<p>I've been checking out the salaries you can expect after graduating from a top MBA:</p>
<p>Top</a> 15 MBA programs</p>
<p>The article lists Harvard MBAs as earning upwards of 115k after graduation. I am wondering if anyone has more insight on this. Is this a typical salary, or are there a lot of 70 and 80k and a few 400k people that push the average higher? I'm also curious to see, what is the average salary of a top MBA student 10 years after completing the MBA?</p>
<p>i <em>think</em> compensation breaks down like this at the top programs.</p>
<p>PE/Hedge Fund (usually requires previous banking/finance): mysterious, but big $$$ (over 200k total)</p>
<p>I-banking: 180k (salary is around low 100’s, but you get a guaranteed bonus and signing bonus)</p>
<p>Mgmt Consulting: 170k (similar deal to i banking)</p>
<p>General management/corporate finance/etc: low 100’s. </p>
<p>Non-profit / save the world /etc : 40-50k</p>
<p>your chances at banking or consulting depend on the school’s strengths, your resume, your gmat, etc.</p>
<p>10 years out really depends on your goals and desires. </p>
<p>the people that stay in banking, finance, or consulting can make big $$$ at that point (high 6 figures, even low millions per year) …but there is a TON of attrition. the intense hours and travel schedules are not very compatible with family life. </p>
<p>after a few years, they often switch to the general mgmt careers at a high level (in corporations). those positions usually pay pretty well but not nearly as high as the intense tracks (think like 150-200k but 40 hrs/ week). they then climb to the CFO, CEO, CTO, etc. which is very well compensated.</p>
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<p>I laughed out loud.</p>
<p>[MBA</a> Pay: For Many Grads, Salaries Are a Far Cry from “Average” - BusinessWeek](<a href=“http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/09/0928_mba_pay/1.htm]MBA”>http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/09/0928_mba_pay/1.htm)</p>
<p>the slideshow and article above tells a very different story than most statistics.</p>
<p>just look at the employment report for any top school they all have them on their website, </p>
<p>median and mean are pretty close…</p>
<p>This is the most reliable so far – <a href=“http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/09/0928_mba_pay/1.htm[/url]”>http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/09/0928_mba_pay/1.htm</a></p>
<p>or this one</p>
<p><a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/107864/mba-pay-riches-for-some-not-all;_ylt=AoGE7Du77PZgJE2lzER0mJYJo9IF;_ylu=X3oDMTBvZXVjaGVlBHBvcwMxMARzZWMDYXJ0aWNsZQRzbGsDMg--?mod=edu-continuing_education[/url]”>http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/107864/mba-pay-riches-for-some-not-all;_ylt=AoGE7Du77PZgJE2lzER0mJYJo9IF;_ylu=X3oDMTBvZXVjaGVlBHBvcwMxMARzZWMDYXJ0aWNsZQRzbGsDMg--?mod=edu-continuing_education</a></p>
<p>But is there anywhere you can see the actual statistical distribution, like the bell curve or some actual data points?</p>
<p>^ Did you check the one I provided?</p>
<p>Ooh nice it wasn’t loading before … sweet resource, thanks!</p>
<p>^ The result actually shocked me. It gave me more reasons to believe that all the top schools can actually offer you opportunities. I used to keep on pondering why there are 20 students at the Haas MBA Class of 2011 who also got into Stanford GSB. I can’t think of any reason why they have done that. After looking at the salary table, I found out that Haas grads can actually earn as much as Stanford grads do. So it’s not really a big disadvantage if you’re not at Harvard or Stanford, as long as you’re int eh top business school.</p>
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<p>Just an argument I’ve heard, but some have said that although median salaries can be close for both schools, many more students from H/W/S go on to the TOP paying jobs that many (or at least a good percentage) than would a student from another top school. That is to say, if you’re looking for something in the 100-200k range, many top MBA schools can supply that opportunity, but if you’re looking for the huge bucks than you’re chances are much better at top programs. </p>
<p>I have no perspective at all on this view, would you care to share how accurate you think it is?</p>
<p>According to their (Newsweek) data all the top business schools do have alumni earning something in the range of 100-200k.</p>
<p>Business School Schools Ranking based on Salaries:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>UPenn-Wharton
Median Pay - $147,000
With no part-time program and a stellar reputation in finance, Wharton grads in this study might be expected to do particularly well. And they didn’t disappoint. Just 11% fell below the $100,000 mark and roughly a quarter earned more than $175,000.</p></li>
<li><p>Columbia
Median Pay - $137,000
21% of recent graduates were paid in the five-figure range. Still, more than half the class commanded over $125,000, and a very substantial 5% made more than $300,000. The biggest employer for Columbia’s full-time MBAs in 2008 was McKinsey & Co., with nearly 50 hires.</p></li>
<li><p>Berkeley-Haas
Median Pay - $123,000
Haas has a strong representation in general management as well as finance and consulting, with about a third of the full-time MBA graduates who found work in 2008 heading into a technology-related field after graduating. 14% of recent graduates from the Haas full-time and part-time programs made between $150,000 and $225,000.</p></li>
<li><p>Northwestern-Kellogg
Median Pay - $123,000
About 72% of recent graduates earned starting salaries of more than $100,000.
38% of students in the full-time class who found work found it doing consulting of some kind.
The school’s biggest employer that year was McKinsey.</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford
Median Pay - $120,000
According to official Stanford data, the top two industries for graduating MBAs are consulting and private equity, where grads fetch median salaries of $125,000 and $150,000, respectively.</p></li>
<li><p>MIT-Sloan
Median Pay - $120,000
MIT’s graduates are often bound for consulting or investment banking.
14% of recent graduates raked in more than $175,000.</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard
Median Pay - $118,000
HBS grads go into a wide range of careers, and receive an exceptionally wide range of salaries. The top 10% of earners brought in paychecks 708% the size of those in the bottom 10%.</p></li>
<li><p>Duke-Fugua
Median Pay – 111,000
Fuqua MBAs primarily head into financial services or consulting.
Most make over $100,000 and while that peters out around $175,000, 7% made more than $200,000.</p></li>
<li><p>UCLA-Anderson
Median Pay - $111,000
Financial services was the biggest industry for the class of 2008, but the top employers were more diverse: Deloitte & Touche, Walt Disney, and Citigroup.
According to the PayScale data, one in ten recent graduates from its full-time and part-time programs combined made more than $300,000.</p></li>
<li><p>Chicago-Booth
Median Pay - $110,000
Chicago has part-time and full-time programs with total enrollments of more than 1,000 in each. But the large and diverse student body didn’t seem to translate into graduates making less money. In fact, only 9% of recent grads reported making less than $75,000, and most made over $100,000. According to PayScale, just 2% earned salaries over $300,000.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Cornell-Johnson
Median Pay - $107,000
Cornell grads primarily headed into financial services in 2008, but a good chunk went on to consulting jobs as well.
About 17% of recent graduates went on to make more than $150,000.</p>
<p>NYU-Stern
Median Pay - $105,000
NYU regularly sends most of its students into financial services.
Its part-time program is twice the size of its full-time program, which might explain why PayScale’s numbers differ so much from NYU’s own accounts of graduates’ salaries and bonuses.
About 4% of students made more than $250,000.</p>
<p>Virginia-Darden
Median Pay - $105,000
Darden’s full-time graduates (there is no part-time program) historically have strong representation in consulting (22% of employed students in 2008) and financial services (35%), as well as manufacturing (13%). According to PayScale, 4% of recent graduates reported earning more than $300,000.</p>
<p>Texas-McCombs
Median Pay - $104,000
Many McCombs grads start their own businesses, while others go primarily into the financial services, consulting, and technology industries. Though there is a large part-time program and many grads remain in the Southwest, McCombs graduates command hefty salaries.</p>
<p>Michigan-Ross
Median Pay - $100,000
Ross, with its large part-time program, popular nonprofit and entrepreneurial institutes, and Midwestern location, may be somewhat hindered in terms of turning out top-grossing grads. But nearly half of Ross grads earned $100,000 or more, not a bad haul in anybody’s book.</p>
<p>U of Washington-Foster
Median Pay - $99,600
Foster students primarily found work in the technology industry, with 38% of full-time MBAs who found jobs in 2008 heading that way. The other strong industries were consulting (17%) and financial services (16%). Foster has a part-time program comparable in size to its full-time one in terms of total enrollment.</p>
<p>CMU Tepper –
Median Pay - $97,600
PayScale reported that about half of graduates didn’t earn more than $100,000, 3% hit it out of the park with salaries of more than $300,000.</p>
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<p>Those figures are actually deeply misleading, and is in fact one of my greatest criticisms of Payscale, particularly as it relates to MBA programs. Those figures measure salaries, but as savvier MBA students and alumni understand, salaries represent only one portion of the total pay package, and in certain industries - notably finance - represent only a small fraction of the package. What also matters is the opportunity for and size of equity and bonuses, and judging from the ongoing controversy over Wall Street bonuses, that is often times where the real money is made. </p>
<p>The difficulty is that bonuses are, by their nature, random. In theory, you might get zero. But what matters is that the opportunity is there. Investment banking and private equity salaries are rather unimpressive by themselves, but the bonuses are what makes those professions so lucrative. Similarly, salaries at startup firms are unimpressive, and if you’re the founder, the salaries are often times zero (to start). But what matters is not the salaries but rather the opportunities to become rich through the equity. </p>
<p>As a case in point, carefully consider the “salaries” of the 2009 Class of 2009 graduates of Harvard Business School. A naive examination of only the salaries would lead you to believe that investment banking (and its sibling, sales & trading) graduates actually earn less than consulting graduates, a notion that can be immediately dismissed as ludicrous by anybody who has even cursory knowledge of the two industries. IB & S&T graduates earn some of the lowest salaries of any of the reported categories, lower than even the marketing folks. Heck, even the vaunted hedge fund, investment management, and VC/PE folks do not make more than the consultants do when examining only straight salaries. </p>
<p>The reported overall salary figure of $114k are only $4k different from the reported Payscale salary figure of $118k; yet I think we can all agree that HBS graduates are making far more than just $4k of bonuses in their first year. Some of the starting finance guys may make that sort of bonus in a single week. </p>
<p>[Career</a> Hiring Data - MBA Recruiting - Harvard Business School](<a href=“http://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/mba/resources/career.html]Career”>http://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/mba/resources/career.html)</p>
<p>[MBA</a> Pay: HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL - BusinessWeek](<a href=“http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/09/0928_mba_pay/9.htm]MBA”>http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/09/0928_mba_pay/9.htm)</p>
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<p>See above. Ultimately, in terms of total pay, what matters is which schools can steer their graduates towards the industries with the highest bonuses, and lately that has been the finance industry, especially VC/PE and hedge/alternative investment fund management. Yet the fact is, only 14% of Haas MBA graduates enter the finance industry, as compared to 28% of Stanford GSB graduates, only 3.4% of Haas grads enter VC/PE as compared to 12% at Stanford, and only 2% enter investment management (including hedge funds) as compared to 10% at Stanford. Hence, I think it is quite clear that Stanford MBA’s enjoy a substantially better chance in landing jobs at the most lucrative professions. </p>
<p>[For</a> Employers - MBA Employment Reports - Haas School of Business](<a href=“http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/groups/careercenter/08_09Stats.html]For”>http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/groups/careercenter/08_09Stats.html)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/cmc/reports/documents/EmploymentReport_08_09l.pdf[/url]”>http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/cmc/reports/documents/EmploymentReport_08_09l.pdf</a></p>
<p>Now, whether those professions should be as lucrative as they are is an entirely different question. It’s no secret that I have deep suspicions of the social utility of the finance industry, and especially its compensation schemes. But that’s neither here nor there. For the purposes of this thread, what matters is what the overall compensation is for the graduates of a particular school, which is fundamentally unknowable given the stochastic nature of bonuses but can be guessed within a reasonable set of bounds, and which schools are more likely to provide better chances of entering those industries with high total compensation.</p>