What I've learned so far after 1 yr at a top MBA program (If I could do it over):

TheGrind:

The takeaways are in bold

If you get accepted to multiple top 10-15 schools, take “prestige” out of the equation.

I always tell the story of my good friend who passed up a full ride at Columbia to pay full freight at Wharton due to rankings. She ended up taking a corporate finance gig that she could have EASILY gotten out of Columbia. She was able to make peace w/ her decision, and loves telling people she went to Wharton, but those student loan payments are a painful thorn in her side.

At my current internship (huge global firm) there are people predominately from Booth, Columbia, Wharton, McCombs, Kellogg, UNC, Ross, and Fuqua, as well as a smattering of other schools across the top 20. I got a chance to look at their resumes and there are two (!) 780 GMAT scorers, a handful on full rides, some ex BB and MBB, and even a former FBI agent. In fact, I’m probably one of the least accomplished folks here! Fortunately, it’s hard to find any differences between us in work product. Recruiters will go after talented candidates at any top school. Your school choice will not help your chances if you are not already a top candidate. Huge lessons learned there.

Location matters:

I’m interning in Texas, and I can tell you that students of Texas schools are at a significant advantage here. If you know where you want to live post-MBA, and get into a school that you like in an area surrounded by firms for which you’d like to work, then you probably should go there over any higher ranked school much further away (all things being equal). One of my classmates wanted O&G but turned down McCombs, and he ended up spending crazy $$$ flying out there to network every week. He eventually got an offer at a top firm, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go that hard at recruiting for anything.

Fit matters:

Again, at the top level, candidates are very hard to distinguish. I will say, though, that at a self selecting school like Tuck (which I attend), you definitely notice more of a certain type of student: outgoing, outdoorsy, laid back, less rigid, hard partying –I like to describe them as next door neighbor types who just happen to be smart. Obviously, we have a number of stereotypical finance people and assorted douchebags but overall, they're not really representative of the student body. That said, through mingling with other schools, I noticed more of certain other types: Competitive, elitist, super driven, distant, overachieving, prestige obsessed, etc. Again, probably not entirely representative of any one program, but let's say you've got 2,000 students and only 10% are douches: that's still 200 douches running around out there! % might be the same but the aggregate # is higher. Schools, whether intentionally or not, attract or nurture certain cultures. Don’t try to force yourself into one you’ll hate for sure. I know a couple of people who have cabin fever out here every weekend, and conversely I have an old army buddy at HSW who wishes he were having as much fun as I am whenever we compare notes. He just hasn’t taken well to big city living. If it doesn’t feel right after 2 visits, don’t force it. Chances are the school tugging at your gut is the right one, and always go with your gut.

Don’t worship “Dream Schools”.

If you go in with the mentality of “School XYZ or bust”, there’s a good chance you’ll end up disappointed. Give yourself options! Obviously certain paths require you to ONLY look at HSW but for 95% of MBA jobs that isn’t the case. If you don't get into your top choice but manage to make it into another top program, count your blessings! Look at the placement stats, professors, alumni, etc of these schools: you could potentially pass up the right school for you over an obsession with your “dream school”. My mindset going in was: my stats are decent, my work experience is decent, GMAT pretty good, so I’m getting in SOMEWHERE. I could care less whether it was #2 or #12. Get me in and I'll take care of the rest!

In many cases your resume, and NOT your school will determine your recruiting experience.

Banking and consulting jobs won't care too much about your prior experience, but for anything else: Tech, CorpFin, Corp Dev, etc your resume and skills will be more important than your school. Going to a top school simply checks the box, but if you have no quantitative background whatsoever chances are you won't get any interviews for Senior Analyst or Finance Manager slots. If you've never touched a computer or done anything in the online space, Google, Apple, or Amazon may not come calling. Even if you're at one of their "target" schools. Your mileage may vary but those have been some of the complaints I've heard from my friends up and down the top 10.

Now good luck and happy hunting. Find the right program for you and the rest will take care of itself.

I'll be the first to SB this. Well said.

Nice post +1

SB'ed. Please keep on updating us through your summer and Tuck journey!

Really nice write up. The whole outdoorsy thing at Tuck almost scares me away a little bit. The partying aspect doesn't, though. How easy is it to travel in and out of Tuck? Take a train to the city?

Love it! You are right about many things, particularly about the power of the resume over the school. I have personal experience with that -- in that I didn't have a strong enough background pre-HBS, and so never could break into consulting. (Got over it pretty fast, but it just wasn't open to me).

Great insights thanks for posting!

TheGrind:

In many cases your resume, and NOT your school will determine your recruiting experience

In your experience, does this hold true for H/S vs Tuck / Columbia?

Don't want to hijack the thread, so I will answer over here: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/b-school-qa-w-betsy-massar-of-mas…

TheGrind is dropping real knowledge. It kind of throws some cold water on the whole notion of a complete career restart that an MBA should supposedly provide.

This is easily one of the best MBA related posts I've read on WSO. As much as I liked CompBanker's epic post on why an MBA, it was written before he started school and was a bit too idealistic and fluffy. This however is grounded in actual experience and maturity. Very well done.

I cannot add that much more value here, but I will throw in my 2 cents as a current M7 student.

1. I was utterly devastated when I did not get into my dream school, but I quickly realized that it matters very little in the real world. I actually ran into students from that school at a major investment conference, and they were bitching about how their location hurts them with respect to getting the jobs they want. This further reinforces TheGrind's point that location matters.

2. For the type of jobs I was targeting, it was clear that they cared way more about prior experience, fit, and motives for wanting this job, than what school I was at. Once you're in b-school and get that initial interview, it all boils down to your performance at that interview.

SBed!

Ok but let me confirm, because this is news to me:

If someone wants to work at a top tier post-MBA type position (for example, MBB, which would be my lofty goal if I were to do a MBA down the road) in say, Texas, you really believe that it would be better to go to McComb and do well versus going to say, Northwestern or Wharton and pitch for a Texas office? Am I understanding your statement correctly?

IMHO Asian candidates should NOT ignore prestige/rankings for fit/scholarship ... the higher the tier, the greater the percentage of recruiters open to sponsor Asians. Based on my own experience, its best to go for a Top-10/12 college if you are Asian.

No. MBB specifically doesn't often cast quite as wide a net as most other MBA jobs. M7- top 10-12 is a much safer play. I'd say for MBB and PE/VC it's a bit of a different ballgame.

It holds for most everything else, though: energy, tech, health care, regional investment banking offices (one of my buddies ended up at BAML Charlotte Lev Fin, and he says most of the other interns in that office are from Wake Forest and UNC) , CPG, Government, Media & Entertainment, Non-Profit, etc. Take a guess who Microsoft's biggest target school is for MBAs? University of Washington Foster. Got that off Poets & Quants but you should be able to confirm with a linkedin search.

Of course, the more "elite" the job, the more school brand will matter. Just make sure you're the type of candidate they'll want going in! I prob couldn't get MBB even if I'd landed at HBS, though. My undergrad grades and undergrad school brand were nothing to brag about!

What is the process of getting full ride for MBA? Is there a scholarship that needs separate application?

Great post.

Very nice post!

I`m an international student applying to b-school this year. My post MBA goal is IB in Houston. Would you think it is smarter for me to go to UT/Rice over, let's say, Booth or Wharton? please have in mind that I would have to network from scratch.

great info, thanks for posting

Great post! I always thought the regional MBA -> regional job idea held true but until now I've always heard otherwise. Thanks

IMO prestige always falls into the equation. It's a simple fact that someone from H/W/S or any M7 will get more looks on aggregate than someone that went to McCombs in both recruiting and in the long term. Even if you have to take weekend trips to network I'd say suck it up and do the legwork. You worked hard enough to get into a top school so what's the big deal? No one should choose a based solely on the location of their targeted field. And on that note, what if you do an internship in O&G and you end up hating it? What then? Prestige, your alumni network and countless other benefits of attending a M7 trumps a location disadvantage hands down.

As a rule of thumb, the more elite the job, the more elite the school you should pick, that's definitely true. But you don't have to be at an M7 to achieve great career success depending on what you want to do. For example, if you get into Kellogg and get a full ride to Duke, and you want to do Consulting in a Southern office, either one will do the job. Regional offices always reserve a significant % of slots for target schools in the area based on their recruiting agreements, and being a top candidate at one of those target schools immediately gets you a hard look.

Now there are companies with enough reach that distance isn't a problem-plenty of my classmates scored internships in places as far away as California and Washington, and I'm in Texas, lol. But at my office, even though many top 10-12 schools are represented, I'd say an easy 50-60% come from McCombs, if not more.

If the better brand is far away and as a result not a major on campus recruiting site, prepare to do crazy leg work. I'm talking about weekly flights cross country at the last minute-thousand dollar plane tickets or more not including hotel stays-just to do case competitions, schmooze with execs, do another round of interviews, or have an office visit. My buddy doesn't regret it, but he wishes he had budgeted for it beforehand. He had to get some additional funds from his parents to make it happen and because of the erratic recruiting schedule he didn't even have the job offer in hand until well into the spring. I don't need to tell you how stressful it was for him to keep up with classes, miss classes, see the rest of us get offers, disappear on weekends when group projects were due etc. But he only wanted to do that ONE thing. And it paid off. Obviously, situations will vary.

SB.

So you're saying my life is a lie??

Very insightful but I'd take this with a grain of salt.

A few observations: The X school or bust is heavily reliant on the person in question and why they're going to business school. If you're at a top PE firm, its pretty much useless to go to any business school other than H/S and to a lesser degree W. Similarly, if you're in IT in India and you want to work on Wall Street in banking in New York, you'll do just fine by going to any of the M7 so a H/S/W or bust isn't really as useful a strategy for you.

Bucketing the Top 15 in one category is a bit misleading, and frankly detracts from your credibility a bit and leads me to believe that you went to one of the bottom 5 in that cohort (not that it matters). There is an ocean of a difference between the #1 and #15. Unlike undergrad where there is a broad spectrum in the quality of schools you can go to (i.e., choose Harvard > Cornell > Vassar > Fordham > Utah State), in b-school there is the top few, the top 10, and everyone else. Putting HBS and McComb/Tepper/BYU/Kelly (I had to google these) in the same category is ridiculous. Frankly, putting HBS and NYU/Cornell/Yale is ridiculous. There is an ocean of a difference between H/S/W and the rest, and there is a large lake between H/S and W. Once the M7 mile marker disappears, you need two connecting flights to get to any of the other schools.

Again, like I said above, all these are considerations depending on your circumstances. If you don't work in finance and want to get into banking, you can potentially get there by going to a non-M7 b-school. If you work in finance/banking and you want your MBA for yourself/to do consulting/start-up/some other reason, M7 not a bad place to go. If you're already on the buyside and want/need your MBA, if you go to a non-HSW that juts doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Looks as if you're arguing several points I didn't actually make. I've stated time and again that as a rule of thumb, the more elite the job you're after, the more elite the school you should aim for and that certain paths require HSW. That's a given. What of everyone else, though?

Also, buyside jobs are a tiny portion of all MBA jobs. The average HBS student wouldn't so much as get a look at one of these firms. And quite frankly, not everyone will get into HBS. Then what? If you want to work at McKinsey or something I've got news for you: you have a pretty decent shot coming out of Yale SOM if you're the type of candidate they like. 10 out of the class of 2013 alone. Not bad for a class size of ~260. Just do a linkedin search and see for yourself. You want Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or Cargill? Check out the numbers that Darden gets in. You want to work in entertainment? Check out the critical mass of UCLA alum at the major studios.

And you're right. I'm not at HSW. I'm at Tuck. People here get whatever they want simply because their resumes matter more in the grand scheme. Because I'm in a national fraternity, I have friends up and down the top 20-and what I did was simply compile their anecdotes (and complaints) to create a set of general guidelines. Nothing here is absolute, and I always qualify with "depends on what you want to do and your situation". I celebrated with many of them as their acceptances poured in, and overall I'd say 80% plus within the "bottom half" of the top 15 have gotten what they wanted careerwise and I haven't witnessed any big dropoff in satisfaction from those who had the gall to turn down M7 schools, though to be fair only like 2 turned down W and none turned down H or S-HSW is pretty impenetrable. Furthermore, I know a good number who chose higher ranked schools for the prestige but got overwhelmed when they saw who they ended up competing against in their classes for those closed list slots! It's why I always emphasize that you make sure you assess how competitive you are for the jobs you want in the first place. I firmly believe that that matters more than which school you end up attending (again, within reason).

TL:DR I know, but you get my drift, lol

Forget the prestige, the only reason you are going there is to get a better job so in my view the recruiting statistics should be the number one criteria to rank your target shools, maybe a few other aspects could affect the ranking as well but job placement was my first one

I agree with most of your points Grind BC I have many friends who attend or graduated from M7 schools, who have said similar things. I, myself, considered b school recently and after meeting many Wharton students, I came away unimpressed and questioning the whole idea of b school FT. Everyone has different reasons for attending b school and I noticed that many "need" b school to change their lives, self confidence, etc. My friend recently passed on HBS for similar reasons.

Ultimately job searches come down to individual's resume BC the same caliber of firms are recruiting for the same positions at top 15 b schools. Yes, there are some firms that will only recruit from HSW, but those firms and oppts are the significant minority.

Throw me into the pile of people who made "bad decisions", I chose Tuck over Kellogg despite the latter being ranked higher gasp.

I'm targeting MBB, Parthenon, etc on the consulting side along with GM/Strat gigs with a few prominent F500 companies. For me given that placement is fairly similar, I chose based on fit, so Tuck was a relative no brainer for me. Additionally, while I didn't apply to HBS, it is probably the only business school I would have gone to over Tuck.

I get the need for tiers within the top 14 b-schools, but outside of certain finance jobs, the placement of the top 8 to 10 programmes are pretty much on par.

Deleted, duplicate.

With all due respect, you're totally off base here. First, as a current M7 mba student who went through finance recruiting, I can tell you affirmatively that for finance jobs, the gap between Wharton and Columbia is a small one. If you narrow that down to NYC finance jobs, the gap becomes almost non-existent. In fact, the Columbia location actually plays an advantage in terms of easy access to firms, both large and small. For example, I know for a FACT that a lot of NYC based hedge funds, PE shops, and asset management firms that don't do on-campus recruiting posted jobs on the Columbia Business job board but not at Wharton. Of course, Wharton is a better school OVERALL, but in certain areas the gap isn't that big.

You actually know people who went to b-school to improve their self-confidence? Wow.

As someone that went to a Top 15 program after spending 2 years in Oil & Gas engineering (and now am a Finance Manager) I would say the last point is spot on. I noticed most people would be selected for roles based on their previous experience. That being said the school matters for certain roles and for certain companies but all that information is on their sites ahead of time so it shouldn't be a surprise.

Finaly people starting to realize that it's the knowledge that matters not the school name. Took you a while.

huge help, and huge thanks to op! Although I'm not going into MBA and going into MSA(MAcc), this really solidifies my idea and decision! again, Thanks!

Great points and I agree that for most jobs, M7 schools have similar opportunities.

For anyone reading from outside of the US though, Marcus makes an important point and I'll reiterate the issues that my classmates from other countries were unaware of coming in.

Although prior experience matters, friends who were strong candidates for PE jobs (buyside in their home country,etc) were just naware how much more extensive harvard, stanford and to a lesser degree wharton's PE networks were compared to ours. This distinction should not be minimized.

Throwaway 111: At Columbia, many of those coming from PE want to go into HF, especially those in the value investing program, and they place well in HFs. Those from well known PE firms did get great PE /direct investing jobs afterward (top megafunds, family offices, etc).

So - is Columbia worth it? It didn't hold my friends back, but their prior experience played a greater role in their success. Those i know from top PE firms would all do it over again for the personal benefits, but professionally, I imagine they could have accomplished the same jump without school, so it comes down to whether the personal network justifies the tuition for you.

also fyi- friends from top consulting firms had a difficult time even getting interviews without visas ( excluding consulting and banking), and had no idea recruiting would be that restrictive. Some people succeeded, but many went back to their firms/home countries. Its important to be prepare for this and network ahead of recruiting. This applies to any US MBA program.

Glad I stumbled onto this topic!

I am 100% sure I want to live in Texas after my MBA. Where would you draw the line at choosing a higher ranked school over McCombs? For example, Ross and Fuqua are higher ranked than McCombs but not sure how much pull they have for getting a marketing/tech job in Texas. I'm leaning towards applying to M7+McCombs.

How far is Tuck “below” the other M7 schools? Is Tuck closer to Columbia than to Stern?

Almost all of the female MBA students are in a relationship when they arrive, right? Are there many hot girls at Dartmouth in general? If you’re 27, is it inappropriate to date an undergraduate? Are there mixers with the Med School (Geisel)?

Is Tuck a target for the IBD divisions of all the top banks, i.e. GS/JPM/MS? If you’re European / from the Middle East, will the BB’s in NYC be willing to interview you and potentially sponsor your H1B Visa? And what will they do if you lose in the H1B lottery after 12 months on the job – send you to London?

TheGrind & mbavsmfin: Thanks so much for your comments!! Much appreciated. What about the Europeans in your programs? Are they currently doing summer internships in NYC? Or in London (if the latter, did they do so by choice or because the companies preferred to send them back)? Did they face harsh restrictions on which companies they could interview with due to their Visa status? Do they want to stay in the U.S.?