Business School: Now, or later?
Hello. I'm a 23 year old junior at Penn State. I have a 4.0 so far and I am majoring in Finance. I am trying to decide upon the best course of action for me following graduation; whether it would be applying to business school, or working as an analyst first. My grades are strong but I lack "quality" work experience; however, I was a professional athlete for two years. I would appreciate it if some of the members who have worked in IBanking for a while would weigh in with their opinions on whether or not someone in my situation would have a shot at being accepted to a top business school right out of college, or if it would be better to pursue an entry level analyst position first.
I'm obviously not basing my career decision on the opinions of the board members here, but I would welcome any genuine experienced input. Thanks.
work first, you need to have experience
Even if you are able to get to the top business schools, the experience is very different depending on your prior work experience. For example, if you have never managed people or you have never lived office politics, many things will not resonate with you and you will not extract the tools and knowledge that can eventually make you a great manager or leader. Don't look at b-school as just another stepping stone, something that you just need to put on your resume to move on.
It can either be a very valuable experience where you hone in your intangible skills and make some strong contacts (the younger you are, the more difficult that will be), or you can just go straight out of college and think that straight-A's in b-school is what matters the most. I actually know of a couple of college students that had great experiences such as founding and running a business or two by the time they were done with college and still they were smart to defer for a year and go work for a larger corporation.
One good test is to pick up the Harvard Business Review and see if you can relate to some of the topics and if you find it interesting.
So you are saying that by working for a few years first, one will get more out of the business school experience. But couldn't you make the same argument the other way, that by going to business school first one would get more out of the first few years of working?
Interesting point, and you are right, you can make that argument. When you come out of business school, you will likely enter an associate class.
However, my opinion is that you are getting a short-term burst and in the long-haul you have shot yourself in the foot. Without any work experience, the MBA will give you technical skills and nothing more, so you will be able to apply them early on in your career and your first 2 years will obviously be more productive than if you had worked straight out of college when you didn't have those skills. The MBA program can offer you something special, in terms of advancing your maturity level and a solid network of contacts. If you are too young coming in, you are likely not to benefit much in either respect.
The MBA should not be viewed as a place to learn accounting. You're smart enough to pick up accounting on your own. If you're going to MBA for the technical skills, you're much better off actually working and learning them through industry experience. In fact, for jobs where technical skills and raw intelligence are most important, you probably don't need to get an MBA at all, and that should tell you something. Hedge funds have very little -- if any -- use of the MBA degree and many would rather hire from industry. (It is true that many of the more established shops require an MBA, simply because they don't want to train you and then see you take off)
That makes sense. Thank you.
Is it true that firms will pay for your MBA if you've been an analyst for them for a couple of years?
These were sweet deals during the boom years, but I'm pretty sure that's not the norm anymore. You almost definitely will not get them to pay for your school upfront, but you can negotiate sth to a similar effect through your bonus on the way back. It may vary though by company. FYI, you always have the exec MBA route. I've actually heard of a couple of ibd people that did that and I couldn't figure out how, but I guess some groups can be flexible.
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