Wharton, Kelloggs or Ivey

I am asking this question on behalf of one my friend. She has a strong resume (PhD in Medicine, 2 year volunteer with red cross in Africa, Harvard certification in some course) with GMAT score of 760. She already got scholarship from govt of canada for MBA (only if she do in canada) which is around 45,000 CAD$ almost half fees of ivey school of business. She is inclined towards applying for Health Care Management at Wharton as well but I assume she has to pay every thing through loans for it. She also has plans to work in Canada in future if it doesn't hamper her career growth.

I was looking at placement list of wharton
https://hcmg.wharton.upenn.edu/hcmg/assets/File/Copy%20of%20Placement%2…

After looking at it , I am not sure what to advise her. She just finished her PhD with no work experience. is it worth to do MBA on all loan from wharton ? IVEY or Wharton or kellogs ?. She is inclined towards consulting as far as i know..

Some advise will be appreciated.

Thanks

15 Comments
 

It's Kellogg btw. Not Kelloggs for Kelloggs Cornflakes. Get it right, please.

On another note, if your friend is picking between Wharton, Kellogg or Ivey...she probably hasn't done her homework enough. It's not like you're picking between Booth vs Kellogg...those three seem like pretty different schools.

 

You do realize not every one born in a rich family. She did every thing on her own from her primary school to PhD. She is 25 now and finished her PhD in Medicine. Any way what was your advise again?. Its hard for me to decipher the part of advise in above answer.

 
energyanalyst

Also since we are talking about Business schools. Is there any difference in compensation in McKinsey when they hire from Ivey or Wharton ?

Yes, there will be a difference, depending on whether the office is in the US or Canada. Within each country, compensation should be uniform, but see the following page for differences in starting salaries (at least for the undergrad level): http://managementconsulted.com/consulting-salaries/2014-management-cons…-interns/. Notice that if nothing else, there's a difference due to currency.

 

She did a good research as far as i know...Why she is selecting IVEY because its best in Canada and she will end up paying only 40$ for MBA. Wharton and Kellogg (give me one banana for spelling it correctly) both are best in Healthcare Management and they are only one in top tier which offer Health Care specialization. She has to take atleast 130k$ loan for above two US Schools. Money is a big factor for her when choosing from three B Schools.

 
Best Response

Why not tell her to apply to Kellogg and Wharton so that she at least has the option to choose? (I'm assuming she hasn't gotten anything yet because of the time of the year...) There's no point of debating which school where unless those are already viable options.

As for consulting - McKinsey, at least from what I've seen, seems to have a lot of PhD and heavy-schooling types, in addition to the traditional top undergrad + top MBA program consultants. But ivey vs. others, that depends on where she wants to work. If she wants to stay in Canada, Ivey could be a good option, and their alumni network in consulting is pretty decent. However, one thing to consider is the Ivey MBA being a 1-year program (changed somewhat recently from 2 year), which could potentially put candidates that didn't previously have a strong work exp/resume at a disadvantage. You may want to double check the timing (since INSEAD's 1-yr program, for the December intake, allows for summer internship) but a 1-yr program often doesn't allow enough time for your standard 2 month summer to do internships. If it doesn't, then that's something your friend has to consider (because that is typically a way into banking and consulting - being a summer associate, and getting the full-time offer pending business need and strong performance).

Wharton and Kellogg are obviously more world renowned names, but there is a higher cost. If she wants the optionality of working outside of Canada (well Ivey can provide that, but just with more difficulty), she should look at those schools.

 

I would advise her to apply for consulting directly right now, as I do not believe that would be a stretch in any way - I actually bekieve McKinsey holds a PHD in higher regards than an MBA, though I have no factual data to back this up. I don't see the reason to pay +$100k (plus a whole lot more in lost earnings, pushing total cost more towards $300k) to go somewhere she could go now. Even if she wouldn't start at the same level (don't think this is true), she would likely be there in two years.

 

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