Penn State Smeal MBA vs Georgetown MSF for landing a job in IB or PE

I'm currently working as a private equity accountant. I'm looking into getting a job on the fund side. Going back to school for an advanced degree may give me a better chance for it. I'm considering two options. For Penn State, the full-time MBA program is 2-years and the tuition cost will be around 50k for in-state. I plan to get related internship experience while doing the program. Not sure if MBA students can join the Nittany Lion fund. As far as I know, Penn State has a decent amount of alumni on the street.

For Georgetown, the MSF program tuition cost will be around 58k for 32 credits, after company's reimbursement. I will keep my job now. They do have a couple of residency requirements and I will have full access to OCR with an additional career coach. I think I have to stay with my current employer for at least 6 months after completing the degree.

Anyone have comments or suggestions on these two programs for landing a job in PE or IB? Or any other recommendations to land a job?

Thanks!

3 Comments
 
Best Response

Man, I don't think either of those are really going to get you to PE. They might work for IB or Corp. Dev., but I think even those would be a long shot. The issue you'll face is that neither of those programs have any real PE recruiting, which I think would make your transition really difficult. I think you're probably better off targeting an M7 school (and even within that, a top 5 will make a big difference).

Depending on your age, your best path might be to switch to transaction services or IB so you have some relevant transaction experience prior to making the switch.

Good luck!

 

Thank you for the generous suggestions! PE jobs might be quite difficult to get without prior PE working experiences. Will pen state mba be better choice to land a job in IB since its a two year on campus program and penn has a decent alumni connection?

 

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