At a crossroads w/ school (McCombs, Sloan Fellows, Wharton EMBA)
Looking for some advice. I'm about 4 months in to the process of going for my MBA at age 34, w/ 14 years work experience. Through various interactions, I am finding myself being shuffled hurriedly to the EMBA path. My goal is to transition from entrepreneuership in tech to professional investing, ideally growth equity or private equity.
Here is what I have in front of me right now:
- McCombs - Interviewed, waiting on response. Interview went great. Working on talking to someone in the Venture Fellows program to learn more about that.
- Wharton - Rejected, but encouraged heavily to apply for their EMBA program.
- MIT Sloan - Rejected but being interviewed for Sloan Fellows (very cool they didn't make me re-apply)
Other schools I applied to were Harvard Business and Stanford GSB. I got a reject from Harvard and waiting on Stanford, but anticipating a reject as I've yet to get an interview.
My question is, where do I go from here? What's my best choice, assuming that I get offers at McCombs FT MBA, Wharton EMBA, and Sloan Fellows? I acknowledge that these are 3 very different programs.
I would avoid EMBA programs as they are generally viewed as inferior to full time MBA programs and are more costly. The fellows program appears to be only one year long. The UT Austin full time MBA is 2 years, so you get twice as much material and networking opportunities.
McCombs MBA is a top rated school with many of the best employers offering internships and recruiting directly from the on campus full time program. I think the bottom line is: the only comprehensive MBA program on this list is McCombs, which the other two offshoot programs can’t really compete with.
Good info.
Assuming I get into McCombs, do you think its worth applying to some of the other T20 schools that might rank a little higher than McCombs? I am thinking Tuck, Stern, Columbia, Haas, Yale SOM? Or are all of these schools comparable to McCombs?
FWIW I live in Austin, so McCombs is an easy choice, all things being equal.
It would definitely not hurt to apply to the other schools that are ranked as good or better than UT. UT is well known nationally and may even be a preferred school to recruit from for certain companies in Texas if the partners or principals graduated from there. I usually go by the latest US News rankings, which seem to be more realistic that the Financial Times and some other lists.
I have heard that investment banks recruit from the UT MBA program for associate roles. I have seen some people who have been able to become private equity analysts out of undergrad, but I think the most common path is IB analyst to PE, since PE companies like to know that you have experience with building technical models. Some PE firms may assume that someone with an MBA but no experience at the analyst level in IB won’t have the technical skills to succeed in the shop at the junior level. However, I’m sure the full time finance MBA program at any of these top schools will provide you with adequate modeling skills as well as coaching for how to address your non-finance background with interviewers.
Thanks for this. Sounds like I've got some work to do with more applications.
I think this time around, I am only going to apply to 2 more. 5 applications was a tremendous amount of work.
We've had many candidates accepted to the MIT Sloan Fellows program, and the feedback we've gotten is consistently positive. Some in the program are serial entrepreneurs. Some are sponsored (although fewer and fewer) by employers. The advantage is that it is a fully immersive (but shorter) program, and your classmates have the rich experience (or more) that you also bring to the table. Although SF lacks the career placement of the FT programs, it does provide career guidance and a fantastic network of people heading towards senior level and c-suite positions.
You might be interested in the following interviews in connection with SF.
Best,
Linda
Hi Linda,
I remember you from my last post! Thanks for giving more information. I've signed up for an interview, and going to give it my best so I can have all the options in front of me.
Sounds like a great plan!
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