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Congrats. I was in your same shoes and chose the GSB. I now work in West Coast tech investing.

I would say partially depends on where you want to end up. If interested in tech/West Coast, GSB will have more access and indeed, smaller pool of peers competing for those roles. If interested in East Coast, you'll have less access from the GSB and generally more challenging time logistically (i.e., every interview requires 1.5-2 days (1 for travel and 1 for the interview), which is harder to swing with class attendance policies). East Coast firms are also more likely to have on-campus presence and just more alums from HBS given proximity.

Beyond that, the experiences are pretty different, so you'll probably want to weigh social experience, coursework, weather, etc. in deciding.

 

I would say generally no, as HBS has great (potentially more robust) private equity resources given their scale. The biggest negative is slightly smaller West coast alumni network, coupled with more competition given larger class size and a more finance-leaning bent to the class.

At either school, a lot will come down to the quality of your existing experience (caliber of shop, references/reputation within your firm, #/size of deals closed, portfolio company experiences). Your cohort of fellow PE associates will have faced a quiet market (2022/2023) with more limited deal experience, so if you have closed deals, I think you'll be fine at either school. If you haven't, you might get lost in a big cohort of peers seeking PE jobs, with potentially superior experience to you.

 

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