Harvard Business School
(Senior Chimp, 24
Points)
on 6/4/12 at 5:00pm
I just recently watched the CNBC special on HBS
and was wondering if the school is really worth the hype?
I have a lot of friends that went to ivy league schools and now regret taking on the debt only to get a job they could've gotten just by going to a nice (and much cheaper) public school...
It's worth it in terms of the
It's worth it in terms of the contacts/network and multiple job offers you take away... Does that count?
You can have all of those
You can have all of those things at any decent school. Especially, if it's a regional school and you want to stay in that region.
I guess what I'm asking is what is so unique about HBS? Do they offer programs that other schools don't?
It's about degrees. At a
It's about degrees. At a regional school, a 'normal' (i.e. a low) percentage of classmates will go on to extraordinary things. At HBS, its a much higher percentage. Almost all of your classmates are rich and/or brilliant and/or very charismatic...this does not guarantee professional success (far from it), but it does make it much more likely.
KingJayk: I have a lot of
I have a lot of friends that went to ivy schools and kinds regret taking on the debt only to get a job they could've got at a nice public school...
There's a difference between Harvard Undergrad and Harvard Business School, but either way this doesn't really add up.
The best public schools in the nation are UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Virginia and University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. I went to one of the two in California for undergrad and go to HBS now where a lot of my peers went to ivy league undergrads, so I have a pretty good perspective.
Let's take MBB as a proxy. Bain and BCG came to interview at my state school for internships - McKinsey didn't bother to show up. Bain hired 1 intern my junior year, McKinsey and BCG hired 0. Bain hired maybe 8 interns from Stanford for the SF office alone, and McKinsey and BCG both picked up several. The pool of students applying from Stanford was smaller than the pool applying from my state school. Technically, if I was the one student from my state school that got the Bain offer, I would have been just as well off as if I had gone to Stanford - but that doesn't mean the opportunities from both schools were the same.
This is fairly true across the board. A student in the top 5% of Berkeley or Michigan might have the same opportunities as the average student at Harvard undergrad - but there are many firms that recruit only at HYPS. If you want to work in PE/HF coming out of undergrad, the doors are far more open at Harvard than at a state school.
Now consider the b-school level. Remember, HBS only offers graduate degrees. MBB, BB Banks and top Tech firms were slobbering all over themselves trying to hire my peers. I would say that for every 10 students in my class that wanted an MBB job, roughly 5 got an offer for a summer internship. The only state school that really competes with HBS would be Haas (Berkeley), and that ratio at Haas is probably much less favorable. There are PE firms that recruit at HBS and Stanford that recruit literally nowhere else. Plus, the network that you get here is downright unmatched.
There's also this to think about: http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/05/18/schools-...
The kicker is that an MBA from Haas (Berkeley) or Anderson (UCLA) costs almost as much as an MBA from Harvard or Stanford. It's not like undergrad you can pay $50k and go to Harvard or pay $10k and go to UCLA. State b-schools and law schools are expensive - just as expensive as private b-schools and law schools.
From a non-target: If you are
From a non-target:
If you are able to attend WITHOUT taking on a ridiculous amount of debt by personal financing and well off parents, then absolutely.
Uncle went to Stanford (engineering) for UG and HBS for MBA and to this day claims he cannot recommend anyone to attend if the costs are a burden. He was on full athletic scholarships and would not have attended otherwise.
An MBA from a public ivy is
An MBA from a public ivy is worth it over HBS IF you can get a 40% discount on it and IF your main plans aren't finance. Ross opens as many doors for industrial firms and manufacturing as HBS does, and it costs $50K less if you're going in-state. IMHO, manufacturing is recovering from low ebb in 2009 and will be huge in 30 years, while finance is coming down from high tide in 2007- and will probably stay that way for ~15-20 years.
Energy is also a great sector to be in and UT Austin McCombs is a good school for that- opening more doors than Harvard or Stanford at a significant discount to those schools.
But yes, generally speaking, HBS and Stanford charge much less of a premium over the public ivies on MBA programs than they do on undergrads, and if your goal is finance, HBS is worth that premium. Then again, a lot of kids had their sights set on Sears or General Motors back in the late '70s.
Work hard, play hard.
In a "career" affiliations
In a "career" affiliations matter a lot more than achievement. Adding an HBS affiliation is powerful if you are not currently affiliated with a prestigious university. It's similar to saying that you worked at GS, or MBB (or the equivalent in other sectors, Wachtell, Lipton in Law, etc....)
When you meet people for the first time in a professional setting they will use these affiliations to form an impression about you. They don't usually ask/care much about what you have achieved and if they do, they seldom have the ability to measure or appreciate it. This matters the most for careers like finance or management consulting where you are selling a somewhat intangible service, less so if you actually rely on what you are able to produce, e.g. carpentry, baking, hair styling, cooking, some forms of self funded entrepreneurship etc...
relinquis... Killing the GMAT this December; Over/Under set at: 725 GMATs.
IlliniProgrammer: An MBA from
An MBA from a public ivy is worth it over HBS IF you can get a 40% discount on it and IF your main plans aren't finance. Ross opens as many doors for industrial firms and manufacturing as HBS does, and it costs $50K less if you're going in-state. IMHO, manufacturing is recovering from low ebb in 2009 and will be huge in 30 years, while finance is coming down from high tide in 2007- and will probably stay that way for ~15-20 years.
Energy is also a great sector to be in and UT Austin McCombs is a good school for that- opening more doors than Harvard or Stanford at a significant discount to those schools.
But yes, generally speaking, HBS and Stanford charge much less of a premium over the public ivies on MBA programs than they do on undergrads, and if your goal is finance, HBS is worth that premium. Then again, a lot of kids had their sights set on Sears or General Motors back in the late '70s.
you are completely insane
Why pay more for something
Why pay more for something than you have to?
I like Mustang GTs. I am willing to pay $25K for one, assuming it is a convertible. If someone comes along and offers me a Ferrari for $50K, I will probably turn them down. Sure, the Ferrari is worth a premium to me, but the Mustang GT gives me exactly what I want, and it's the kind of car that fits in perfectly in a small town like Holland, Michigan. The Ferrari might be a little more fun to drive, but again, it's not worth a 100% premium over the Mustang, and the Mustang makes me just as happy. I would rather save that $25K or do something with it that made my life happier.
If your goal is to retire in Holland Michigan rather than NYC or some wealthy enclave in Miami, a Ferrari really doesn't do you much good. If you want to do energy or manufacturing, you can save 50% on your tuition and Ross or McCombs is just fine.
Work hard, play hard.
Relinquis: In a "career"
In a "career" affiliations matter a lot more than achievement. Adding an HBS affiliation is powerful if you are not currently affiliated with a prestigious university. It's similar to saying that you worked at GS, or MBB (or the equivalent in other sectors, Wachtell, Lipton in Law, etc....)
When you meet people for the first time in a professional setting they will use these affiliations to form an impression about you. They don't usually ask/care much about what you have achieved and if they do, they seldom have the ability to measure or appreciate it. This matters the most for careers like finance or management consulting where you are selling a somewhat intangible service, less so if you actually rely on what you are able to produce, e.g. carpentry, baking, hair styling, cooking, some forms of self funded entrepreneurship etc...
I'd imagine you're probably not getting into HBS unless you're already affiliated with a prestigious university though.
^^^ Lots of state school
^^^ Lots of state school undegrads get in all the time, though it's still an uphill battle.
Work hard, play hard.
You can have a Ferrari 458
You can have a Ferrari 458 Italia or you can have a Nissan GT-R. Same performance but one has infinitely more prestige and is twice as expensive
Just saying...
^^^ Agreed. The question is
^^^ Agreed. The question is what do you plan to do with it. If it's for tooling around some rich neighborhood, ok, go with the Ferrari. If it's for drag racing, you go with the GT-R and save the money for mods.
Networks are good in manufacturing and energy, but beyond a public Ivy, prestige isn't really all that necessary. Heck, talk with folks in Ohio or Indiana or Michigan and they'll claim UMich is a better school than Dartmouth, and a lot of them think NYU is a state school.
So my view is that a kid debating whether to go off and work for a bricks-and-mortar F500 and going to HBS and trying to land at a hedge fund *may* (not necessarily will, but *may*) be much happier choosing UMich or UT-Austin and then following the career path that that school specializes in if that kind of career is just as enjoyable to them. There is going to be a lot of growth in energy as well as manufacturing over the next 30 years. There will be billion dollar car companies, clothing manufacturers, consumer product makers, merchant power generators, and more in 30 years that don't exist today. And a lot of them (not all, maybe not even most, but at least *many*) will be run by McCombs and Ross grads simply because that is what those schools specialize in.
That $70K of savings can then be used to take a risk working for a newer company or even do a startup with other folks.
To clarify, this route isn't for 80% of the forum, but a few folks reading this will be better served by this route- if they enjoy business, if they enjoy creating value, but they just don't enjoy working in finance as much as they would enjoy keeping the machinery of civilization running. For those folks, McCombs and Ross hold a significant comparative advantage, especially after you factor in the 50% break on the tuition.
Work hard, play hard.
Illini, as much as I like and
Illini, as much as I like and respect you, your post is insane.
Regarding the OP's post, i think redninja pretty much hit the nail on the coffin. First, grad prestige is much more important than undergrad prestige. Second, for an MBA, pedigree matters much moreso than med, phd, or even law. Those other degrees are required to practice one's chosen field, whereas you don't need and MBA to "practice" business or make tons of money. The prestige of one's mba, then, acts as a powerful signaling mechanism for employers when they decide who to interview and extend offers to. The top firms are packed with alums from the elite schools, so they intrinsically trust that adcom is accepting the "right" people who have proven themselves in the real world.
In terms of opportunities, a few anecdotes to bear this out. As redninja said, MBB hires tons from HBS. I think mckinsey alone hired around 90 from HBS last year (roughly 10% of the entire class). And a lot of the top PE, HF, and IM, only hire from HBS/Stanford and Wharton to a lesser extent. Examples of this that I can think of are soros, paulson, viking, KKR, blackstone, carlyle, bain capital, davidson kempner, baupost, york, och-ziff, capital group, ziff brothers, etc.
My best friend just finished his first year at a M7 (booth/kellogg/sloan/columbia). He will be interning at MBB in NYC, and during the sell weekend, he told me that the vast majority were from the other M7. There were a few from places like darden, ross, fuqua, stern. When asked, these students replied that they were one of the very few in their class to get a MBB internship. Contrast this to my friend's class, where roughly 70-80 got at least one of MBB. The difference is quite staggering. This confirms my view that even in strategy consulting, which hires a lot of MBAs, there's a big drop between M7 and the rest. And in buyside finance, there's a huge drop between HSW and the rest.
So yes, pedigree matters a ton in business school. And HBS is totally worth the debt and opportunity costs. Turning down HBS for a state mba, so you can save several hundred grand, which in the long-term doesn't mean that much, is a completely foolish move.
Brady, you have a long
Brady, you have a long history of M7 obsession. Then again, I have a long history of non-M7 obsession and we both have a long history of calling each other insane while debating some of this stuff. :D
Most of your comment revolves around finance and consulting. What if I told you that most of the new businesses in the US over the next thirty years may very well be in manufacturing or energy? That finance is going to be a shrinking industry- perhaps almost as bad as car manufacturing or middle-class department stores were over the past 35 years?
I think if you take some of this into account, the proposition behind a career in finance is less compelling. It has to be something that you absolutely love. I think that's true for 70% of this forum, but a lot of folks reading this may realize they enjoy building stuff and making things, and if that's the case, suddenly, these arguments about coastal prestige at hedge funds and PE shops don't matter so much.
Imagine it's 1935 and you're talking to a kid with an engineering degree who really loves cars. Yes, 20 years ago, the folks who made a lot of money all worked for hedge funds and had northeastern school degrees. This kid likes money, but he is a lot more passionate about cars than managing money. Do you tell him to go to HBS, or do you tell him to go to Ross?
With HBS, the kid graduates and *needs* to go work for that hedge fund. Meanwhile, tax rates go up, pay goes down, and eventually when he is 55, he is maybe running a pension fund or mutual fund and collecting $500K, inflation adjusted.
OR, you tell that kid to go to Ross. He graduates and goes to work for GM because he doesn't have the same debt burden. He gets to do what he loves. He gets to work on developing and marketing the automatic transmission. Eventually, he gets to help design the Chevelle, and follow his passion- cars. And when he is 55, he finally makes COO and also makes $500K- but doing something he truly enjoys.
If you love making cars or making stuff, you probably don't want to go to Harvard. (OK, *maybe* Stanford or MIT. *Maybe*).
When prestige is underpriced and undervalued- like it was in the '60s and '70s, that's when you go for it. My KIDS will be going to HBS if the economic cycle plays out like I think it will- just at the time everyone will be telling me I'm insane to be paying the premium. But right now, I don't see the catalysts I need to see for growth in the financial sector and I see a lot of catalysts for growth in sectors where prestige doesn't matter as much as networks.
Work hard, play hard.
IP, I respectfully disagree
Moreover, let's assume that
Work hard, play hard.
if you want to make stuff, an
relinquis... Killing the GMAT this December; Over/Under set at: 725 GMATs.
The new companies are still
Work hard, play hard.
I see where you're going, but
relinquis... Killing the GMAT this December; Over/Under set at: 725 GMATs.
I haven't seen much of that;
Work hard, play hard.
mulva?
^^^ UT Austin alumn. UT
Work hard, play hard.
Lol OP's a troll,
IP, Do you think you'll be
relinquis... Killing the GMAT this December; Over/Under set at: 725 GMATs.
protectedclass: mulva? Dolor
Relinquis: IP, Do you think
Work hard, play hard.
HBS is for risk averse
redninja: KingJayk: I have
Aimez: There are better
Money Never Sleeps? More like Money Never SUCKS amirite?!?!?!?
sayandarula: Aimez: There
Work hard, play hard.
sayandarula: Aimez: There
IlliniProgrammer: I like
"All things are difficult before they are easy"
- Thomas Fuller
@ Brady - you're right, IP
Over-rated.
It seems like a lot of HBS's
Gate_Crasher: Over-rated. Us
I love the IP vs. Brady
redninja: KingJayk: I have
IlliniProgrammer: sayandaru
Marked to Market: I love the
Spalding Get Your Foot Off
Does anyone else find it
The rule for MBA remains, top
seedy
My two cents (and seeing as I
"If you want to succeed in this life, you need to understand that duty comes before rights and that responsibility precedes opportunity."
wellfunded: saying you're a
YOU JUST GOT TROLLED
http://www.troll.me/images/red-foreman322/dont-you...
Brady4MVP: HBS accepts
Work hard, play hard.
IvyLeagueVet: The rule for
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
IlliniProgrammer: Brady4MVP