Any thoughts on which business schools have are the most "academic", in that what they are doing is less vocational and more conceptual? I.e., which MBA programs are most similar to Ph.D. programs? If someone was less worried about learning how to be a mover and shaker and more worried about gaining a deep understanding of the mechanics and fundamentals of business and finance, where would you tell them to go? M.I.T.? Wharton? Darden?
| +40 | Wharton Huntsman Program vs Yale vs Dartmouth | 40 | 1d | |
| +32 | Umich Ross vs Rice vs Notre Dame Mendoza | 17 | 1d | |
| St Andrews vs LSE vs Middlebury | 19 | 1h | ||
| +26 | Target School Kids Stop Complaining | 6 | 1d | |
| +25 | Oxbridge or Top 15 US School. | 7 | 1d | |
| +23 | Imperial College Finance Masters' | 5 | 2d | |
| +20 | LSE BSc Economics vs Cambridge BA Economics | 7 | 1d | |
| +18 | UK/EU MSc's in Finance | 7 | 1d | |
| +14 | Succeeding at Penn CAS? | 3 | 4h | |
| +14 | Engineering vs Business degree? | 7 | 20h |
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Get a PhD or Masters in Finance then. MBA is nothing but models and bottles for 2 years.
Well, there's a middle ground, things don't always have to be that extreme. OP could come from a non-business background like engineering and may want to focus on academics in his MBA - that of to read financial statements and set corporate strategy for example, without going into the extreme of getting a PhD
Not MBA. Most academics do MAs then PhDs.
Yeah MBA's are apparently awesome. Someone once wrote that if it weren't for MBA schools a lot of bars would go out of business.
To answer the OP's question, I'd say either Sloan (MIT) or UChicago.
I'd go to a school, like Penn (STATE)! Nothin' is better than partying and getting laid!
From the suburbs...
There is a guy that works here that went to Penn State. Well by work here, I mean he drops off our dinner orders on his bike.
hahahaha... but you should SEE that bike!
That's fine for your undergrad, but if you get a fucking MBA from Penn State you can expect to be very poor later on.
But their top 50!
umm...usnews rates it below 50. dunno what happened in the 2008 rankings though. BW puts it at 40 something. its ranked 13 among public schools, which seems fine. i feel more than rankings, what would give u a better idea is the school's placement record, mean/median salaries and the companies that recruited on campus. If those match with ur career aspirations and the program is solid...then it's fine.
i wouldn't go to penn state for an mba if you want to do investment banking... its a good corporate mba though.
hilarious blast about the Smeal biker........
Q: How do you get a Penn State grad off your porch?
A: You pay for the pizza.
Of course, this works with any school.
taking the time and money off to get a MBA that's not at the very least in the top 20 is considered an extermly poor investment by most studies.
top degrees in quantitative finance (master's) like princeton, Mit, etc. are the most academic of the sort.
variances in academic rigor & workload between top 15 b-schools (Originally Posted: 02/16/2012)
I was curious to know if people could provide a general sense of those top-15 MBA programs that are known to have a rigorous academic program, in comparison to those who known to have a somewhat more relaxed workload approach.
...By no means am I looking for a cake-walk, however I think this my play a factor for those like myself who will need to dedicate significant time towards an independent internship/job hunt for non-traditional career fields, where on-campus interviewing will likely not be possible.
For most schools, first year is just plain busy but not exceedingly difficult. 2nd year should be cakewalk.
I don't know about too many schools, but some of the associates in my start class had said that Darden was pretty brutal in terms of day-to-day course work.
B-school is not academically challenging. The purpose of the degree is as much social as it is academic.
CMU Tepper (quant method) and UVA Darden (case method) are well known to have brutal workloads. The quant oriented schools in general will be tons of work - Booth, Sloan, Tepper, etc.
Overall your MBA will be as busy as you make it. If you study something like marketing, and are not a leader you can cruise through with little work. If you are an active leader (deep involvement in clubs, etc), focus on something quantitative like finance, get good grades, and actually bust ass to network / interview you will absolutely be working your butt off. In this economic climate there are no do-overs and top companies are looking to hire the best. In my experience, the people who skated through b-school are the people who didn't get good jobs.
I worked my effing butt off during my MBA. I was the president of one of the professional clubs and got really good grades.
I agree. The MBA is entirely what you make of it? I spent majority of my time working on a med device startup Kellogg financed through one of their entrep programs. Yes my grades did suffer a little because I was on the road constantly pitching to VCs, but at the end of the day I learned 1000x more about running a company and about myself than any class could've taught me at the school. Point: grades and academcis should not be one's sole focus at a good program.
Some of the most important words impacting your b-school decision:
Grade Non-Disclosure Policy
You will thank me later
Care to elaborate?
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