Should I go to Wharton for an MBA this fall?
Hi everyone,
Long time lurker here. I'm supposed to go to Wharton for an MBA this August, and I'm really starting to doubt it. It's tough getting unfiltered answers from people, so I'm hoping this forum could help. Some more context below:
My background: I’m 28, and I just left the private equity job I was at the for the past several years to attend. I discussed this with my MD last year when things were a lot different, but once the application process got in motion, it was pretty hard to pull back.
I have a few main concerns about attending business school right now:
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Little-to-no capacity to build relationships and a social network. With everyone staying indoors due to covid, there will be little out of class interaction, no events or parties, and few unifying experiences to get to know my classmates, let alone becomes friends with them. This is a problem, because expanding my social circle was a primary reason for me to apply to business school. I come from the middle of nowhere from a lower middle-class family. I don’t have street connections, and I had hoped business school would’ve been a remedy for that. Unless we get a vaccine soon, that seems unlikely to happen now.
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Recruiting. The economy sucks right now, but Wall Street is doing fine thanks to the Fed. However, I’m worried all of the private equity firms are going to hold off on recruiting for the summer, and I won’t be able to find a spot. And if there’s no internship, then there’s potentially no full time job. That almost makes think I’m better off recruiting solo right now (or simply spending the entire first semester solely focused on recruiting for a full-time role and then dropping out).
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I have no clue when things are going to get better. Sure, some of the vaccine development looks promising, and if I knew things would be fine by January of 2021, I wouldn’t be worried too much. But right now I have no clue, and it’s possible I could spend a full year or even two attending the Wharton Zoom School of Business.
If the latter case ends up reality (two years online), then I think the business school experience would be more or less wasted. I already know most of the technical coursework – I graduated with highest honors from a target, and I’m going to place out of essentially 1 semester worth of classes at Wharton. I’m going to business school for the soft skills, and I don’t think I’d get any of those online.
The final point is fairly shallow and I hesitated to add it, but since I’m looking for advice, I might as well. I’m on the Stanford waitlist, and I don’t think I’d be having those same doubts if I were going there, largely because I really want to go to Stanford (although I won’t get into why). Does anyone have any advice on getting off that waitlist, or am I being hypocritical / incoherent given my above concerns? I think I might be; there’s certainly some underexplored emotional reasoning going on by me
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As an aside, I do have a pretty large merit scholarship for Wharton, which reduces the opportunity cost a lot, but I’m still worried that the opportunity cost is massive.
So, should I try to defer for a year and look for a new job? Or should I suck it up and just accept a sub-optimal business school experience? What can I do?
Thank you in advance, and I hope you can respond with kindness. I’m really confused right now, and it’s taken me this long to admit I need some outside help.
Are you thinking 'PE or bust' for post-MBA employment?
Yes, or else getting an MBA would have clearly been a poor decision, at least financially.
In the same boat as you and am planning to attend, thought process being as follows:
Already slightly above the “average” age for an MBA and don’t want to put it off further. This is less important but is certainly something I’m considering.
PE world seems less impacted in terms of hiring vs other sectors. Maybe there is a lag and this will change, but it is hard to say. I think in terms of recruiting in Jan to March of 2021 for internships the world is likely to be very different than it is today (hopefully for the better).
On the PE side most of the internships don’t convert to full time roles, so I’m expecting to recruit in Fall / Winter 2021 anyways for full time roles, thus less dependency on the internship converting. With significant pre MBA PE experience, I may even look to try something different out during next summer.
Already left my job a few months back and have been interning since then. The alternative to attending school at this point is to recruit for full time roles for a year, which seems difficult and a hard sell to any fund, or recruit for permanent full time roles and skip the MBA altogether, which frankly, if I thought I could get the roles I’d be happy with at this stage, I wouldn’t have applied to school in the first place.
Anyways, that’s been my thought process, as of now planning to attend. I’m expecting the first quarter / semester to be pretty much fully online, but hoping the situation has improved a fair amount by Spring. For most schools the majority of students at least domestic ones are moving to campus / the cities, so I think there will be a fair amount of socializing that takes place, even if not officially programmed by the school.
Yes, you should go.
1) You graduate in 2 years, the virus situation will have improved by then. Next year's MBA class is going to be tough given the surge in US applicants.
2) You're going to be at Wharton, you'll get a good summer slot. In a downturn like this, the lower ranked schools get hit the hardest. It's not like there will be zero summer internships.
3) What are you alternatives? You just 'left' your PE fund. Best spend 2 years at W vs having a gap year or two.
4) You have a scholarship! Certainly cuts down on the cost. Who knows how much money schools will have next year or two to give out.
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