Haha. Largely true. HBS and Stanford are at the top of the MBA pantheon, the 2 schools that every young successful professional would kill to attend. Wharton is a bit below that. And then there’s a reasonable gap, and Booth/Columbia/Sloan/Kellogg are roughly in the same category and round out the M7. Among those 4 schools it boils down to career goals and personal preference; I don’t think one can make a convincing argument that one of them is superior to the others. Hence, I don’t really think there’s a definitive “top 5” group in the way that there’s a top 5 undergrad (Harvard/MIT/Stanford/Yale/Princeton).
While in my bachelor, I had MBA students doing the same courses as me (not advanced courses)… & I went to a top university… MBAs are for people with no business background, otherwise in my opinion you’re better off with your masters. At least the masters expand your knowledge… MBAs don’t. Never too late to do CFA though.
But MBAs expand your network and that is more important than any knowledge learned in master programs.
You think Masters don’t expand your network?
You meet more diverse type of people in the MBA program + the recruiting is better.
You meet more diverse type of people in the MBA program + the recruiting is better.
Edit
Lot of generalized unsubstantiated points here. When you say “no business background,” what exactly do you mean? Are you referring to people who did not study business in college? Or people who did not work in finance or consulting? If the latter, you are way off since a good chunk of the student body at the top schools come from those industries.
I agree that the MBA is not the most rigorous program out there. Disagree that you don’t “learn anything.” You learn plenty from the classroom and from your classmates, but it boils down to how much work you put in. For instance, I come from primarily a trading background; hence, I did not understand much about business. Now I at least have a stronger foundation in accounting, corporate finance, strategy, economics, etc. I feel that I’m more well-rounded and thus more marketable for a wider variety of jobs while in trading, I was pigeonholed as the “trader.”
If you are interested in a specialized field, i.e., quantitative finance, a masters degree will make more sense since you are only focusing on a specific area of your interest. So for someone who wants to do derivatives pricing or exotics trading at a major bank, I would advise him to do a masters in finance or financial engineering rather than an MBA. B-school would not make terrible sense for such a person. So it boils down to your career goals.
In terms of the network, the breadth and depth of a top b-school’s network is hard to beat. I honestly cannot think of a single masters program that can rival the MBA in this regard.
Sure; it expands your network by definition since you are in school. But most masters programs are relatively small and specialized. If you’re a CS masters student at Stanford, your network in the field of CS will expand significantly, and for that field it will be super helpful. Ditto for finance masters at Princeton, etc. An MBA network though, aside from being far larger, covers a wide variety of backgrounds and industries.
I totally agree. Perso I wouldn’t want to network with music background folks (that’s only one example), no offense.
I didn,t think I would have to explain this, but I mean anyone that has not done any study/work into a business related field. Take the music student example. He does not know what a NPV is. No worries, MBA do finance 1&2 all over again. Anyways, I repect your opinion, but perso I would never do an MBA coming from a business background.
But plenty of people from very strong business backgrounds go back for a top MBA. Are those people making a mistake? If the MBA really isn’t that valuable then why are they undergoing a huge opportunity cost to go back? I know the answers to these questions, but it seems like you don’t properly understand the value and signaling effect of an MBA from a top school.
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But plenty of people from very strong business backgrounds go back for a top MBA. Are those people making a mistake? If the MBA really isn’t that valuable then why are they undergoing a huge opportunity cost to go back? I know the answers to these questions, but it seems like you don’t properly understand the value and signaling effect of an MBA from a top school.
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Thats a good point, in my opinion these people go there because its all paid by their employer and they benefit form the networking. I agree that MBAs provide great networking. From what I hear and read though, people nowadays aren’t as eager to pursue an MBA as before. I think some people realize masters can still provide you with great networking and also teach you something.
But plenty of people from very strong business backgrounds go back for a top MBA. Are those people making a mistake? If the MBA really isn’t that valuable then why are they undergoing a huge opportunity cost to go back? I know the answers to these questions, but it seems like you don’t properly understand the value and signaling effect of an MBA from a top school.
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Thats a good point, in my opinion these people go there because its all paid by their employer and they benefit form the networking. I agree that MBAs provide great networking. From what I hear and read though, people nowadays aren’t as eager to pursue an MBA as before. I think some people realize masters can still provide you with great networking and also teach you something.
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Again, false. Most people at top b-schools are NOT being sponsored. Firms have really cut back on this post-financial crisis.
MBA applications increased this past year, not decreased. So from the raw data, the argument that people aren’t as eager to purse an MBA is demonstrably false. (Law on the other hand is a different story).
Regarding a masters degree, it really depends on what you want to do. I will never tell someone interested in hardcore quant finance or CS to do a MBA.
Regarding the MBA on business cards in Canada, I’ve seen this as well, but mainly from younger guys trying to impress. Extremely tacky IMO. As someone said already: Negative respect. Even moreso if they put on their bachelor’s degree as well. Very cringeworthy to see, that is usually mainly for the benefit of their less educated clients. I have met many MBAs from excellent schools from the preivous generation, and did not know they had an MBA until I added them on LinkedIn.
But another poster was right about how HR in Canada filters people, any designation advantage you have must be maximized because of the heavy competition for jobs in Toronto.
People rely waaay too much on their education to be respected (and i thought it’s an asian thing?)
It’s not what you study that earns you the respect, it’s what you do with it.
If you do not have a solid track record, having all these education really means nothing (or it means you spend too much energy studying and not enough energy performing).
I don’t think it’s as simple as all that. There are lots of things that can interfere with a track record without meaning the person is a useless POS. But it’s true that the education level says more about a person earlier in life than later in life. Some people simply don’t transition out of the mindselt.
See this is how i think.
Yes, education is all (or most) you can show to your employer for your first job, but you are applying for an ENTRY LEVEL JOB, they don’t expect to hire a CFA, MBA, CPA…
And while i think you can potentially move up quicker if you are better educated, but i have never seen anyone hires a MBA to be a corporate controller per se without a day in a supervisory role.
Don’t people just work their way up from entry level jobs and then study more when it’s appropriate?
That’s an interesting perspective. After all, why bother to educate yourself to more than the absolute minimum that your current employer demands? Any more is clearly a waste of time and resources, and may well reflect an urge to lord yourself over your colleagues, thus degrading unit cohesion and team morale. There are clearly a lot of people who see the world that way, and there’s no real reason that they’re wrong about it.
I think there is nothign wrong with studying and educating yourself, everything helps, BUT if you are only looking into breaking into an industry, honestly, i don’t think it’s wise to invest so much money and time on getting an MBA without even an entry level job or any prior experience in the industry. Especially in finance, if you have $100,000 on your MBA and you think you want to do high finance and become portfolio manager, well why don’t you just invest yoru $100,000 and prove that you can do it?
Clearly MBA isn’t going to help you learn how to pick stocks and build a portolfio.