<p>Nephew has full ride to Wharton MBA with tuition and position to pay living expenses or HBS with no aid. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Is this a serious question?</p>
<p>LAWL</p>
<p>Take the free-ride dude. Yeah, HBS is godly, but a full-ride at Wharton is just an amazing deal! You’d be insane to pass it up and take on a large amount of debt for a school that’s only slightly better.</p>
<p>I’m interested in knowing the circumstances in which he/she got full ride at Wharton MBA and having to pay every penny at HBS. I’m tempted to call flame.</p>
<p>Didn’t even know top MBAs gave full rides, would love to be in his spot.</p>
<p>This is my nephew, not me. Wharton is offering full tuition fellowship. Living expenses are through a Wharton research related job (sounds very interesting in it’s own right) 20 hours during academic year, full time summer. He wonders if in the future the savings will appear negligible and if he will regret not going to HBS.</p>
<p>*He wonders if in the future the savings will appear negligible and if he will regret not going to HBS. *</p>
<p>Oh please. Tell him to put his big-boy panties on.</p>
<p>How would he pay for Harvard? If he’d be paying with loans…or if he’d be paying with parents’ money that is needed for THEIR future…he’d regret going to H.</p>
<p>Why not ask this in the MBA forum? To find it, go back to the main page that lists all of the forums and then scroll down.</p>
<p>Being offered this kind of support for an MBA program is extremely rare. Your nephew must show exceptional promise. If money is not an issue, I would advise him to think very carefully about what he will gain from the research job. He may prefer to turn that down if it really doesn’t interest him. However, if money is a factor then this is a no-brainer. He should take the offer from Penn.</p>
<p>It’s true that Wharton does offer such fellowships: [The</a> Wharton MBA Program | Grants and Fellowships](<a href=“http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mba/admissions/grants-and-fellowships.cfm]The”>MBA Tuition Costs, Fees & Financial Aid Info | Wharton MBA).</p>
<p>And for the curious souls: <a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?;
<p>As to OP’s question… Way beyond my league :)</p>
<p>I turned down princeton and brown simply because berkeley and ucla gave me almost full rides. In these hard times, you can’t be too careful</p>
<p>The difference in quality between the two is so negligible that one would have to wonder how smart your nephew really is if he is seriously considering paying full-price over a full ride.</p>
<p>He should keep in mind that paying back loans for MBA wouldn’t be a problem at all for a HBS MBA (and Wharton MBA). If his heart is set on HBS, then he should go to HBS. Even though some people on this board would disagree with me, for MBA, HBS and Stanford are on a tier of their own.</p>
<p>agree with knights00. Go for full ride. Both schools are great, so go for the one that is free.</p>
<p>@knights09: that’s not true. There are certain industries that are only open to hbs and Stanford mba’s. Whartonites would kill to get them. That said, a full ride makes this an extremely easy decision.</p>
<p>Just curious…what industries are ONLY open to Stanford and H MBAs?</p>
<p>Are they something on Wall Street? And what are the early salaries?</p>
<p>BTW…how much would one have to spend (total COA for entire program) for a H MBA? </p>
<p>And…if that had to be borrowed, how much would the payments be for 10 years?</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids: Off the top of my head - Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Hedge Funds. There are others as well. Can’t remember those. But these industries defintely aren’t worth the extra 180K.</p>
<p>So, you’re saying that the COA for the TOTAL program is $180k? Is that $90k per year for 2 years?</p>
<p>Well, if you had to borrow that much, that would be a loan payment of about $2k per month for 10 years. That’s not peanuts…it can make a difference with what kind of home you can afford to purchase. Crazy to pay/borrow when there is a free option.</p>
<p>Princeton dreams - no, while h and s are slightly more prestigious, the difference is tiny and pe, vc and hedge funds know this. they’ll take a slightly better whartonite over hbs or sbs person any day. for the record:</p>
<p>pe: h>s=w
vc: s>h>w
hf: h>w=Chicago>s</p>
<p>my take: use some of that 180k that you are saving to start a business, practice investing, or take professional development/ language courses, all else equal, you’ll come out better than you would have from hbs</p>
<p>^ It’s around 180K for both years. I think they list COA as like 75K a year, but my brother-in-law, who is an alumnus of the MBA program at Penn, said students usually ended up borrowing around 170K over the two years to finance the program. Random costs added in it can go up to 180K.</p>
<p>While I agree that a Wharton full-ride is the reasonable choice, this isn’t the same financial decision as undergraduate debt. Yes, mom2collegekids, $180k is the cost for two years. An HBS grad should NEVER take 10 years to pay that back, though. The average grad makes $160k the first year out. You can live on $60k easy for a couple years and then pay back all the loans. For that matter, to get into HBS and a full-ride to Wharton MBA in the first place, the individual was probably already making $80k+/year and should have saved up a decent sum. Yes, MBA is mostly about networking and making more money. So, I could see a reasonable person choosing HBS over Wharton if they decided that the Harvard case system was to be a better fit, but to say HBS will offer you way more opportunities over a Wharton grad is a joke. </p>
<p>Yes, HBS and Stanford GSB are considered the top two, but it’s a MAJOR stretch to say private equity, hedge fund, and VC firms (any one of them) recruits exclusively at HBS and Stanford GSB. Do they recruit heavily at those two? Yes. Are these prestige-centric? Yes. But Wharton is pretty universally considered a top 5 MBA program and many say it’s #3 so you aren’t giving up much (if anything). Historically, Wharton arguably has a stronger alumni network, primarily because it also has an undergrad program wherein its grads go on to prestigious corporate positions. </p>
<p>In conclusion, Wharton is the obvious choice but choosing Harvard over Wharton isn’t as insane for an MBA program as it would be for undergrad assuming your nephew is planning to go into the high paying fields and not education or non-profit. I would personally avoid debt and choose a great program in Wharton, but again, it’s not complete insanity to choose Harvard since it will probably only take a year or two to pay it back.</p>