Dear all,
I have been fortunate enough to be accepted to Cornel (with half scholarship) and Darden (with no scholarship).
For now, my goal is to get into management consulting but am also researching the IB option.
In the coming months, I will decide on one path.
Putting scholarship aside, which is a better MBA program?
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Two great options. I have friends who studied at both programs. My views (not including the money):
Management consulting (Darden) - Darden blows away Johnson. Darden is a very strong consulting school and you'll have great classmates to case with and partner alums to network with, this makes a big difference. I'm not sure what offices each school place into. I have heard Johnson struggles with NYC given CBS/Stern is there and does more md-west placement, so don't assume Johnson can get you to an NYC MBB office. Would imagine Darden does very well in DC and the surrounding area.
IB (Johnson) - you can make it from both but Johnson definitely has the edge. Johnson has a highly structured IB program, that being said - you can certainly land IB from Darden. If there was no money at stake and you wanted to do IB, I would suggest you pick the school you like the best.
Overall MBA experience (Darden) - Darden seems to be a better overall experience than Johnson. Johnson's rep is the program is more of a vocational MBA program that trains you well (esp in IB) and then spits you out to the market. Darden is not an easy program by any means, but has more of an MBA culture with b-school shenanigans and a robust alumni network that carries you post-MBA. Johnson pushes the broader university much more than the MBA program, so any MBA culture gets diluted. As such, the Johnson post-MBA network really isn't there, but you'll have Cornell instead. Darden's post-MBA network seems to be fairly strong and cohensive.
Good luck!!!
Thank you so much.. I highly appreciate your response.
So I will try to see if Darden throws some money here. $80K cost different is a massive amount from where I come from.
For Round 1, I will need to put the deposit and if Darden does bulge a bit, will I be wrong to go with Cornell?
In round 2, I will apply to Stanford, LBS, Yale, Tuck, and Ross. Don`t know how these programs will respond to me but at least I could have more choices.
I would not consider going to Johnson a bad decision on a half scholarship.
However, you do need to know what you're walking into. I suggest you decide what you want to do before you arrive on campus (IB vs consulting) and if possible do a pre-MBA internship in a related role. There are MBB pre-MBA summer programs you need to apply to if you want consulting.
Once you're on campus you need to find a core group of smart ppl in the same career discipline as you. All the T15 / T20s like Johnson have M7 type students but much less of them and there for the $. Find a very smart core group to prep with and avoid prepping with the weak students.
Regarding round 2, if you can land a much better school (S or LBS) the decision becomes very different. If you can land a program like SOM, Tuck or Ross, it becomes more about how much money you can get from the other schools and if the money difference is enough to sway you vs Johnson.
I've known ppl who picked schools like Johnson over M7s due to money and totally regretted it and others who did not. It really comes down to what you want (job only vs job/MBA experience/MBA brand) and how valuable this is to you.
Best of luck!
Don’t think you need to apply to Yale or Ross unless you are trying to go from half to full scholarship. Would just go to Cornell over Darden with the $.
Darden for sure. Cornell does well in IB but underperforms in consulting.
As a Johnson alum I would agree with the above that if you want consulting you should go to Darden. Definitely a stronger program for consulting.
Given that Darden would cost me 80K more, would u still say so?
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