Does SCHOOL Prestige compensate for BANK Prestige?
IB is largely based on prestige, especially for exit opps. Can a solid school name compensate for a no-name boutique?
I go to a T25 MBA (Cornell, Gtown, CMU, UNC) and am considering a no-name boutique after interning at a reputable bank. Would you say that it is a somewhat fair statement that one's prestige-image is moreso based on the higher of either MBA name or bank name? I imagine that if you come from a 30-50 ranked MBA and work at a no-name firm, that tells one that you are on the lower end of prestige. However, if one sees a 40 ranked MBA alum working for a BB, suddenly the school name doesn't imply much. On the flip side, I imagine that going to a target MBA (key distinction from ugrad since gpa doesn't matter in MBA) and going to a no-name firm tells one that you are relatively strong and probably had the ability to chose the boutique route.
Note: I do not care as much about my image in society. I know that no-name firms are harder for exits, but can an MBA name help significantly if I want to go LMM PE after 1 year in IB? I am happy with a very small, LMM PE firm; I get that I won't contend for MF/UMM and wouldn't especially care to go to those for WLB and culture purposes.
Any thoughts?
Gonna get hate but MBA Associates suck
Honestly, if I see decent MBA and no-name firm I would assume that person wasn’t able to secure a job at a more established firm
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I’d want to know a few more things before I took a job there:
How’s their deal flow? Is it M&A? What do the exits look like for the boutique overall? Did you scour linkedin for former employees in that group?
You look at the firm, not the school. It’s an MBA, it doesn’t hold nearly the same weight as having a top undergrad
Top undergrad is most important, MBA is a cope
Now this is something that most would completely disagree with. People choose undergrads for reasons such as socioeconomic status, scholarships, proximity to home, big fish in small pond, wanted small class sizes, a place where you can see yourself learning the most, where you would fit in socially, etc.
Students at top MBAs come from literally all schools. Start stalking HBS kids and you'll find that 20-30% of them came from ugrads one has never heard of. On the flip side, ~50% of HBS kids came from elite ugrads. Therefore, one could think of MBA as the great equalizer.
MBA is the flagship/final staple in your schooling that sets the precedence. Also, the reason that you go to MBA is specifically for career pivots or for moving up the chain aggressively, hence why recruitment and school name go hand-in-hand.
Great equalizer my ass. You summer associates come in and provide as much value as some sophomore ‘experience’ intern.
I did my undergrad at an Ivy and my MBA at H/S and I would say neither of you is fully correct.
Your undergrad is important because you need to beat out every single person across the world [who is your age] to land a spot at HYP. It’s not an easy thing to do. The people who are applying to business school programs is a much smaller cohort of people. BAs are required while MBAs are optional for almost all jobs. That’s why most people will be much more impressed with the average HYP undergrad vs HSW MBA student.
That being said, someone who went to ASU for undergrad and HBS for his/her MBA will likely be significantly more successful than someone who went to Harvard for undergrad and ASU for his/her MBA.
Agree with this. Not to mention a lot of people coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or from places where no one knows what finance is simply won't have had the support or awareness at age 15-17 to get into a top college. You could assume though that everyone in their mid 20's should know enough about the world to make MBA applications a more level playing field.
I don't think MBA is the great equalizer. For certain super prestige conscious fields, your Ivy+ UG + HSW MBA will still get preference over your T50 UG + HSW MBA. Hell I've even seen Stern UG + HSW MBA get passed over because Stern UG was thought of as too much of a trade school and lacked the old school liberal arts prestige.
Getting into HSW MBA is 5x easier than getting into HYPSM for undergrad. HBS does not hold the same weight as harvard undergrad. It’s a great booster for people from non-target undergrads but you will never be on the same playing field, when they look at your education, as the guy with even just a bachelors from HYP.
Sorry but a T25 MBA and no-name boutique isn't going to open any PE/HF doors. These roles are hard enough to land post-M7 MBA, let alone from a T25 with or without no-name boutique. Even if you were at a T25 MBA and landed a BB role post-MBA, landing PE/HF after would be hard. It's harder to transition after the IB associate role to the buyside vs the IB analyst role, esp without a solid buyside MBA network (which T25s don't have) to help.
PE/HF roles are more prestige driven and harder to land than IB associate roles. A big part of it is there are less roles. There's a reason T15 - 25 and beyond programs push their students towards IB, IB has big classes that hire a ton of ppl. This is also why IB is seen more of a backup plan for M7 MBAs, they'd rather land PE/HF/VC/AM post-MBA than do a few years of IB and try to transition after.
I'm not saying a T25 MBA completely closes the door to PE/HF, but it does make it much harder to land regardless of your first post-MBA role.
Appreciate the feedback! I will edit my og post to say that I hope to pivot into LMM-to-MM PE after a year or so. I have a couple PE internships and the IB summer under my belt fwiw. I'm no prestige whore and really just want to work on the investment ("buy") side since I just find the work so much more interesting after having gotten a taste of each in intern experiences.
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