I dont understand why people think age is an issue in admission. All business schools say one should apply when one is ready. Every person’s situation is different. Some may have entered the workforce late either due to personal reasons or because they were getting graduate or post graduate degrees. Some may have financial responsibilities which may delay their decision. At the end of the day its how good you tell a story. Uniqueness is not just quantified by awards and prizes, its how one is able to deal with the situations and events surrounding them. Everyone is unique in some way. Unfortunately, only a few actually realize their uniqueness and seperate themselves from the other.
Numi, Would you consider any other shcools besides H/S/W? e.g. Haas, Anderson, Kelogg, Sloan, Stern? and which ones are you more inclined towards with a finance background. Since you are giving up two years of professional life at an important juncture, I would assume its for a top 15 school, but are you restricted to top 5? asdffdsa, When you talk about angle, what would you say as an example one can do while working 12 hrs a day to create that angle…Could you please elaborate on that… Thanks both, Preet
There’s some misinformation going on here…just because H/S are trending younger doesn’t mean they want a bunch of 24 year olds. Certainly, both schools are making a concerted effort to attract younger candidates, but this is still just a segment of their class - it’s not going to make up their entire class.
Preet - angle means something that will make you stand out. For every 750 GMAT and 2 years IB, 2 years HF/PE, there are three other guys with the same background when it comes to H/S/W. So you need the stats, but you also need something else, e.g. overcoming obstacles, great leadership experience, fabulous extracurriculars, etc. You need to have a story that is cohesive and makes you memorable. Certainly for people that have a good pedigree leading up to bschool and have already worked 4+ years, it really wouldn’t make sense to go unless it is a top 5 school (maybe you could stretch this to 10). For someone like yourself, Numi, etc. the value add won’t be there unless that degree says H/S/W/Chi/NW/Col/MIT/Tuck. I’m sure people will argue that point, but I’m only speaking for myself…you won’t see me in an MBA gown unless it’s from one of those schools or NYU PT (rubber stamping while making $$). DirtyZ
preetchawla, I’m not sure what schools I’ll be applying to yet, but H/S/W will probably be on the list. Overall, I’ll probably apply to 3-5 schools, but I haven’t figured all of that out yet. As for whether I want to have more of a finance or a management focus, that’s also pretty early to tell, but I think that’s one of the questions that my experience in private equity can help me answer. What I like about PE is that first and foremost, you’re looking at companies from the perspective of an investor, so the skills that you use every day are definitely more financially oriented. However, you also get some high-level exposure to company strategies and operations, and you do get to understand the mindsets of management teams as you work on deals and eventually become owner of those portfolio companies. And a big reason for my wanting to do PE, aside from leaving equity research, is because I wanted to learn about the challenges and decisions that management teams have to face, and not only do straight-up finance. I also pretty much agree with what DirtyZ mentioned. I agree that the decision to go to a certain grade of business school really depends on one’s own opportunity costs, because the perceived value of the degree can vary widely depending on what school you got it from. Personally, I’ll be going to business school not necessarily because I have to or because it’ll be the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but it’s a pretty standard progression for pre-MBA’s in my field to leave after 2-3 years to get an MBA. I do think that the networking opportunities will be very valuable, and the vast majority of private equity professionals at the more senior levels have MBA’s. If I aspire to stay in the field, it’ll be hard for me to move up without an MBA. I can’t really quantify how valuable the business school experience is since I haven’t done it yet, but at a minimum, the perceived value of a top MBA is very high on Wall Street.
Yes Numi, I guess in your case it totally makes sense to do an MBA if there is the progression factor. Since I am not in PE and an MBA here is not required for progression and infact far from it, it just makes me feel that if I had to get it, it would be to change my career path geared towards the IB/PE world because here in the HF world, these guys dont seem to care about MBA’s that much, and give a person whose passed two levels of the CFA more credibility. Also, I don’t have much pedigree behind me in terms of undergrad(UC Davis) so if my fund were to ever go rupt, I would have a hard time getting a new job. I doubt thats going to happen anytime soon but who knows with life anyways. I have only been here for a short while, and things look good to me so far. Either way, all I want to do as asdffdsa said was to work towards creating that angle. Atleast I can do that since I have the GMAT out of the way. Thanks for the suggestions.
Thanks DirtyZ as well…
preetchawla Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes Numi, I guess in your case it totally makes > sense to do an MBA if there is the progression > factor. Since I am not in PE and an MBA here is > not required for progression and infact far from > it, it just makes me feel that if I had to get it, > it would be to change my career path geared > towards the IB/PE world because here in the HF > world, these guys dont seem to care about MBA’s > that much, and give a person whose passed two > levels of the CFA more credibility. > > Also, I don’t have much pedigree behind me in > terms of undergrad(UC Davis) so if my fund were to > ever go rupt, I would have a hard time getting a > new job. I doubt thats going to happen anytime > soon but who knows with life anyways. I have only > been here for a short while, and things look good > to me so far. I’ve noticed the same thing about my friends who are in hedge funds as well. My sense is that assuming their fund is performing well and they are personally performing well, taking a two-year leave from the securities markets to do an MBA is simply too much of a sacrifice. Working at a hedge fund for the most part doesn’t require the diversity of skills outside of pure money management that are stressed at business schools. On the other side of the coin, I also have noticed that people who have the ability to generate tons of profits for their fund don’t go back to get an MBA because they just don’t need it for what they do - they’re already accomplishing their goal of making money and it’s too much of an opportunity cost to take time off for school.
ahmadmaghfur Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hmm, thanks for the overwhelming responses guys!! > Didn’t expect this forum to exceed more than two > pages!! Come to think of it, I’m not particularly > keen on studying MANAGEMENT, as that can be gained > through working experience. I’m more interested > in learning something more technical and > specialized…such as petroleum economics, since my > sector coverage is on energy. At the moment, I > find equity research very challenging and > interesting. A wealth of knowledge can be gained > in research, however, still lacking exposure in > terms of managerial skills though as my current > work is pretty much self navigated and > independent. I previously worked for a large > European bank for 2.5 years, managing a team of 15 > people in a sales division and find the job very > frustrating at times, especially when uve put so > much effort in motivating people to expand the > bank’s businesses, running around here and there > kissing people’s asses. So i decided to call it > quits as I feel that it doesn’t give me any added > value in terms of knowledge, which is why I am in > equity research publishing reports instead. > > And no, I am not a noble prize winner, and have > not been involved in any form of humanitarian or > voluntary work due to my current commitment in > pursuing my CFA. I think LSE (London School of > Economics) would be a nice spot to land into > compared to Harvard given my personal preference > on the shorter duration (10 months) and the > specific courses offered.
Actually, some schools like Wharton want people with at least 6 years of experience. So don’t get too carried away with age requirements. But in all honesty, these types of questions should be posted on gmatclub.com. You’ll get better responses–in particular, you’ll get feedback from authors of MBA admission strategies. I got a few responses from one of the authors of “Your MBA Game Plan.”
Isn’t it better to opt for INSEAD/LBS instead? 1 year of studies instead of 2
my assessment from conversations with friends and after much thought & research. mba would be suitable for 3 categories of people: 1) people who wanna find out what they want / figure out long-term plan - mba’s breadth of courses could provide a good overview 2) people who want a career change - gain access to totally different field 3) people who wanna network with high-level business leaders from diverse industries/countries - an EMBA would be suitable in this aspect for cfa folks who’ve figured out & are on track with their long-term plan: - #1 & 2 above are likely to be ruled out. - #3 would be a possible reason to get an mba, if are able to accept opportunity costs or if potential gains outweigh opportunity costs.
smart post, only thing is CFAprincess, that if you work in a HF and want to move to IB/PE, an MBA would help a lot. I know it sounds a little strange, but from my observations, it certainly seems so.
I find myself agreeing with cfaprincess a lot. The only thing I would note is that it’s very hard to move into PE post-MBA without PE experience on the pre-MBA level. There just aren’t that many PE positions to begin with, and whatever’s out there can generally be filled with people who did PE before business school.
I agree that PE guys want people with PE experience, but PE firms like Blackstone do recruit at B-schools and give people without PE experience a chance. My best friend works at blackstone, he has his MBA from Haas with 0 years work exp before he got hired, but you could argue that he is an exception, I dont know his GPA and stuff, but he was great in terms of leadership, he basically ran our entire fraternity by himself and organized several United Way events(which according to him was a solid plus for getting into Haas) But being in a PE role yourself, I believe you would know a lot as well about hiring in PE…So according to you Numi, if one was to go into PE, it would be a better strategy to do it before B-school? I might never end up in PE but I am still interested to know…I think at this time, I might be more leaning towards derivatives trading, but who knows whats going to happen…
i think we need to change the setup of this archaic forum so that i can subscribe to numi via RSS feeds.
gdiddy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Actually, some schools like Wharton want people > with at least 6 years of experience. So don’t get > too carried away with age requirements. > > But in all honesty, these types of questions > should be posted on gmatclub.com. You’ll get > better responses–in particular, you’ll get > feedback from authors of MBA admission strategies. > I got a few responses from one of the authors of > “Your MBA Game Plan.” my friend is in Wharton with 4 years PE experience.
If you want to build a career in PE, you should definitely get in on the pre-MBA level. The longer you wait, the harder it’ll be. As I stated earlier, the odds are very much against you if you are trying to get a PE position out of business school without pre-MBA experience. pacmandefense, good idea with the RSS feeds…wallstreetoasis.com does this already, and it would be nice if we could implement it on this board too
when is it ever a good time to take a year or two off work to pursue an mba? thinking out loud… in a bad economy (e.g. currently), less opportunity cost but tougher job search. conversely, in a booming economy, higher opportunity cost but also presumably easier job search. what do u guys think?
agreed but thing about doing an MBA in a bad economy is that once you get out, more likely than not the economy will be good and hiring will be smooth, so its the best time e.g. the people who started fall 07 or who will start fall 08… by the time its 2009 or 2010, things would change for the better with high probability…No guarantees obviously…