Years of Work before MBA - Page 2

Wharton. Assuming this thread hasn't been a trolling attempt the entire time, of course, what's troubling to me is the lack of research you seem to have put into the process. If you really did score a 760 on the GMAT and are now deciding between Sloan and Wharton, then congratulations. What you should have been doing all along, though, is figuring out where you want to be after school (not just industry, but location, and role, and an ideal set of companies), and from there, figuring out which school best positions you for that goal. Furthermore, you should've been doing research into the schools' cultures and curricula to determine which one best suits your academic and social style. If you're the kind of person for whom nothing truly matters but absolute rank and prestige of school -- and tons of those people exist, so I do not make any judgments here -- then pick Wharton over MIT. But if you care at all about what sort of experience you'll have actually going to the school you pick, then it might behoove you to visit the two schools and talk to students there. Wharton and Sloan are two very different places, to the point where many people I know did not apply to both. I'll conclude by saying that your time in school matters. It's not just a rubber stamp to get you in and out the door, then on your way to Wall Street. The time you have can be great, or it can be miserable. And if you're miserable in school, you won't do as well and won't make as many connections. Do not underestimate the importance of the connections you make in school. That's at least half the point of going. So really do take the time to research both schools in depth and see which one is a better fit for you.

Wharton.

I do not recommend taking this approach. Whatever school you end up at, you should really try to figure out what you want to focus on, and tap ALL available resources, including professors and coursework. I've taken an unscientific survey of some of my classmates from bschool, and two years out, the biggest thing most of them would change would be to focus a lot more on the academics than they did. Personally, I wish I had known then that I have a strong interest in value investing, and now wish I had taken some classes with the value investing gurus.

+10 If you really want to go to bschool, and you really want such a massive investment ($200k or so in tuition + expenses over two years, not including two years of foregone income and opportunity) to pay off, you need to go for all of the resources bschool provides. Those resources most certainly include education. If all you're looking for is connections and career advancement, you should ask yourself if you can do those things without an MBA. In the finance world especially, it's quite unnecessary to have an MBA if you kick ass as an analyst. Assuming you're already in finance, then advancement comes through hard work and merit, not through credentials on paper. If you need an MBA to get in the door in finance, that's a different story. But if you're already in, then think long and hard about whether the MBA is the best move for you. Not just a decent move, but the best move. Remember the opportunity costs. Gotcha. If you're determined to go to bschool, and you've decided it is the best move for you, I'd go to Sloan now over Wharton later. This is for any number of reasons, the most important of which is that you're actually admitted to Sloan. As tempting as it is to make a mental comparison between Sloan now and Wharton later, "Wharton later" is by no means a guarantee. It's a huge gamble at best. If you didn't get in this time around, there's a very slim chance you'll get in next time. Especially since your GMAT is high enough that a) you'd be hard pressed to do better, and b) you're already in a scoring tier in which further improvement will make no difference to the strength of your application. Unless you're planning to invent a cold fusion device or cure cancer within the next year, there's probably very little you can do that will significantly strengthen your profile between now and the next application round. Additionally, you should consider the timing. The job market is already starting to turn around a bit, even if slowly. The best time to be graduating bschool is sooner, rather than later. So if I were you, I'd get in now and graduate two years from now, rather than getting in a year from now and graduating three years from now.

Sloan, purely for the last section of the reply above. It pretty much covers everything on my mind.

if this is really the decision, I would choose Sloan now over Wharton later.


Add on top of that, how can you know? If Sloan is like any other MBA I have heard of, you cannot defer matriculation, and I know plenty of people who got waitlisted for a school one year, added more credentials and reapplied, and then got rejected the next year, no waitlist. No guarantees there...

Agree with the guys above, go to Sloan.

If you're someone who really likes "prestige points" from the average person, then Wharton might make more sense because most would consider Wharton more synonymous with the MBA and finance than Sloan. But if that's not as important to you, then go to Sloan now. Reason is that with a 760 you should be good enough to get first round interviews from banks and PE firms (many will do a resume round at each school and select who to interview based on how one looks on paper), and if you've got the juice to work at one of these shops, then your interviews will get you through to an internship, which if successful will get you through to a full-time offer. One thing you should consider is how good Sloan is at placing their MBAs at the top i-banks (or wherever you want to work in finance). If they don't have a great track record of placement at Goldman (current situation aside), JPM, Lazard, KKR, Blackstone, etc., then factor that into your thinking.