<p>My main focus is Business. It's what I want to do. I want my MBA...</p>
<p>So.. I could go to any undergraduate school (doesn't really matter if it's ivy or anything) since the important thing is where I get into for Graduate school correct?</p>
<p>Also, to prevent what is happening to me now, what are the basis for admissions at the best Business schools? What should I be focused on while I'm doing my 4 years of Undergrad?</p>
<p>I've been on the old boards, and i've read over and over that work experience is a MUST</p>
<p>For the first question, i believe it depends; there's no perfect yes or no to this answer; for some schools, sometimes the ug school is a factor; but if you have excellent work experience, it might not matter what school, grades i think matter too; i can't remember for that</p>
<p>Mag, you must plan properly. There are several factors that are extremely important to MBA adcoms. The top 5, in order of desecending importance:</p>
<p>1) Work Experience and professional recommendations (at least 3 years, preferably 4 years before applying). You must have demonstrated good leadership skills and results oriented performance that resulted in frequent promotion.</p>
<p>2) Reasons for wanting to get an MBA as stated in your application essays. Many applicants underestimate this. I know applicants from Stanford and other top universities who had 3.6+ GPAs, 4 or 5 years of great work experience and 700+ on their GMATs who were rejected by top MBA programs because their essays did not give a clear indication as to what they wanted to accomplish with their MBA.</p>
<p>3) Undergraduate major and GPA. Majors such as Economics, Engineering, Mathematics and Business are among the most popular. A 3.3 GPA is the minimum. Depending on the school and major, I would say a 3.5 + GPA is advisable. </p>
<p>4) GMAT. For top MBA programs, at least a 650. A 700+ is pretty standard at most top 10 MBA programs today.</p>
<p>5) Quality of undergraduate institution. As you pointed out, it does not have to be a top 10 or top 20 university. However, the better the undergraduate university, the better your chances. For example, last year's Wharton entering class had 800 students. They came from over 200 undergraduate institutions. Let us look at the 20 most represented undergraduate programs:</p>
<h1>1 University of Pennsylvania 50</h1>
<h1>2 Harvard University 35</h1>
<h1>3 Princeton University 30</h1>
<h1>4 Stanford University 25</h1>
<h1>4 Cornell University 25</h1>
<h1>6 Duke University 20</h1>
<h1>7 Columbia University 15</h1>
<h1>7 Dartmouth College 15</h1>
<h1>7 University of California-Berkeley 15</h1>
<h1>7 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 15</h1>
<h1>7 University of Virginia 15</h1>
<h1>7 Yale University 15</h1>
<h1>13 Brown University 10</h1>
<h1>13 Georgetown University 10</h1>
<h1>13 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 10</h1>
<h1>13 University of California-Los Angeles 10</h1>
<h1>13 University of Chicago 10</h1>
<h1>18 New York University 5</h1>
<h1>18 Northwestern University 5</h1>
<h1>18 Pennsylvania State University 5</h1>
<p>As you can see, the 20 most popular undergraduate institutions are all first tier universities. With the exception of PSU, all of them are top 25 universities. So obviously, the quality of the undergraduate institution matters a lot. But the above list only accounts for 350 students and 20 undergraduate institutions. Wharton's entering class has 800 students and them come from 200+ undergraduate institutions. That means that the remaining 450 wharton students come from 180+ undergraduate institutions. </p>
<p>In short, it helps if you go to a top university for your undergraduate education, but it is not necessary.</p>
<p>I agree with the tremendously cogent post of Alexandre.</p>
<p>In addition, I would add the following:</p>
<p>I don't completely agree with the notion that the only important thing is where you get into graduate school. In particular, the kind of job you take right after undergrad (the job you need to build the work experience necessary to become a serious MBA candidate in the first place) will always be important for your career path. If you want to go to IB after B-school (as many do), then the fact that you worked in IB for a few years after undergrad is vitally important. Put another way, if you get an MBA from Wharton, but you have zero IB experience, then you may find yourself beat out for an IB position by some guy who graduated from a lesser B-school, but who does have IB experience. </p>
<p>Second of all, whether your undergraduate school matters or not is a complicated question. It is absolutely 100% true that the most important criterion for getting into B-school is your work experience. That is far and away the most important criterion. But the fact is, the kind of work experience that B-schools truly favor is more readily attainable if you graduate from certain undergrad programs than if you graduate from others. Let's face it. The best jobs you can hold right after undergrad to get into a big-league B-school are IB and MC. I'm not saying that these are necessarily the best jobs to hold period, but it is indisputaable that in terms of maximizing your chances of getting into B-school, these are the best jobs to have. And those kinds of jobs are more readily attainable if you graduate from an elite undergrad program like HYPS. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you absolutely need to do MC or IB into to get into a major league B-school (because many don't), and I'm not saying that you can only get those kinds of jobs only if you go to HYPS (again, because many don't). But in each case, the odds are increased. So in that sense, the kind of undergrad program you attend is indeed a factor in getting into a top-level B-school.</p>
<p>"What should I be focused on while I'm doing my 4 years of Undergrad?"</p>
<p>The simple answer is to focus on courses that will enable you to obtain a very high GPA and show off your academic talents. A lot of students think they need to major in undergraduate business in order to be prepared for a top 20 MBA program. That is usually a mistake. Many MBA programs start everyone from the begining regardless of one's undergraduate coursework. Thus, an undergraduate business major may end up repeating courses in an MBA program and that is often a waste of time. In addition, some undergraduate programs are so good that their students may not get much benefit from an MBA. Undergraduate Wharton is an example. One exception -- a student who majors in undergraduate accounting may be highly sought by employers after getting an MBA. (Accounting is not for everyone, however. Good accounting students usuallly have good memories, enjoy detail, and enjoy problem solving.)</p>
<p>To be honest, I would say that much of the whole academic curriculum of an MBA program is, well, not terribly useful. Note, that doesn't mean that the MBA program itself is a waste of time, not at all, just the academics of it may well be. </p>
<p>And it's not just me saying it. Story after story, study after study about B-school education has concluded that many B-school students believe that the academics are only a secondary consideration, and what they're really there for are getting the "brand-name" of a school, to build contacts among your fellow students, and to get access to the alumni network. Actually really learning anything from the classroom is rarely a top priority. </p>
<p>""The connections, the networking, the 'being anointed' -- all that has value," he says. "What we are questioning is whether the education has value." "</p>
<p>"Recently, an investment bank was horrified to find that an MBA graduate it hired from a leading business school, an individual who had apparently taken a number of courses in finance, could not calculate the net present value of a future stream of payments. 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. MBA students bond and network" (Crainer & Dearlove, 1999: xix). Robinson's (1994) description of his life at the Stanford Business School is illustrative of many students' perspective. "Learning is not an explicit goal. Nowhere does Robinson address the issue of what he wants to learn""</p>
<p>The point is that if you want to say that having to repeat some business classes in B-school are a waste of time, then if you really want to go down that road, then I might say that all business school classes are a waste of time. But that's not really the point of B-school. The point is to network and socialize and build your contact list. If you have to repeat some classes and get bored doing so, does it really matter? If you're like most B-school students, you probably aren't going to care very much about your B-school classes anyway.</p>
<p>Can any elaborate on the differences (what you learn, jobs that go w/ it, difficulty, what skills would be good for it) b/w the business concentrations? such as accounting, marketing, administration, etc</p>
<p>"The point is to network and socialize and build your contact list. If you have to repeat some classes and get bored doing so, does it really matter? If you're like most B-school students, you probably aren't going to care very much about your B-school classes anyway."</p>
<p>I disagree with the above view. Getting an MBA from a top 20 schools is serious business conducted by dedicated students. You cannot get a job on Wall Street working in the financial markets simply because you are good a building networks and socializing. You need to understand how financial markets work. There is some debate on this, but in my opinion the best MBA programs use the case method where students read real life business problems where there is no one answer and then try to determine the best course of action. (Harvard and Darden emphasize the case method.) Real life managers face numerous problems with unlimited options and hope to figure out the best course of action. The case method best trains students to deal with these problems. And, yes, most MBA programs use a team approach to solve cases.</p>
<p>I knew you would disagree. That's why I listed the above weblinks that points to just the tip of the iceberg of the research that has been done that severely questions the value of the academic portion of the B-school experience. Whether you agree with the research or not, you must admit that the mere fact that there could be so much debate about it indicates that the evidence of the value of the academic side of B-school is not clearcut. </p>
<p>Nobody ever said that you could get a job on the Wall Street financial markets just by building networks and socializing. But by the same token, I think you'd agree that you also can't get those kinds of jobs just by studying to get good grades, and doing nothing else. I never said that the academics didn't matter at all. My point is that the academics in the grand scheme of things don't matter that much. To wit:</p>
<p>"Neither Pfeifer (1977) nor Dreher, Dougherty, and Whiteley (1985) found any effect of grade point average on either starting or current salaries. O'Reilly (2001), at our request, reanalyzed data from his study with Chatman on the effects of personality and intelligence on MBA graduates' subsequent career outcomes (O'Reilly & Chatman, 1994). He reported that U.C. Berkeley MBA graduates' GPA was unrelated to (a) salary increases over 3 to 4 years after graduation, (b) average salary of the job accepted, (c) the number of jobs held since graduation, (d) the number of promotions since graduation, (e) the number of job offers received upon graduation, (f) either job or career satisfaction, and (g) the person's fit with his or her current job. Burt (personal communication, Nov. 26, 2001) reported that data from a survey of women who graduated from the University of Chicago Business School showed that GPA had no effect on either income or the probability of reaching senior rank.</p>
<p>Williams and Harrell (1964) found that GPA in required courses was unrelated to earnings for Stanford MBA graduates, but that grades from second-year electives were correlated with compensation (see also Harrell & Harrell, 1974). Harrell interpreted this difference in the effects of core versus elective grades as reflecting the consequences of strong work motivation and working hard, rather than as an advantage from what was learned. The logic is that grades in elective courses reveal more about a person's willingness to expend discretionary effort. Weinstein and Srinivasan (1974), however, did find a statistically significant effect of GPA on compensation for their subsample of line managers. Srinivasan and Hanson (1984) also reported an effect of MBA's GPA on compensation, regardless of whether the MBA was computed on core or elective classes. Their analysis also demonstrated that this effect was not driven by the relationship between GPA and prior work experience.</p>
<p>This evidence, at best mixed, does not provide a lot of support for the contention that mastery of the subject matter of business schools, at least as assessed by grades, is related to subsequent performance in business. If the subject matter of business schools were directly tied to business success, there should be more consistent and stronger connections between business success and mastery of the relevant content."</p>
<p>Furthermore, you pronounce that you believe the case method to be the best possible method. However, you surely must admit that that leaves you open to criticism that you must necessarily think that schools that do not rely on the case method must be worse than those that do - or in other words, that Darden must be a better B-school than, say, Wharton, which tends to be highly theoretical. If that's what you believe, then that's fine, but you must agree that that's not exactly a mainstream opinion. I suspect that there are more Darden students who would rather go to Wharton but couldn't get in, than vice versa. Furthermore, you may want to consider the value of the case method in general, as explained in the following quote: </p>
<p>"...In a draft report published internally this spring, the schools' own accreditation body, the St. Louis-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, roundly criticized its members. Business schools, it said, are hopelessly behind the curve on information technology, have an unhealthy obsession with their standing in magazine rankings, and, worst of all, proffer an out-of-touch, ivory-tower curriculum. "Preparation for the rapid pace of business cannot be obtained from textbooks and cases," the report scolded."</p>
<p>Finally, about the notion that an MBA is serious business conducted by dedicated students. I suppose that depends on your definition of "serious" and "dedicated". I have no doubt at all as to the fact that all the students are highly ambitious and highly motivated to do well in their careers. </p>
<p>But as far as being serious students? I don't know about that. Consider this. Why is it that when you ask a Wharton grad what his most memorable experience was about the program, he is more likely than not to tell you about the Wharton Walk - the multi-bar pub-crawl that most Wharton grads do at least once (and many do more than once). We're not talking about some scrub, no-name, B-school, we're talking about Wharton here. I don't know about you but having an Animal-House style bacchanalia be a defining moment of your B-school experience doesn't exactly strike me as serious scholarship. Or how about the policy at Stanford GSB to give all students Wednesdays off - so they can play golf. It's gotten to the point that Wednesday at Stanford is informally known as Golf Day. Or how about the informal joke that if HBS and the MIT-Sloan School were to close down, half the bars in Boston/Cambridge would go out of business. It's a joke of course, but the message is clear - there really is a lot of drinking, partying, carousing, and, well, golfing going on at B-school. </p>
<p>Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that no scholarship happens at all. But what I would say is that compared to most other students of other graduate-degree programs, MBA students tend to be some of the least studious. Just compare how hard a typical MBA student studies to how hard, say, an MS or a PhD student studies. And it's perfectly natural that it be this way. MBA students know full well that they're pretty much guaranteed to graduate with their degree, whereas the master's degree and PhD students have no such guarantee. To flunk out or otherwise not finish your MBA is extremely unlikely to the point of being almost impossible. And those students know it, which is why they can drink and party and play golf so much. B-school has been referred to not just a few times as a 2-year social club, with a few classes thrown on top.</p>
<p>I'm not even entirely sure,as far as serious scholarship goes, that the MBA experience even compares favorably for many students to their undergrad days. Former engineering undergrad students tend to occupy the #1 or #2 block of all MBA spots. Most if not all former engineers will tell you that compared to how hard they studied as engineering undergrads, B-school is a walk in the park. They're really not studying very hard at all compared to how hard they had to study before. </p>
<p>Couple that with the fact that for most MBA students, this is, academically, the "end of the road". What I mean by that is that not many MBA students are interested in getting more education after they get their MBA. When you were an undergrad, you probably wanted to get high grades if for no other reason, than to maximize your chances of getting into some graduate program later on in life. For most MBA students, the MBA is the last degree they're going to get. So they don't have to worry about impressing a future school with their MBA grades. Couple that with the fact that many B-schools run a grade non-disclosure policy (they will not release your MBA grades to any employer for any reason and employers who recruit through the school's career services agree not to ask students about their grades), and all of that adds up to a less-than-serious scholarly environment. </p>
<p>Again, that's not to say that there isn't any studying going on. Indeed there is. But the point is that many if not most MBA students view the real value of B-school as the socialization, the networking, and the access to the alumnis, with the actual academics being a secondary consideration. Not a worthless consideration, just a secondary one.</p>
<p>Sakky, I like your posts. I must agree that for me, the valuable part of going to a top MBA program was the contacts, which 20 plus years later, are my business network. B school itself, at one of the very best, taught me little. Also agree that you have a tremendous advantage at top MBA programs coming out of a top college. Grads of most lesser colleges seemed like tokens in my program. If you look at Alexandre's numbers, UCLA, which is many multiples the size of any ivy, had 10 grads--a mere fraction of what the ivys sent.</p>
<p>Lisa, UCLA is an excellent school. As good as the "lower Ivies". The reason why only 10 UCLA grads enroll into Wharton is because most of UCLA's excellent students chose Stanford, Cal, UCLA and even USC for their MBA.</p>
<p>Same witrh Michigan. The reason only 15 Michigan students end up at Wharton is because most top Michigan students end up going to Chicago, Kellogg and Michigan for their MBA. </p>
<p>The reason why the Ivies send a lot of their students to Wharton is because Penn itself is an Ivy and because of geographic similarities and proximity.</p>
<p>But it is absolutely true that the better the school, the better one's chances...and UCLA is as good as they come.</p>
<p>Does geography play a role in determining the number of students that enroll at a particular graduate program? Of course it does. It is obvious that East Coasters prefer to stay in the East Coast just like SoCal-ers prefer to stay in SoCal.</p>
<p>But lisa filmore's point is valid - so does the sheer size of the school. If you simply have lots and lots of students, you are likely to send more students to a particular graduate school, just by sheer numbers. That' s not an indication of how good your school is, just how big it is. </p>
<p>Look at the UCLA Anderson School of Management's own numbers. </p>
<p>Anderson doesn't let me directly compare non-Californian undergrad programs to California-based undergrad programs. But you can compare California-based undergrad programs to each other. Specifically, look at the representation of UCLA undergrads at Anderson. In the ranking of California-based schools, UCLA is only #3 - behind Berkeley and Stanford, despite the fact that UCLA is larger than either of those schools (and in the case of Stanford, UCLA is almost 4 times larger in terms of undergrad population) - and, also not really truly "local". Any Californian knows that NorCal and SoCal are basically 2 different states in both culture and lifestyle which share almost nothing in common, who by historical happenstance just happen to be grouped together in the same state. In fact, every few years, there are rumblings about how California should split into 2 states. Obviously much of that talk is tongue-in-cheek, but the mere fact that people are even talking about it bespeaks to the difference between the two regions. Put another way - it takes about the same time to drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles as it does to drive from Boston to Baltimore, and you would have to pass through 6 states to finish the journey. The point is that I would hesitate to call Berkeley and Stanford "local" to UCLA.</p>
<p>Yet the fact is that UCLA undergrads are outrepresented at Anderson by Cal and Stanford grads despite the fact that UCLA has more students and UCLA is obviously far more local to Anderson than Cal and Stanford are. UCLA may also be outrepresented by some of the non-California schools too, I don't know (the data is inconclusive on this point), but the outrepresentation by Cal and Stanford is indisputable. In other words, UCLA doesn't even have top representation in its own business school despite the hefty advantages of size and locality. You must admit that that weakens the case that UCLA is "as good as they come". </p>
<p>Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the UCLA undergrad program is a bad one. Indeed, it is pretty good. But if they were truly great, then it should be absolutely dominating Anderson. After all, with more than 25,000 undergrads, they should be cleaning the clock in terms of Anderson representation of Stanford that has only 6.5k undergrads . To not only not dominate, but to actually get beat, well,...</p>
<p>Sakky, Stanford is not a lower Ivy. It isn't even an Ivy, but if it were, it would be up there with Harvard and Princeton. UCLA is about (not quite mind you) as good as the lower Ivies. Only Cal and Michigan are actually on even footing with the Ivies among state universities, but UCLA, UVA and Wisconsin-Madison are up there too.</p>
<p>"In fact, every few years, there are rumblings about how California should split into 2 states"</p>
<p>That's a fact?</p>
<p>When did I say that Stanford was a lower Ivy? Please point to me my direct quote where I said that.</p>
<p>I am illustrating the fact that even though Stanford has almost 4 times fewer students and can in no way, shape or form be construed as being local to Socal, Stanford still sends more students to the Anderson School than even UCLA does. I think that illustrates the disparity between the undergrad programs of Stanford and UCLA. At its own business school, UCLA has homefield advantage and has a massive numerical advantage and still loses to Stanford.</p>
<p>Sakky, my original point was that UCLA is comparable to lower ivies and other good universities. But I never compared UCLA to Stanford. Stanford is one of 5 universities in the country (H,P,Y and MIT being the other four) that is in a league of its own.</p>
<p>Alexandre, please rethink this. The huge undergrad population at UCLA might prefer the top Cali schools, but only so many can get in. So of course the apply widely all over the Country. Their representation at top B schools is telling. UCLA does not get a fraction into top programs of what the ivy schools do.</p>
<p>And that's exactly the point I was making as well, alexandre. It is of course true the HYPSM are in a league of their own. Yet I would hesitate to even say that UCLA is comparable to the lower Ivies. I believe that if the Anderson School were to release the number of entering students according their undergraduate program, and then we scale those numbers by the populations of those programs, UCLA would rank lower than the lower Ivies, despite the fact that all the Ivies are located in the East whereas UCLA is located (obviously) in LA. So even with home-field advantage, I would argbue that UCLA does not stack up well, on a per-capita basis, with the lower Ivies in their own graduate business school. That is telling.</p>
<p>Sakky and Lisa, I am not going to waste my time defending UCLA. That would take too much time to research and I actually hate that school and the city it is in! LOL But I do believe that a student from UCLA with the same credential (GPA, GMAT, work experience etc...) as a student from an Ivy League will be given the same consideration and will have the same opportunities as the Ivy Leaguer.</p>
<p>Defending UCLA as somehow being equivalent to the Ivy League would indeed be a waste of time. After all, Lisa and I have both pointed out that if you just look at the numbers for the undergrad backgrounds of the students at UCLA's own business school and adjust them to the sizes of the student populations, then UCLA does not compare well. Simply put, UCLA can't even defend its own home court against the Ivies.</p>
<p>Or consider this other way of looking at matters. I doubt that, measured as a percentage of the student population, you'd find few students at the Ivies, even the lower Ivies, who would rather be at UCLA, but couldn't get in. I believe you'd find a larger percentage of UCLA undergrads who'd rather be going to an Ivy League college, even one of the lower Ivies, but couldn't get in or perhaps couldn't afford it than vice versa. </p>
<p>Finally, you point to a straw-man. I don't know if it's particularly relevant to talk about comparing UCLA grads with the same credentials as Ivy League grads. This is particularly true of the work experience angle. Simply put, it is easier to get the kind of job that will impress business schools by coming out of an Ivy League college than from UCLA. Hedge funds, investment banks, private equity firms, consulting firms, and the like tend to hire more students, as a percentage of the student population, out of the Ivies than they do out of UCLA. Now don't get me wrong - I never said it was impossible to get such a job by coming out of UCLA. But it's harder. When such firms do show up to Westwood, they got swamped by the hordes of UCLA students trying to get jobs with them. If you happen to be one of those UCLA students who is applying for a job with one of these companies through UCLA Career Services, you have to compete against the boatloads of all the other UCLA students who are trying to do the same thing. The point is that it's harder. Not impossible, just harder. Ivy League graduates, on average, have a leg up on UCLA grads for these sorts of positions. </p>
<p>But don't take my word for it. Again, the proof really is in the pudding. Look at any of the top business schools in the country, including Anderson, and compare the undergrad alma maters of the students, and scale that number by the population size of those alma maters to get the per-capita basis. It should be plainly evident that much of UCLA's representation in the high-end graduate schools is not so much a function of quality as it is a function of sheer size. </p>
<p>Look, whether you agree or disagree with the above, I think we can all agree on one thing. You can't just claim to be a strong undergrad program just because you have lots of alumni in top graduate programs. You also have to look at the size of the undergraduate program. UCLA is obviously going to send lots of its alumni to top graduate programs just by the weight of sheer numbers. UCLA sends lots of its alumni everywhere - good places, bad places, etc. - just because UCLA has lots and lots of students. The real question is where do the alumni wind up on a per-capita basis.</p>