Ivy League B-Schools Kinda Pointless
Despite having no idea what actually goes on during business school (our only clues have been through YouTube), attending one has always seemed like a good idea. You finish undergrad, self-loathe through Teach For America and McKinsey for a little while, then coast on into B-school. Ka-ching! MBA = instant six-figure salary!
Then we saw BusinessWeek’s annual rankings and roundup.
Bad: The Ivies land one measly prof out of 23 in their “My Favorite Professor” feature, Rich Curtis of Cornell.
Worse: Chicago nabs the No. 1 rank, thwarting Wharton at No. 2.
Absolutely terrible: In “The High Price of Admission,” BW calculates how long it takes to earn back the money B-schoolers spend on tuition, taking into account their average before-and-after salaries. Ivies in the top 10 values: none. Ivies in the bottom 10: Harvard, Penn, Columbia and Dartmouth. What gives?
The likes of Wharton and Harvard tend to attract high earners, making it harder to get a big salary bump at graduation and recoup the investment in an MBA. How hard? For Harvard grads, the breakeven point won’t come until 2020, or about 20 years shy of retirement.
Getting carpal tunnel from Excel, dressing up for class all the time, paying back loans for 14.44 years — remind us why B-school is worth it again?
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October 17th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Gotta wait for WSJ rankings, Business week’s change with the temp! Not as reliable if 4 other publications rank Tuck #1 and UChicago out of the top 10…
October 18th, 2006 at 8:49 am
I always laugh seeing Tuck get in the top 5 rankings. Dean Danos spends a lot of time on his knees blowing publishers. It rubs off on the students too. What sets the average Tuck graduate apart from his/her Ivy League peers, is the ability to get down on that cock and exhibit mad dick-sucking skillz. Recruiters really appreciate that.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:50 am
The interesting thought is that the higher income people attracted to b-school are pretty smart and often are financial enough to check the average earnings after graduation.
So why do they think its worth it?
I’d say that they are smart enough to think about long-term growth, glass ceilings and the chance to do something you get a kick out of. And this can include spreadsheeting if you think about the business impact of the spreadsheets you look at (get your associate to do) 5-10 years out.
October 18th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I remember making disparaging remarks about the value of my Ivy MBA one evening in a Manhattan restaurant. Then I noticed the Admissions Director at the next table, who had obviously been listening in.
Serves me right for not eating at the St. Xavier soup kitchen.
October 18th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Since I am in an ivy MBA program I thought I’d like to point out something… that $95K average is so useless as to be absurd. That is the salary component. Most of the ivy-league MBA grads (Harvard, Columbia, Wharton) receive the majority of their compensation from bonuses. The bonuses are virtually guaranteed. Measuring salary increases alone is meaningless since well over a third of the grads are in ibanking positions, and in an ibank even senior guys get crap base packages… but seven figure bonuses. Other areas also have substantial non-salary corporation (stock options etc). Business Week looks foolish with their methodologies and anyone that follows the BW approach shouldn’t be in those top schools to begin with. I made six figures before going into bschool (which isn’t unusual)…though that included my bonus. I wonder if BW extrapolates based on my total compensation (which is what I provided to my school when applying)? That would skew the results even more when calculating their version of “costs” and “payback”. I can’t imagine many top B-school grades worrying much about paying down a $90K loan.
Also, to those that would argue that in bust times B-school grads are not seeing these kinds of bonuses, or that the burnout rate is high — I will grant you that. But if we take averages over time too… (or look at what those burnouts end up doing, which is usually still relatively well paying), you are going to find that the payback from a top MBA program is one of the best investments anyone can make.
October 18th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Folks I work in I-bank land.
As far as we are concerned, MBA’s fall into 2 types and 2 categories. The 2 types are the “I am an MBA and sit on the right hand of God” and then there is “I am an MBA and expect by next week to sit on the right hand of God”.
The two categories are the “I’ve never really worked before” and the re-entrant worker.
Guess what, forget how long it’s going to take to pay back your MBA.
For the employer you are now regarded more and more as a financial black hole to be reviewed and probably avoided unless you are stellar in recorded performance.
Example, newly minted MBA arrives in say….M+A world. Guess what you are going to be doing for the first 6 months minimum….Carry papers, photocopy and fax stuff. After 6 months you MAY be allowed to sit in on client meetings with the strict proviso that you will never open your mouth. You will be expected to take notes and type them up along with a precis for the dealmakers, oh and fax and photocopy them. By year 2 you may be alowed to chat socially with the client and will be allowed to “discuss” thoughts, sometimes, with a dealmaker, if he/she has time.
By the time year 3 arrives you will be trusted to participate as a more contributing member of the team but in real terms you are not cost neutral, never mind profitable typically until year 5.
Usually what happens is that end of year 2, when you are finally starting to be able to do something, circa 50% move to another I-bank taking the investment in time, effort and cold cash with them. This winnowing continues until by year 5 less that 15% remain. This 15% has to generate sufficient income to cover the losses incurred by the departed 85% before the decision to recruit for that year breaks even, typically about year 7.
And you wonder why folks now look on MBA’s real hard before recruiting them?
Oh and before I hear the pathetic whining of “Well, only saying this because they haven’t got an MBA” sorry, got mine from the London School of Economics loooooooong time back.
October 19th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Nothing you said makes sense and the turnover isn’t that high. Read my post above. I WORKED in a top ibank and had tons of client interaction.
One more thing… I never knew that LSE offers an MBA. Oh yeah, it doesn’t. You are such a moron.
October 19th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
It’s work repeating…. ETL… you ARE FULL OF Bull. LSE DOES NOT EVEN HAVE AN MBA PROGRAM. Read this again…. LSE does NOT have an MBA program. Got it? Okay, one more time. LSE DOES NOT HAVE an MBA program. Understand now? This is just so that the others that didn’t get into a top MBA program don’t come on and claim to have a degree that does not exist.
October 19th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
It’s worth repeating…. ETL… you ARE FULL OF Bull. LSE DOES NOT EVEN HAVE AN MBA PROGRAM. Read this again…. LSE does NOT have an MBA program. Got it? Okay, one more time. LSE DOES NOT HAVE an MBA program. Understand now? This is just so that the others that didn’t get into a top MBA program don’t come on and claim to have a degree that does not exist.
October 20th, 2006 at 6:49 am
You didn’t have to repeat it Dave… ETL lost me at “hello”.
Let’s not lose sight of the topic. Most Ivy grads in up in the bowels of corporate America, where bonuses are miniscule by Wall Street standards. That’s not to say that the BW survey’s are worth a damn; they’re not. Clearly they are neither statistically valid, nor do they rely on information that is consistent or objective (self-identified respondent info is very unreliable). Even worse is when BW tries to rank the schools. A drooler from the correspondence course MBA program could probably do a better job designing the test and ranking system.
Returning to the topic at hand, getting an MBA is no sure bet, even at an Ivy. To succeed it takes equal parts of brains, preparation, guts and luck (don’t mind me, I’m having a Tony Robbins/Aleksey Vayner moment).
November 14th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Sir, i am the student of Asian School of Business Management(ASBM) Bhubanesawr .Sir how can i know more about the world of ivy league B-schools pleze sir guide me and give me more information about this ,
Thanks
September 25th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Hi,
I think most of you are missing the point. Though I did not have the pleasure of earning an MBA from an Ivy league b-school. I think sociology teaches us that perception and community interaction will comntinut to determine value in this life. So get real an Ivy MBA will definitely pay-off but you got to play your part. Cheers
September 25th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Sociology? You are destined for the unemployment line, my friend. MBAs rarely pay off. Losers are still losers upon graduation; and, studs are still studs — except with two yeas lost salary and career growth. Either get a real degree or stay working. And if your two- or three-year rotation is done and the bank doesn’t want you anymore… you’re not a stud.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:06 am
Hello
I can see this battle of MBA or Ivy schools is not worth joining. but i can assure you all that an MBA is not your passport to success. In the past an MBA was a certainty to acknowledgement of employers due to lack of supply. today, the supply is so high (especially from Ivy B-Schools) that another layer of diffrentiation is required. This layer is actually what you were doing before joining the MBA degree. hence, it is very important that we do not ignore the MBA-fax boy model or the high gainers MBA grads, the important thing to focus on is what can this person regardless of his education add to our platfrom.
November 1st, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Hi. I work in the Oil & Gas, and the only thing that matters is to get things done! It does not matter which school you attended, as long as it is not an online school and you know what you are doing! In fact, there is not enough people to fill out the openings!
December 11th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
I got through b-school doing lines. I work 90 hours a week. The pay is good, but I look like I’m 68. My 35th birthday was last week.
December 26th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I am 54 years old. I’m self-employed for 26 years. I have 3 state licenses, and two professional designations in my field. I am exploring getting an MBA. Recently I found myself wandering around in the Resume section of Craig’s List. I noticed people with MBAs from major schools (UCLA, DUKE and others no joke) are soliciting for work doing marketing by phone. Glorified telemarketing. I saw others literally begging to manage money. I saw some statiing they have a great business idea and need/want an investment “partner” to be the ‘next Google”, but they don’t tell why they think they can succeed as the next Google. I am interested in a so-called second career teaching entrepreneurship at a junior college. I am going to go forward and get the MBA because I need it to be able to teach at this level.
About 15 years ago I was marketing manager for a start-up for a guy who was a great technical inventor but he was ignorant about business. After watching some big businesses commit some big errors I am not convinced an MBA is really worth much. Ethics seem important, and my opinion is this can’t be taught.
So at the age of 54 with a 620 score, where can I apply and get in? I got my BA from a big ten university in 1977 in biochemistry. Thanks for your help!
December 26th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I am 54 years old. I’m self-employed for 26 years. I have 3 state licenses, and two professional designations in my field. I am exploring getting an MBA. Recently I found myself wandering around in the Resume section of Craig’s List. I noticed people with MBAs from major schools (UCLA, DUKE and others no joke) are soliciting for work doing marketing by phone. Glorified telemarketing. I saw others literally begging to manage money. I saw some statiing they have a great business idea and need/want an investment “partner” to be the ‘next Google”, but they don’t tell why they think they can succeed as the next Google. I am interested in a so-called second career teaching entrepreneurship at a junior college. I am going to go forward and get the MBA because I need it to be able to teach at this level.
About 15 years ago I was marketing manager for a start-up for a guy who was a great technical inventor but he was ignorant about business. After watching some big businesses commit some big errors I am not convinced an MBA is really worth much. Ethics seem important, and my opinion is this can’t be taught.
So at the age of 54 with a 620 score, where can I apply and get in? I got my BA from a big ten university in 1977 in biochemistry. Thanks for your help!
September 4th, 2009 at 5:05 am
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