CFO isn’t exactly something you can apply for right away. As a result, more people who begin their careers in management probably have a better chance at ascending the ranks and getting into higher management later in their lives. It is noteworthy that by this time someone in PE/VC has had the same opportunities to move up, yet there are no official positions (such as CEO) to measure these advancements.

MBA_Grad_2009 · July 13, 2009, 4:29pm

That is not proven, nor do I agree.

And I still do not agree with judging the business school by one specialization. Not least because there is no objective criteria supporting your contention. Like it or not, the Fortune 500 represents the best cross-section of executive talent, and the empirical evidence is statistically overwhelming that the business school is not deterministic of success. Are there greedy people who chase money and will take whatever path seems most likely to line their pockets? Sure, but that hardly makes a ringing endorsement for those schools.

Wildflower · July 13, 2009, 10:39pm

MBAGRAD2009: Would you mind sharing the specifics of your experience? I mean, industry you work in, where you studied…

I don’t intend to be offensive but, your experience sounds provincial at best. And your “insights”–if we can call them that–don’t seem to be more than folksy wisdom.

Frankly, it’s been painful to see you try to debate with Sakky. And perhaps what’s even more scary, it doesn’t seem that you realize the very obvious truth: you are adding no value to the discussion, just offering an uniformed, ignorant opinion. I am, honestly, gaining all the more respect or Sakky after reading the discussion on this thread–I mean he’s handling your posts quite gracefully, esp. considering how out of touch with reality you seem to be. I would not have the patience he’s shown.

In any case, perhaps a clear distinction ought to be drawn: please acknowledge that you have nothing to do/know nothing about elite employers and MBA programs. That’s all I ask. If you want to continue posting and giving insight re ordinary employers and mediocre b-schools go right ahead–just don’t pretend to know/offer more than that. Thanks.

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