<p>Only to you, and only because you rejected it without thinking it through.</p>
<p>Consider Mensa, the international organization for intellectual exchange. Its members are certifiably smarter than the public as a whole, and many professional groups as well. Yet Mensa members, statistically, are no more wealthy than the public norm, nor do their marriages last longer, nor is their health signifciantly better, and so on. The problem is that intellect is only one dimension, and of itself it cannot produce the desired success in life that people desire. Other qualities, some of them quite pedestrian in image, are necessary, and many of the qualities derided as commonplace are in fact not at all so common, especially in the quantities and balance necessary for success. The GMAT is one test, and it measures a particular aptitude which schools prize. The fact, however, that schools often want to see work experience and evidence of other accomplishments demonstrates that even the schools know the limits of such a test. As much as you claim otherwise, the qualities which make a truly superior businessman depend on an amalgam which intellect cannot hope to produce on its own.</p>
<p>IQ is overrated, and so are the schools which depend too heavily upon it.</p>
<p>Oh, really? And how in the world would you know this? Speaking in these broad generalities is one of the things that kills your credibility right away, MBAGRAD2009.</p>
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<p>Most of America is not “elite”. And I don’t mean to sound like a snob. Want to appeal to populist sentiments and folksy wisdom to win your argument? Don’t. It’s self-evident you haven’t drawn the very simple distinction I asked you earlier: just admit you are not familiar with elite MBA schools, instead of pretending to know something about them (or worse: start questioning whether places such as HBS/Stanford and Wharton are top b-schools. The effort is contemptible at best.)</p>
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<p>Of course, it is! Don’t you get it?</p>
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<p>First, you haven’t really told us why in the world we ought to care about your (misinformed) opinion. Second, that’s how you are choosing to view things. Sakky painted a different picture. You are the one bringing in your provincial morality in order to pass judgment and attack elite b-schools. Distinctions between your so-called “good guys” and the [elite] “bad guys” is an artificial one at best, and mostly in your imagination since you don’t understand what Sakky is saying.</p>
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<p>Of course you would say that. No surprise there.</p>
<p>That aside, let me see if I can summarize your twisted logic:</p>
<p>You agree with the fact that “employers will always seek out intelligent, thoughtful workers”.<br>
The GMAT is a measure of intelligence (is highly correlated with IQ), and students at top schools generally score FAR higher on this this test than those at “average schools”. (They also usually have more and better work exp)
When I point out this obvious truth you then pull a 180 and say that intelligence doesn’t matter in business, totally reversing your prior position???</p>
<p>Can you not smell the ***** you’re shoveling?</p>
<p>Let’s take the discussion back to first principles. While we can debate which school is the “fourth” best business school, I think it is not in dispute that a certain set of business schools have stronger brand names, attract stronger students (as measured by quantitative figures and by cross-admit information), have stronger brand names, and send their graduates to more selective/prestigious/higher-paying jobs.</p>
<p>For example, I think you yourself conceded that Texas A&M was not among the top business schools. How do you “know” this? Presumably through a combination of the factors listed above. </p>
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<p>I believe the dispute comes down to what exactly is the definition of an “executive”. At least to me, and presumably to others here, the term ‘executive’ includes associates and partners at the consulting and finance firms that are so popular with the MBA cognoscenti. </p>
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<p>It seems to me that ethics is a problem within the business world writ large, and not specific to MBA’s. Ken Lay was able to loot his company blind without an MBA, as did Bernie Ebbers and Bernie Madoff. </p>
<p>However, what I would say is that I don’t think that MBA’s improve ethics as part of their education. Instead, they do indeed focus on money, and more importantly, power. Would you expect otherwise? You admitted yourself that the ROI of the top MBA programs is weak if they don’t attain a top-paying job afterwards. </p>
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<p>Actually, I suspect it has more to do with power. I tend to agree with Felda Hardymon that those who really care exclusively about money and nothing else will make a beeline to hedge funds, not to VCPE. But VCPE puts you in positions of quick power while making almost as much as the hedge fund jockeys do. </p>
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<p>And they are doing their jobs to the best of their ability, not least because so much of their compensation is based on the euphemistic “high-powered incentives” which basically means strong performance-based bonuses such that if they don’t do well in their job, they don’t get paid much. Financiers, for example, make relatively low salaries relative to the rest of their pay packets, with the salaries of managing directors often times being less than 1% of their entire yearly compensation. </p>
<p>In fact, I would argue that, frankly, most of the problems regarding executives not taking their jobs seriously would happen in the regular corporate world, for, frankly, little financial incentive exists for them to perform exceptionally. Performance-based bonuses tend to be small to the point that employees see little reason to put in extra effort. Why put in greater effort than everybody else when the rewards for doing so are small? I know many people who took regular corporate jobs and they freely admit they they’re goldbricking. For example, I know one girl who got her MBA and wanted to be an entrepreneur but felt that she first had to dig herself out of debt. So she took a corporate job at IBM where she freely admitted that she was just working the bare minimum of hours to avoid a bad performance review. She could work harder, but what is her incentive? The available bonuses in her position at IBM are relatively low. She has no interest in being promoted, as she is just going to quit soon to launch her own startup. Instead of putting in additional hours, she would rather just go home and prepare to launch that startup. Nor is she an exception: frankly, lots of people in her office are working the bare minimum and are more interested in other tasks in their lives. {For example, one of her coworkers is basically spending all her time planning her wedding.} That’s what happens when you don’t provide high-powered incentives to your employees.</p>
<p>Of course the real question is whether you are providing the appropriate high-powered incentives, and the financial crash has demonstrated that many financial firms had implemented incentive plans that encouraged employees to export risk to the system at large, and by extension, you and I (the taxpayers). Some of that surely had to do with a lack of ethics, i.e. the Madoff Ponzi. On the other hand, some of that was simply because firms were never required to internalize systemic risks into their performance plans. </p>
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<p>What’s the alternative? Let’s face it, many (probably most) students at the top MBA programs are looking to change careers, which simply by definition means that those students will lack prior experience in their new jobs. Furthermore, as I have said, and Pfeffer & Fong 2002 have concurred, most MBA curriculum is, frankly, not very useful for the actual job (with some of it being downright dangerous - modern portfolio theory having armed new bankers with investment models that they didn’t really understand, to the detriment of themselves and the taxpayers). If you’re hired as a financier or a consultant without having done it before - which you probably haven’t - what alternative do you have but to learn on the job? </p>
<p>Now, maybe you might argue that perhaps those people shouldn’t have been hired for those jobs at all, but that’s a different matter entirely. The issue on the table is, given that those people were hired for those jobs, what would you have them do? After all, everybody has to start somewhere. Somewhere along the line, every consultant and financier has to learn on the job, because B-schools or any other schools can’t or won’t provide them with the necessary skills.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I think that’s the real crux of the problem - that B-schools can’t or won’t provide the proper training to their students, which I surmise has to do with the fact that most B-school professors have relatively little practical working experience and the academic career path does not reward it. Hence, most B-school profs do not really understand and certainly cannot provide much practical insight to what they’re teaching. But that’s a problem that won’t be solved for decades, if ever. The question therefore is, given the faculty structure that exists today, what else would you have the students do besides learn on the job? </p>
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<p>First off, regarding alleged laziness, I would actually argue that the top MBA students are among the hardest-working people I’ve ever known. After all, they’re going to be embarking upon careers where 70-100 workweeks are the norm, and many of them left careers with similar working hours to attend B-school. The MBA experience is therefore seen as a temporary break from the grind of their normal life - no wonder that they spend so much of it carousing because, as they will freely declare, it is probably the last time in their lives that they will be permitted to do so. </p>
<p>However, regarding ethics and corruption, again, I don’t know that the students at the top MBA programs are any more unethical or corrupt than those at lower-ranked programs, or the general state of business writ large. Again, plenty of people without MBA’s still managed to loot their companies and screw their shareholders and the taxpayers.</p>
<p>No, I think it is that the “elites” (as you call them) may be smarter in deducing what is actually useful and what isn’t and have savvily determined not to waste their time on what is not useful in order to devote more time to what is. Let’s be perfectly honest - the MBA education, whether at Harvard or at some low-ranked MBA program, frankly isn’t that different. Harvard Business School cases are used by B-schools the world over, and the textbooks all tend to be the same. In fact, I would argue that the education at HBS is almost certainly superior to that from a low-ranked program - if for no other reason, you may be taught a case from the guy who actually wrote it himself - but that’s a far cry from saying that the education is actually highly useful. The problem is that business is a subject that is inherently difficult to teach, and that problem is compounded by the fact that many (probably most) of the professors are pure academics with little practical working experience. </p>
<p>Here’s what Scott Adams had to say about it:</p>
<p>Whether you’re taught your cases at HBS or at some low-ranked school, the fact remains that you still haven’t learned much that is actually useful. Networking, on the other hand, is a highly value-added activity. </p>
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<p>Yeah well, whatever you might say about the disconnect and sense of entitlement of financiers, the fact remains that they’re paid exceedingly well. Goldman this year - in the midst of a financial crash - may pay nearly the largest bonuses in the history of the company. </p>
<p>The real problem is that those regular corporations that you laud for their supposed ethics simply don’t pay very well. Hence, as a top MBA student, why would you want to work there when you could work at Goldman or at a VC/PE firm? Keep in mind that Goldman didn’t cause the crash, and neither did any VC/PE firm. I am not aware of any dearth of ethics on their parts. </p>
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<p>And how exactly would one go about becoming “qualified” for a job that you’ve never held before? Like I said, most MBA’s who take VC/PE jobs have never done it before, and the schools probably didn’t teach them much that is practically applicable for those jobs. The same could be said for IB or management consulting. </p>
<p>Now, you might argue that those firms simply shouldn’t hire anybody with no prior work experience in the field, and particularly, not MBA students. Perhaps so. But that’s not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is, given that they do hire such people, how else are they going to learn how to do the job, if not via OTJ training? </p>
<p>Regardless, it’s not the fault of the schools that these firms hire students with no prior work experience. The schools aren’t forcing those firms to do anything. If you want to find somebody to blame, then blame those firms. </p>
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<p>And exactly which B-schools out there have significantly different attitudes and ethics? I would argue that they’re all basically the same in this regard. I am certainly not aware of any lower-ranked B-schools that are supposedly superior when it comes to ethics. </p>
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<p>Nor am I providing such an endorsement. The service that I can provide here on CC is to speak honestly about the issues at hand, and so I have.</p>
<p>I have never claimed that there is a “best” school overall for everybody. However, what is undeniable is that a core cluster of schools does exist that the bulk of MBA students tend to prefer. Let’s face it. Given the choice between HBS and Texas A&M, most MBA applicants are going to choose HBS. That fact may be desirable, it might be undesirable, but it is the reality. </p>
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<p>First off, you continue to assert that networking is a way of “scheming” to slip into a high-paying job. Why exactly is it wrong to obtain jobs through networking? The fact is, networking is a tried-and-true pathway for anybody - not just MBA’s - to find jobs. Many, probably most people, in the world probably obtained their job because they happened to know somebody on the inside who was willing to endorse you. In fact, the entire business model of companies such as LinkedIn is predicated on this fact. </p>
<p>Nor do I see anything particularly unethical about that in the least. When managers want to hire, the first thing they usually do is ask their current employees whether they personally know anybody looking for work. Those willing to endorse a candidate for a job is risking his own social capital, for if that candidate performs poorly, then the endorser also looks bad. Furthermore, social networking is a well-established method of ensuring social harmony within the firm. Perhaps you’ve never worked in a firm where some people actually hated each other personally, but I’ve have the displeasure of doing so. Hiring through social networks reduces the odds that a firm will hire somebody who will sow social discord within the firm, for at the very least, that person has positive relations with the social connector who brokered the hire. </p>
<p>Frankly speaking, as a manager, I would be chary of hiring somebody who didn’t have any social connections to my firm. After all, all I would have is a resume and an interview process, and that ain’t much, for lots of people may look great on paper and know how to interview well, but are actually terrible employees. What I would strongly prefer is having those who had previously worked with him to appraise his abilities and endorse his candidacy. But that’s nothing more than social networking. Hence, it is hardly a matter of “scheming” one’s way into a job, as social networking actually makes labor markets more efficient. </p>
<p>To your second point regarding whether MBA students drink and slack - I think the empirical evidence is emphatically clear. HBS parties are absolutely legendary - by far the most outrageous parties at all of Harvard, and arguably in the entire Boston area. Wharton is well known for the 10-bar drinking ritual known as the Wharton Walk.</p>
<p>But, again, let’s keep in mind what we’re talking about. Lots of these students left grueling jobs where they worked 70-100 hour workweeks. They’re most likely returning to similarly grueling environments. Why wouldn’t they take advantage of a 2-year window of lowered stress to enjoy life? </p>
<p>I know many bankers who are working 90+ hour workweeks now who are glad they enjoyed their time as MBA students to party, date lots of people of the opposite sex (or the same sex for some of them), travel the world, and otherwise entertain themselves to oblivion, because they certainly can’t do so now. I know one girl who had a grand total of 15 days off, including weekends and holidays, for an entire 3 year period after she finished her MBA. She’s very glad that her MBA years were so - in her words - “relaxing”, because her life certainly isn’t anymore. </p>
<p>Most MBA students will binge-drink while students because of the culture, just like most college students will do the same. That’s just a phase in their life that ends upon entering the workforce. If you can enjoy life, why wouldn’t you? That’s the epitome of the work-hard, play-hard lifestyle.</p>
<p>Yet as Khurana 2007 has shown, that “one” aspect is precisely the aspect that most top MBA students truly care about the most. </p>
<p>Again I ask - why exactly do the overwhelming majority of top MBA students head for service-provider firms such as consultancies or financial services firms, and have been for decades? Why are the VCPE student clubs at the top MBA programs so large? Why does the business press chronicle the mad dash of top MBA students to VC/PE, and why no corresponding rush to general corporate management? </p>
<p>I think it is indisputable that top MBA students predominantly prefer certain jobs. Maybe they shouldn’t want those jobs, but the fact is that they do. Maybe those firms shouldn’t hire them, but the fact is that they do. </p>
<p>Let’s return back to basic principles. Helping you to get the career that you want is one of the most important - and arguably THE most important - feature that a business school can offer. After all, why even attend a B-school at all if it doesn’t actually help you obtain the career that you want? Furthermore, the evidence clearly shows that MBA students at top schools clearly want certain careers and not others. Nobody is forcing them to take jobs in consulting or finance, yet that is where the majority choose to go.</p>
<p>What is popular is not always right, and what is right is not always popular.</p>
<p>One day you may come to recognize this.</p>
<p>As I said, this horse is well beyond its demise, and I’m done in this thread.</p>
<p>I would suggest, just for your own benefit, that you take the time to examine the tone and spirit of your posts. Are you proud of it? Does shouting down someone else for the sin of not agreeing with you make you the kind of person you would be glad to have everyone see?</p>
<p>If you will not look, none can make you see.</p>
<p>Let me provide you with a reductio ad absurdum. If these “elites” are unwisely wasting their time on unproductive networking when they should instead be devoting that time to productive studying, and the “peasants” are wisely doing the reverse, then why do the top consulting and financial services firms continue to recruit the elites rather than the peasants? Are they just being stupid? </p>
<p>Again, I think the far more likely story is that the MBA students are simply acting rationally according to the incentives placed before them. The truth of the matter is that the MBA curriculum doesn’t produce large marginal returns, and students at the top schools realize this and would therefore rather devote their time to building an elite social network, which is a highly value-added activity. After all, the other students at the top schools probably have powerful and extensive connections from prior jobs and from powerful family/friends, and so it behooves a person to gain access to such a multitude of powerful social capital. On the other hand, students at a low-end school don’t have much social capital to share, as they didn’t work at impressive former employers and don’t have strong family/friend networks, and so the students at those schools probably really are better off studying. The marginal value of time spent devoted to building a network there is low due to the lack of social capital that the other students bring. </p>
<p>I’ll give you an example. I know a guy who got his MBA at Harvard at the same time as one of the Romney sons, and his networking allowed him to become acquainted with the Romney family quite well. Now, he’s actually a business partner with that family, helped in Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign in 2008, and if Mitt ever does win the Presidency later, he will surely be offered a high-level post in the Administration. None of this would have happened had he not spent the necessary time networking, i.e. if he chose to study harder instead. He wasn’t one of the top students at HBS - hence, his grades could probably have been better. But that doesn’t matter, for he obtained a social connection that is far more valuable. </p>
<p>Lest you think that was a peculiarly partisan political statement, I would point out that many of the members of the current administration are basically old Harvard Law School pals of Barack Obama. For example, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski was Notes Editor at the Harvard Law Review when Obama was Review President. Deputy National Security Advisor Michael Froman was one of Obama’s closest friends in law school, as was Deputy White House Counsel Cassandra Butts and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli. </p>
<p>That’s how the game is played; if they had not gone to Harvard, they wouldn’t know Obama and consequently they wouldn’t be offered those jobs. Nor would I characterize that hiring process as a matter of ‘scheming’, for Obama rightfully wants to fill his Administration with those he trusts deeply, and who can you trust more, if not your old friends? The takehome point is that social networks are a tremendous valuable asset to leverage when you’re trying to obtain top jobs.</p>
<p>And similarly, what is unpopular is not always right. I see no reason to believe that the unpopular career paths enjoy any special moral virtue, for it seems to me that less popular employers are just as susceptible to ethical crises as more popular employers are. For example, I don’t recall any beeline of elite MBA’s gunning to work for Adelphia, which was one of the least respected cable firms in the nation, yet that didn’t stop that company from being caught in a major accounting scandal. They certainly didn’t need any fancy MBA’s to blow up the company. </p>
<p>Elite MBA’s are not any more ethical than others, but I rather doubt that they are any less ethical. I suspect it’s a neutral indicator. </p>
<p>One day you may come to recognize this. </p>
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<p>You are free to stop responding in this thread at anytime. Nobody is forcing you to say anything. </p>
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<p>And I would remind you that I have the right to freedom of speech and I can express whatever opinion I want. Those who don’t enjoy my opinions are free to simply not read them. You have the right to express your opinions, and I have the right to express mine.</p>
<p>On the other hand, while we all have the right to our own opinions, we don’t have the right to our own facts. Most of what I have stated in this thread has nothing to do with opinions but are actual facts that were stated to correct dangerous falsehoods that you have been peddling. I think I have been quite careful in not stating many opinions - and when I have, I have dutifully labeled them as such - but rather to simply state the facts. Allow me to review them:</p>
<p>*The vast majority of top MBA students do not take corporate management jobs, but rather will take jobs in service-provider industries such as consulting and finance. Hence, looking purely at the management at Fortune 500 firms is a completely inappropriate proxy for determining the value of a top MBA program.</p>
<p>*Whether we like it or not, drinking and carousing is indeed an integral and infamous feature of the student culture at the top MBA programs.</p>
<p>*VC/PE and hedge funds have become arguably the most popular of employers among MBA students during the last decade. </p>
<p>*Many observers both without and within the B-school community have deeply questioned the value of the actual B-school curricula for its lack of practicality. As a consequence, many (probably most) MBA students at top schools consider the networking and the general school brand name to be more valuable assets than the actual education. </p>
<p>Consider the mordant words of Pfeffer & Fong 2002:</p>
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The fact that graduate business programs may be as much networking, screening, or recruiting services as educational institutions is an observation made by numerous others. For instance, Jill Rupple, a partner at the consulting firm Diamond Technology Partners in response to the question of why companies recruit MBAs, replied, “It is a prescreened pool” (Leonhardt, 2000: 18). Similarly, Seth Godin, a journalist from Fast Company who attended Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, argued that the core curriculum taught at business schools is irrelevant, and that the utility of a business school degree is to provide a pedigree rather than learning (Godin, 2000: 322).* </p>
<p>*The notion that top MBA employers will hire based predominantly on “experience” is simply not borne out by the facts, as many MBA students are changing careers and therefore by definition will lack prior experience in their new job. Furthermore, many firms, especially consulting firms, will toss newly-hired MBA’s onto projects of which they know nothing. Hence, not only will that newly hired MBA consultant know nothing about consulting in general, he’ll also know nothing about his assigned project either. Logically speaking, that can only mean that he will be forced to learn through OTJ training.</p>
<p>Now, having said all that, I should also say that you should take the time to examine the tone and spirit of your posts. Are you proud of them? Does recycling statements that are provably false engender confidence in your competence? To be fair, everybody makes mistakes, certainly myself included. Everybody will make statements that will later turn out to be contradicted by the evidence. The mature thing to do is to then learn from the evidence and revise your future statements accordingly. However, continuing to make those statements after being presented with contradictory evidence is nothing more than zealotry, and that is surely not something that you should be glad for others to see. I, frankly, would be quite embarrassed. </p>
<p>If you will not look (at the evidence), none can make you see. I’ve presented a fair bit of evidence that contradicts your beliefs, and I can present more if you would like. But it is still up to you to read and learn from the evidence. It is one thing to hold certain beliefs without supporting evidence. It is quite another thing to hold those beliefs without the need for evidence.</p>
I think a few great points have been made in this discussion. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say “lower than even schools like UVA, Duke, Cornell”. These are some of the best schools around. In fact, I’m an international student and I chose a school over INSEAD, LBS, Kellogg and even Columbia, even though I had admits there. I look at rankings with a grain of salt and don’t rely solely on them, as many do. Many of them are biased and have hidden agendas and are skewed. I also did a ton of research and spoke to experts before coming to this decision. I was waitlisted at Stanford and I’d have taken that had I got it. I didn’t even consider IMD nor do I think it comes close (though a good school, no doubt).
It comes down to your goals at the end of the day and any of the top schools such as the Ivy League ones and other reputed schools mentioned here, will get you where you want. Salaries might go up somewhere, down elsewhere, but overall they will be comparable. I won’t get into all the details, but have done enough research here. A few things to consider.
In some of the standalone b-schools, you can’t leverage other resources there. Scope is limited even in terms of interactions with people outside of b-school. They also tend to skew people in terms of backgrounds. Most of their placements are good because they take in people who were already at top consulting and banking firms. McK or JP etc. So, it’s nothing great to get them jobs back in the same firms as they were in before school.
Also in a 1-yr program when you know (many) are going back to their previous firms or within a similar group, how much learning will you actually do. I know my undergrad friends who went to some of these programs, and this was a major complaint for them. MBA is out and out an American innovation. The top schools here (Ivy League + reputed institutions) have a head start and will always be better than international schools. Again, this is not just looking at it from a holistic university perspective. The international schools follow a lot of things done here. I know a few exchange students who came from one of these programs and they were stunned as to how much better not only the resources but everything else here was.
From a global perspective, everyone has heard or knows of the Ivy League or other top Universities. For example, where I come from, everyone knows a Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Stanford etc. But many don’t know the other names (even other top US schools and international ones). Obviously, the employers know all the other schools (and to some, that’s all that matters), but it matters to a certain extent, when interacting with people from your community too (for me, personally). You tell them you went to MIT/Ivy League and they all look at you with awe. Tell them you went to say IMD or Kellogg (both terrific schools btw), but their reaction is much more subdued. I’ve even heard someone say ‘oh, is it the cereals manufacturer? have they started a school too?’
I don’t mean to offend anyone but just came across this interesting thread and shared my thoughts/perspectives.
I don’t think the 3rd place is at all contested. The fourth place is probably contested between Sloan, Booth, Kellogg and CBS. I think Sloan wins out of the three because it has the strongest reputation and name recognition and the parent institution (MIT) has the strongest recignition and prestige of these 4 universities. I have always thought it as