Berkeley vs Chicago Booth
Have been fortunate to have the dilemma of choosing between Haas and Booth. Admits are for their part time programs. Currently work as a software developer, and interested in moving to IB/Investment management.
I live on the West coast but would have to fly to either school. Chicago flight would be longer.
Wondering about which school to go to. Thanks for your input/
It's going to be tough to switch into IB going part-time...but I'd go with Booth.
career switchers shouldn't do the part time program, id hold off and re-apply to FT programs.
I agree with the idea that if you're trying to do a career switch you shouldn't go part time
the women are ugly at both places.
2nd reapplying and doing full-time. Booth is an excellent program, but you need to be a full-time student for that career reset button to really work.
You NEED that internship to career change (especially to IB). No question about it. I would advise you against even a 1 year MBA, let alone part-time...
I'm sure there's been the odd guy who's transitioned from a random field (ex software) to banking through a part-time program but it will not happen for the majority of people. Swallow the loss and reapply. How competitive are you for fulltime?
part-time? no chance. you are done.
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About how competitive, I have an MS in Comp Engg. from a top 10 US engg program. I have a 720 GMAT and a 3.4 GPA. Also have passed CFA 1st level. The issue is, I have family with 10 yrs work experience in my field - so going without salary is difficult. Current salary is 140K base (west coast) - so giving that up will be hard on kids.
Both Booth and Haas told me that they have the same OCR access for part time and full time programs. Is that not true?
Berkeley told me that part-time students have access to internships thru OCR as well. Booth says no to internships for PT students.
Both Berkeley and Chicago also told me that most PT students can quit work if they don't think that the PT is going to enable the career switch. With same OCR access, quitting work effectively makes you a FT student since you can take courses at a faster clip.
The question is what am I missing? Why do you guys say PT won't work? Do they ask you at interviews whether you are PT or FT?
Can help you out with this as a FT Booth alum currently in IB and actively engaged in Booth recruiting.
1- PT students are not 'allowed' to attend the FT recruiting events. Typically a few PT students try to attend, but the are asked to leave pretty quickly once OCR finds out you are at the event (and they always find out...your name tags are even different).
2- As others have said, an internship is pretty critical for a career switcher (especially software ->IB). The skill set and work demands are entirely different, so banks are going to want a good amount of time to evaluate you.
FWIW- we did hire 1 PT student last year, but this was through extensive networking, and he also was coming from the finance field.
PM me if you have any questions.
I think the internship is absolutely essential.
If the internship wasn't an issue are there other reasons against going PT? I imagine like the OP that it is difficult to go without a salary when there is a family involved
The most important thing for me as a career switcher was to have an identifiable "break" in my career trajectory to demonstrate that my career was taking an entirely new path. I felt I needed this as part of my story, in addition to all the other things mentioned above. If I stayed at my current job during my MBA I wouldn't justlose out on an internship, networking etc, but I would appear to prospective employers as just another [Insert career here] with an MBA.
1 yr MBA is shaky, if it's Kellog or INSEAD you can do career switches but any other program (Emory, etc) I would not recommend.
In general why do a 1 yr anyway, it's a networking degree you'll have 2 yrs to network over 1, meet more people and have more fun, you're working the remainder of your life, take time and do 2 yrs, it's far better than the 1 yr, albeit the 1 yr still has attractive value proposition.
what about mutual funds, bonds, hedge funds? equally impossible to transition through the part-time program? i know IB will definitely require internships. I was wondering about the buy side jobs, analyst/ portfolio management.
thanks for all the info - i appreciate the feedback.
I don't mean to be discouraging but you should know these things before committing to a part time or one year program. I hope it works out for you, but the last thing you want to do is travel to a different city once a week and drop tens of thousands of dollars only to be stuck in software engineering.
Also, I don't mean to be a dick but it surprises me that the adcomm didn't blink at this. I assume you put that you wanted to transfer to IB after 10 years in software in your application. That seems like one of those unrealistic goals that gets you dinged. Then again, maybe the adcomm knows more than we do and you really can do this out of PT at Booth, but I find that really unlikely.
Good luck
You're in software dev right, unless you're going into backoffice with AM or hf funds how can you goto front office? Makes no sense. Kellogg doesn't even let part timers access career services for the most part, you're not invited to recruiting seminars and you can't access many of the resources afforded to FT students. If you want to make such a drastic switch with your career, it behooves you to think carefully about what a part time program can do for you. If I were you I'd talk directly to students in the program to get their feedback, but I suspect it will for the most part mirror what has been posted on this site.
I'm a Kellogg alum so that is my perspective from Kellogg.
Good luck.
part time is half assed weekend warrior...
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