H/S vs. W

swingswipe:

While being cognizant of the fact that this forum is meant to be for all types of discussion like this, if you are lucky enough to be accepted to any one of these three schools, you will have a ridiculous amount of opportunities at your disposal. If you are accepted to more than one and trying to make a decision, the difference in terms of exit opps, alumni, education, etc. is marginal to nil and it's more up to you with what you make of your specific experience. In the end, go to whichever of these schools you like the most.

Employers want the best candidates and no one in their right mind would ever say, "well I would like this same candidate with the same credentials more if they went to Harvard over Wharton, Stanford over Harvard, etc." (exception for alumni, but each school has its share of alumni at a myriad of amazing places to work).

This post should be a sticky in the b-school forum. There is too much jacking to for prestige here, people lose sight of what b-school is about.

W is not a "distant" #3 by any means and is still a powerhouse for finance. From the way I see it, you go to S for Tech/Entrepreneurship, W for Finance/Real Estate, and H for Management/Networking (particularly if you already have a finance-heavy background).

Will add my thoughts as I attended HSW and worked at a consulting firm where about 50% of each “class” went to b-school.

I would say the overall perception are the lines are “more blurred” as you stated. While the vast majority of people (both from my consulting class and those I met at welcome weekend) who were accepted into more than one end up choosing S or H over W, the feeling was it’s splitting hairs. The sentiment towards someone complaining they got into W but not H/S was similar to that towards an Orange County housewife complaining her husband got her an Aston Martin for Xmas when she really wanted a Ferrari.

However, when someone got into a lower MBA business schools ">M7 but not W, there was a noticeable “disappointment factor” which was sympathized by those around. Not saying this to be a jerk or talk down to other b-schools, just relaying what occurred. As such, it seems W is much closer to H/S then it is to the next tier. Lastly, as the moniker is HSW….it therefore does include W and it’s probably that way for a reason

For those any of those interested in the reasons why there’s delineation in the HSW tier and why H/S edges out W (as it’s been alluded to a little in this thread), I’ll give you my thinking:

1) Brand name of Parent Institute – Harvard and Stanford are well-known and have great name cachet with people from all walks of life. UPenn however does not. A huge number of people mistake it for Penn State to the point where there even are t-shirts sold on the UPenn campus stating “Not Penn State.”

2) Location – Stanford with its emphasis on tech/entrepreneurship ideally located in Silicon Valley. HBS is in Boston, a huge hub for strategy and consulting, which provides a great stepping stone to become a CEO one day (McKinsey is often known as a CEO factory). In addition, there’s a decent amount of PE/VC in the area (Boston is usually the second go-to spot for VC activity outside of Silicon Valley). Wharton is in Philadelphia where not a lot occurs. If it were located in NYC and near Wall Street, then maybe things would be different.

Obviously, things like quality of faculty and career placement statistics are more salient reasons why a b-school is more prestige than another. However, these are somewhat “chicken and the egg” issues as it’s hard to say what is the true cause. Is school’s faculty making it good or is a good school drawing great faculty? As such, I thought I’d mention more inherent reasons.