Online MBA for Career Change
Has anyone here used an online general MBA to break into IB? I've narrowed it down to a few schools that seem decent and don't have too many horrible reviews on other forums. This would be for a mid life career change. I'm was an intelligence analyst in the Army so I do have some analytic skills.
Investment Banks only recruit full time two year MBAs. No online, part time, or executive MBAs.
Not true. I am interning for a BB from a Top 15 (FTMBA ranking) part time MBA - there were 5 total my year and 8 last year from the part time class. I personally know 2 EMBAs from the same university that have successfully recruited - one EB and one BB.
I was at a top-15-ish MBA and had plenty of veteran classmates. Have also directly hired veterans from MBA.
I would not only not recommend an online MBA, I would generally not recommend MBAs outside of the top 20, maybe top 30 (e.g. Emory, GT, Rice, etc.) if you are open to regional corporate jobs or regional boutique banking/consulting.
What constitutes "mid life"? Did you use your tuition assistance already?
Also, have you taken the GMAT yet? If you're trying to avoid it, I would recommend just biting the bullet, studying and taking the GMAT to potentially unlock another class of business schools, particularly if you are doing something part time (also known as "fully employed" MBAs).
Finally, I would not be dead-set on IB if you do attend an MBA. There are plenty of other options at Fortune 500 companies and other roles that I would stay open-minded to, that are very solid exits for anyone, including Veterans who typically get a shot at their own recruiting pipeline.
Best of luck to you!
I actually managed to get an admissions interview for UNC Chapel Hill for their online MBA about two years ago. However, life got in the way. I'm considering reapplying.
I have, very anectodally on sites like Poets and Quants, read decent things about UNC Chapel Hill and they probably have among the better online programs, if you must do an online program. Just be aware of the general pitfalls of doing a degree online (no on campus recruiting, no in person networking with peers, having to take classes online; aka a large part of the MBA value). Also a lot of students there will be employed in a job already and trying to "check the box" to go up the ranks in their current company and learn some skills. There will be fewer career changers; probably 90%+ of a full-time MBA class plans to change functions and/or industries.
Also, if you're not doing this already, do reach out to as many alumni you can of whatever school you're looking at. You can filter LinkedIn pretty handily to find veteran graduates in different industries or positions. Then make sure to reach out and ask for 10-15 minutes of their time.
Select T15 PT programs will get a person to IB, but I agree it’s an outlier case. I know because I’ve done it along with 10+ of my peers over the last two years.
Just make sure you can access OCR and network well, which means a pure online program is a no-go. Plenty of PTers are placing into BB and some EB.
You can disregard a lot of what's been discussed above about full-time vs part-time vs online... all of those comments were assuming a top 15 or top 20 MBA program. These two programs are not even in the discussion. They are not at all selective. A quick google search and SNHU's acceptance was over 90%, GWU's reportedly 100%. Perhaps these degrees have some value to some people, but neither will offer even the slightest chance of improving your odds of getting into a competitive banking role. You cannot attend a program with no selection criteria and expect that to propel you into one of the most selective industries in the world. No MBA at all would likely be better than proving you could not gain admission to an even moderately selective program.