<p>in term of "ability" means skills</p>
<p>Yeah, like Jeff Skilling!</p>
<p>Harvard B-School Adcom: "Are you smart?"
Jeff Skilling: "I'm f*****g smart"</p>
<p>That one kills me every time</p>
<p>
[quote]
Besides, the cost of an MBA at a top school is easily covered by your increased earning potential.
[/quote]
that's just not true. there was actually this sort of ranking in the recent businessweek with Best B-schools on the cover (couldn't find it online). they ranked by the time you get your money back in years. the top ones were not top ones. Baylor was number one. they also had the worst, among which which were Chicago at number 1, Harvard at 4, MIT, Dartmouth, Columbia, and Stanford.</p>
<p>Students that get into top programs also have higher salaries before hand so the oppertunity cost is higher for them in terms of a return on investment. Top schools usually have a 1/3 former consultants and investment bankers who's salary is pretty high. </p>
<p>But if you look at the big picture, the class of HBS 4 years after averaged 195k in salary. In the long run, the oppertunities open to students of top programs is what makes it worth it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
that's just not true. there was actually this sort of ranking in the recent businessweek with Best B-schools on the cover (couldn't find it online). they ranked by the time you get your money back in years. the top ones were not top ones. Baylor was number one. they also had the worst, among which which were Chicago at number 1, Harvard at 4, MIT, Dartmouth, Columbia, and Stanford.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I read that study, and I am afraid that I find it fatally flawed, for a number of reasons. I will enumerate them here. I presume that we are talking about the same study.</p>
<p>1) The study only measured compensation by salary. Yet the fact is, many MBA positions, notably finance positions, are largely compensated not by salary, but by bonus. For example, a bulge-bracket Wall Street Ibanker will probably make 250k in his first year out of MBA. But of that, less than half of it will be in salary. Similarly, joining a startup company will probably pay you very little salary, but plenty in stock options and other equity, which has the chance of making you filthy rich. Hence, looking only at salary gives you a highy highly skewed and straitened view of the value of the MBA.</p>
<p>2) Many people who enter an MBA program don't really have a "choice" anyway. For example, the majority of entering students in any top MBA program are coming in from consulting or banking, and the way those industries are structured are that, except for those rare people who get promoted to associate level straight away, you get a 2-3 year gig and then you are expected to leave the firm to get an MBA. So you don't really have a choice of just staying in your current job. If you want to keep moving up in your industry, you basically HAVE to get your MBA, because that's the only way you can return to that industry. Hence, what that study is presenting is, for most people at the top schools, a false choice.</p>
<p>3) Most of the value of the MBA is obtained probably 10-20 years afterwards anyway, and the study did not capture that. For example, the most popular position of any top MBA program is consulting. Consulting really isn't all THAT well paying, when you consider the hours they work. But people do it not because of the immediate payoff, but because it opens doors later in your career. It is considered to be a fast track to management. But the payoff from that will happen only decades down the line.</p>
<p>Number 3 is true, but it is something that the study shouldn't have included as it was measuring the length it would take to recoup your investment, not overall value. Secondly, i don't understand how Baylor could take the number one position for a study as such, the starting salaries of finance and consulting still surpass the low level management, logistics and accounting jobs that many find after their program.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Number 3 is true, but it is something that the study shouldn't have included as it was measuring the length it would take to recoup your investment, not overall value.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree. But that's just a reason for why payback period is not always a good measure of financial value. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Secondly, i don't understand how Baylor could take the number one position for a study as such, the starting salaries of finance and consulting still surpass the low level management, logistics and accounting jobs that many find after their program.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>While I don't have the study in front of me, I would surmise that the source of this is that incoming Baylor MBA students had a relatively low starting salary to begin with, hence they really weren't "losing" all that much money by getting their MBA. Hence, the payback period is shortened. On the other hand, people coming into Harvard Business School or Stanford tended to have high incoming salaries, so they were effectively 'losing' quite a bit of money by getting their MBA, hence lengthening their payback.</p>
<p>But like I said, that seems to be a flawed comparison. Like I said, most Ibanking and consulting analysts are going to 'lose' that salary anyway, whether they got their MBA or not, because their analyst job is designed to last only 2-3 years. Granted, they could have taken a job in regular industry, but they would be making less and would no longer be on the fast track. If they want to stay in their industry, they basically have no choice but to get an MBA from a top school.</p>
<p>Secondly, we are talking about entirely different groups of people here. Somebody who was an analyst at Goldman Sachs is probably not going to want to get his MBA at Baylor. If that's the best he can do, then he would probably choose to get that regular industry job, simply because a Baylor MBA is probably not going to help him achieve his career goals. Similarly, most people who go to Baylor MBA, frankly, have no shot at Harvard or any of the other top MBA programs.</p>
<p>maybe you just assumed this, but the big reason that Baylor took number 1 is the price of their MBA program. </p>
<p>the balance on the right says $6,100 per academic year without housing which they estimate to be about $4,500.</p>
<p>It would seem that you get what you pay for.</p>
<p>i found the article at my doctors office, BYU actually ranks number 1, not baylor</p>
<p>it seems someone forgot to inform Goldman Sachs, BCG and McKinsey of these rankings.</p>
<p>Actually there is no need for them to hear about this since the likes of Bain to Goldman Sachs already recruit at BYU, actually every major bank minus morgan stanley recruit at BYU as well as some small private equity firms</p>
<p>I'm sure they do. And I'm also sure the number of offers given out by top employers is dwarfed by that given to students at HBS, CBS, Wharton, and Stanford GSB.</p>
<p>There are a lot of really strange rankings of MBA programs out there.</p>
<p>
[quote]
maybe you just assumed this, but the big reason that Baylor took number 1 is the price of their MBA program. </p>
<p>the balance on the right says $6,100 per academic year without housing which they estimate to be about $4,500.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think the source of this 'cheapness' is Baylor's calculated 'assistantship', which I can only asssume is something like a TA or RA position provided to students. However, it should be said that most other schools also provide TA or RA positions which would dramatically cut down on the costs. The difference seems to be that perhaps Baylor guarantees such a position, whereas other schools don't. However, from what I have seen, if you really want such a position, you can usually get one. You may not be a TA for the class you want, or for a desirable timeslot, but you can usually get something.</p>
<p>However, plenty of MBA students opt not to do this, for the simple reason that it takes up time, and they would rather use that time to do what they really came to B-school for, i.e. the networking and the recruiting. Frankly speaking, when you're talking about an elite MBA, a savings of $20,000 a year, frankly, isn't that much money. After all, the top investment banking positions pay about 300k a year now (salary + bonus), and private equity positions pay around 450k. If this is the sort of thing you are shooting for (and for many people at the top MBA program, it is), then you want to spend your time judiciously to maximize your chances of getting these jobs. Spending your time as an RA/TA is probably not a good use of your time.</p>