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My brother deferred Sloan for a year but he had cancer sooooooo....
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Dec 12, 2014 19:31
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Boon posted:So I was just accepted by two schools and am waiting to hear back from a third. Problem is, I'm not entirely sure if I'll be able to attend the next academic school year - does anyone know or have information on the process for deferring by one year? I plan to reach out to the schools next week and I want to have some background before doing so. I deferred for a year before attending. It was due to a military deployment, so it was pretty straightforward, but my impression is that you need a pretty compelling reason.
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Dec 12, 2014 19:51
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My reason is because I'm currently active duty and it's up in the air as to whether I'll be able to make the start of the academic year and probably won't know for a few months. Longer if my detailer continues to be unreachable... For financial reasons it would be significant to defer.
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Dec 12, 2014 20:03
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Background: Graduated in 2006 with a BS in Comp Sci (3.2 GPA) from a lesser known state school in Texas. Worked for 4 years (with a year of unemployment). Wanted to go get my MBA a few years back and bombed the GMAT (640, when I was scoring ~710 on practice tests). Applied to UT for the hell of it, got rejected. Took some time off, moved to California, worked for another two years. I've taken on some management responsibilities at work, and I'm enjoying it much more than my current work (coding / engineering). However, it's been hard trying to get a proper management title at my current company, and interviewing for other companies had led with zero success. I know I'm not an ideal candidate for a top business school, but would a MBA help me jump that gap from my Computer Science degree to a life in project management? Or would I be better served by perusing a MBA focusing on Information Systems instead? Since I do a lot of travel for work, I would not be able to do a part time / night school. I have enough saved up to support my family if I perused a full time, two year degree program. Can somebody point me in the right direction as to schools I can realistically look at? It's nice to dream about Harvard / Wharton / Stanford, but I also need to set realistic goals. Would the Foster School of Business be a decent "reach" school for me to aspire to?
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Feb 25, 2015 20:13
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A question for y'all about a colleague of mine who is planning on an MBA: She's been accepted to HBS as a full-time student and to UVA for an executive MBA. Our company will pay the full cost of the executive MBA (and she will be able to keep working and getting paid in the mean-time), but if she goes with HBS she will leave the company and have to take out loans for both tuition and living expenses for a few years. She likes the company quite a bit and wouldn't be unhappy with the required time commitment if the company pays but is also interested in potentially trying something new. What would y'all do?
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Mar 25, 2015 21:17
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waldo pepper posted:A question for y'all about a colleague of mine who is planning on an MBA: Completely depends on what the current company is and what she wants to try.
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Mar 25, 2015 21:25
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waldo pepper posted:A question for y'all about a colleague of mine who is planning on an MBA: Well if she can get into Wharton and HBS she can obviously crunch the numbers on the opportunity cost...Like Pissingintowind says, it depends on what she wants out of the degree.
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Mar 26, 2015 00:35
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We work in Corporate Strategy for a big company. She doesn't really have any firm sense of where she would want to go outside other than general "consulting" which a lot of people here eventually transition to. I think she is really just worried about having to commit here for too long - it would be like 3 years or so (not sure if that includes the time in the mba program). She's aware of the cost but is also pretty young, in the sense that I'm not sure if she can really understand how that level of debt would actually impact her life.
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Mar 26, 2015 16:31
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waldo pepper posted:We work in Corporate Strategy for a big company. She doesn't really have any firm sense of where she would want to go outside other than general "consulting" which a lot of people here eventually transition to. I think she is really just worried about having to commit here for too long - it would be like 3 years or so (not sure if that includes the time in the mba program). Always Choose Harvard. Best way into consulting, best way into any job. Her debt wont matter unless she sucks at everything. If she wanted to retire at the company, UVA. How young?
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Mar 27, 2015 12:53
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Considering applying to a few MBA programs in the Fall and have been looking at GMAT Prep Classes around Seattle. Does anyone have any experience with signing up and attending a GMAT Prep class?
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Apr 18, 2015 20:29
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I got a lot out of the Thursdays with Ron on Vimeo, who is an instructor for Manhattan GMAT.
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Apr 19, 2015 00:04
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I'm trying to decide if I want to go to b school and could use some advice. Current situation: I work in Healthcare IT consulting. Specifically, I help manage implementation teams for electronic medical records. I've been doing this for about 3.5 years, and right now sit at around 250k. Right now the industry is definitely at a peak due to the Meaningful Use program, which offers health systems reimbursement for installing these records. This is winding down over the next couple of years, but our company has done a good job of preparing for the transition from full-fledged implementation to strategic optimization, and I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be able to command the same salary in 10 years. Even with my optimistic outlook, I have to acknowledge that it's possible that a massive contraction in the market could occur and my salary would drop dramatically. I do a lot of standard project management, which is transferable to any of the big companies, but after some fishing, it looks like I'd be leaving at least 100k on the table starting for most places. I'd like to get the flexibility to move into another industry (or at least a different type of work in healthcare) but not take a drastic pay cut. I realize that no program is guaranteed to make you X amount of dollars, but if I could get accepted to a school that has a reasonable chance of getting me somewhere close to where I am today, with the opportunity to go above and beyond, that would be something I'd consider. I already have a MA (3.8), but it's in squishy rear end Applied Politics. It was much more heavy on the applied practices of campaigning/lobbying/voter behavior than the traditional scholastic masturbation that you find in Poli Sci, however, and I did take a number of Stats courses and did very well in them. I think that my interview skills and resume definitely put the top schools in range, and at this point I'm looking to bank on networking/School name ID rather than focusing on a specific area of research. I live in Washington DC, so I'd be moving if I ended up getting accepted. Am I an idiot for thinking about going down this route? I would be looking at full time, which means I'd be going from a comfortable lifestyle to subsiding off of loans and savings overnight. If you factor in the cost of not working those 2 years plus the cost of tuition, we're talking over half a million dollars. It would be painful in the short term, but I'm thinking long game here and I want to be best positioned for success over the next couple of decades.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:06
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ChadBroChill17 posted:Am I an idiot for thinking about going down this route? I would be looking at full time, which means I'd be going from a comfortable lifestyle to subsiding off of loans and savings overnight. If you factor in the cost of not working those 2 years plus the cost of tuition, we're talking over half a million dollars. It would be painful in the short term, but I'm thinking long game here and I want to be best positioned for success over the next couple of decades. You probably don't need an MBA. There are virtually no immediate post-MBA jobs that will pay anywhere near what you're making. There's one-in-a-thousand massive private equity compensation packages that would get a grad up to $300K in year one, but that is the exception, not the rule. Median is going to be $110 before bonus, lower if you go into something like general management or marketing/brand management, higher if you do finance or management consulting. I can understand your concerns about the end of the gravy train, but the ROI of an MBA for you is very dubious (a full-time MBA, anyway). My advice would be to try to make a jump directly to a new role when the time comes. If that's not a possibility, or you want to change your career path right into something entirely different, then consider getting one. Busy Bee posted:Considering applying to a few MBA programs in the Fall and have been looking at GMAT Prep Classes around Seattle. Does anyone have any experience with signing up and attending a GMAT Prep class? I took a GRE prep course from Kaplan, basically the same thing. I wasn't going to be disciplined enough on my own to set a meaningful study schedule or direct myself to work on problem areas, certainly not while working consulting hours each week. If that sounds like you, plonk down the money and do a prep course. It'll help you get back into the habit of classroom style learning again as well. If that doesn't sound like you, take a practice test and see how you do, then take decide what to do from there if your score isn't where you want it to be.
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May 1, 2015 02:17
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Does that hold true if I got into any of the top 3?
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May 1, 2015 05:54
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Yes, 250k is insane money. If you want to increase that amount, an MBA may give you skills to start your own business, and then the sky's the limit. But if you want to increase your salary, you may realize you've hit a wall. If you're the best healthcare IT consultant ever, I guess you could crack it.
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May 1, 2015 06:05
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It's not always about increasing salary. I'll be starting my MBA this fall with essentially a guarantee I'll be making less than now (roughly same as the person in question above). It really depends on what your goals are. I don't think going to a top 3 school with the goal of switching careers is a bad idea, as long as you don't lie to yourself and pretend it will be 100% NPV-positive. As long as you can easily afford it and can admit that it's a luxury expense/quality of life decision, go for it if you want. If you are really making $250K/year, paying for school should be easy to do without loans. At the same time, if you like your current job, and are just worried about the end of a gravy train, I would just stay put since I don't think that worry is particularly valid and you have transferable skills. If you hate your job and want to change your career path, that's when you may want to think about an MBA. Pissingintowind fucked around with this message at 06:32 on May 1, 2015 |
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May 1, 2015 06:26
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Tony_Montana fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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May 1, 2015 09:49
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Tony_Montana posted:MBAs are incredibly worthless except as an extended vacation or new life experience for some (traveling, etc). Unless you go to a top 5 school. An MBA from Harvard guarantees you at least an interview virtually anywhere in the world, for example. Hard to put a price tag on that.
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May 2, 2015 08:08
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Tony_Montana fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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May 2, 2015 22:15
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So are you saying no one should ever get an MBA?
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May 2, 2015 23:37
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Literally everyone I ask in real life about getting an MBA is happy that they got it.
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May 3, 2015 00:00
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Tony_Montana posted:Yes, but even then it could be said that if someone can get into Harvard they probably don't need an MBA in the first place. It's just a waste of time and money. Not sure if I follow. The Harvard name alone is enough to make a tremendous difference for a person's professional brand. In addition, most Harvard graduates end up as big-shots in well-known companies, and being a part of that network can open even more doors. The same can be said for other top schools: Wharton, Tuck, Stanford, even Yale.
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May 3, 2015 02:40
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Tony_Montana posted:Yes, but even then it could be said that if someone can get into Harvard they probably don't need an MBA in the first place. It's just a waste of time and money. Just the networking opportunity is worth the full price at a top five school.
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May 3, 2015 02:43
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Tony_Montana posted:Yes, but even then it could be said that if someone can get into Harvard they probably don't need an MBA in the first place. It's just a waste of time and money. You're trolling, but I might as well reply. There's a difference between being HBS/GSB/Wharton-caliber and actually having a HBS/GSB/Wharton credential. If you have the latter, doors open that would not otherwise open because you have already been pre-vetted by a respected organization. This may not make sense, and it may not be fair, but this is unfortunately how things work. These doors are within high finance (banking, venture capital, private equity, investment management, etc.), elite consulting (MBB), large-scale general management (product/brand/regional roles at top companies), large-scale strategy/development (industry equivalent of high finance/consulting), and the startup world (venture-backed, or anywhere that a credential will help with independent fund raising). Maybe you can still get to the same place without an HBS/GSB/Wharton MBA if you are dedicated and willing to take the long path, but it doesn't always make sense to do so, it may take quite a bit longer, or it may not at all be possible. The signaling value alone is worth it to quite a few people (myself included), but the network is also an extremely worthwhile aspect of attending. Note that I am talking about top MBAs, not some part-time MBA from Bumblefuck State. The only value I see to non-top MBAs is if you must check a box to advance with your current employer and you absolutely don't want want to change companies. Outside the top ~15 programs, you are mostly only opening doors to local F500 employers, and not necessarily in the management/strategy/development areas. At that point, it becomes more likely that one could avoid getting an MBA and end up better off. Pissingintowind fucked around with this message at 07:42 on May 3, 2015 |
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May 3, 2015 07:34
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I'm in a no-name program and that's what I'm afraid of. There seem to be plenty of job fairs and an emphasis on placement close to graduation, I'm in a growing city, first in my class, but it's a small school. I have a history degree and a minimum wage job, so I'd be loving thrilled with finding something that paid 50k to start. I think the school is a good fit for me and my expectations. In y'all's experience, was job placement directly through your school satisfactory? On a side note, any benefit of serious consequence of graduating first in class?
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May 3, 2015 07:52
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Pissingintowind posted:You're trolling, but I might as well reply. .. Tony_Montana fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 03:45
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Tony_Montana posted:All right then. My opinion comes from some people I know who have completed MBAs in Europe (that are well ranked), but saw very little value in the degree, there are also many slackers attending which lowers the quality of the environment. The job situation is much better in the USA, and European MBA programs are poorly positioned for career changers, which is a major draw of US programs. Also, depending on nationality, it's hard to get a visa in western European countries, and good luck going to school in Europe and recruiting for US-based positions.
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May 4, 2015 07:10
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Tony_Montana posted:All right then. My opinion comes from some people I know who have completed MBAs in Europe (that are well ranked), but saw very little value in the degree, there are also many slackers attending which lowers the quality of the environment. Non-US MBAs are completely different than US MBAs. Even LBS/INSEAD (head and shoulders above the other non-US programs) don't provide the same types of opportunities as top 10 US schools. I would never recommend for anyone to attend a non-US program unless they have a very specific reason as to why it must be a non-US program. Note that wanting to work abroad is not a good reason because of visa issues and the fact that top US schools outplace non-US schools for elite jobs overseas.
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May 4, 2015 10:04
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It depends completely on who you are and what you want. I was an ESL teacher with no benefits who went to a tier II school (#25-50), paid less than 10k a year for it, and will be starting my internship at a Fortune 15 company with an annualized income of ~80k. Full time closer to 90k. For some here, that's nothing. For me totally, totally worth it.
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May 4, 2015 21:18
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Anyone adopt any really good tips or tricks for GMAT? I have a 2015 book and 2009 Kaplan CD and have basically just been doing test after test, thinking I'd learn more about it that way. I'm getting between like 550-600 and I'm not improving. GMAT this Saturday and I am really getting pissed/stresses. I'm only a few years out of school, Physics degree, high GPA(3.62/4.0) but something about this thing is just tooling me. Like "I bet I just aced that...oh, I got 68% correct??" I haven't felt this way since Freshman Calculus
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May 13, 2015 03:51
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Crazyweasel posted:Anyone adopt any really good tips or tricks for GMAT? It's the quant you're having trouble with, I assume? You can make up a lot of ground on verbal if you have good language / logic skills (or can learn them quickly, I guess). In terms of quant, my quant score also sucked pretty badly. For my second attempt I picked up the Manhattan Prep quant exercise books. I'm working through them now. I can't say for sure whether or not I'll do better, but they present the material in a really straightforward manner. Also, everyone I've talked to has said there's no shame in doing the test twice. Hell, I got a really good score and I'm studying to do it again because of how bad my quant sucked.
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May 13, 2015 04:09
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Crazyweasel posted:Anyone adopt any really good tips or tricks for GMAT? Read the "Beat the Gmat" forums. Google it and read up... it teaches you how to think like a test taker and not fall for the trick answers.
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May 13, 2015 07:31
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I had the Manhattan books and they were great for teaching me how to do the information sufficiency questions and that was about it. I learnt more from the beat the gmat forums because you seen dozens of fellow GMAT studiers posting practice questions and explanations online. After a while you will be able to identify different question topics quickly, which is the first step to solving it fast without stress.
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May 13, 2015 11:29
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Pissingintowind posted:Non-US MBAs are completely different than US MBAs. Even LBS/INSEAD (head and shoulders above the other non-US programs) don't provide the same types of opportunities as top 10 US schools. I'm heading to an 'other non-US program' and will probably have a much harder time come recruitment season compared to the Harvard man above me, but I chose a one-year programme in the UK because I wanted to work in the UK and the visa I'm eligible for in the UK requires application before a certain age - an age I would have passed if I did a 2 year programme.
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May 13, 2015 11:43
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Holy poo poo, update, just got 710... Although looking at it now it was definitely verbal (44 for both) Idk what the hell happened but I'm so happy I don't have to take this again not to mention I'm not out 250 bux Crazyweasel fucked around with this message at 21:17 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 16, 2015 20:35
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Good job!
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May 16, 2015 21:30
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How did the GMAT become a thing anyone took seriously? As someone who is ok at standardized tests I don't mind, but I really don't get it. Also: what GMAT should I shoot for in order to have a shot at GSB/HBS with a mediocre (~3.5) GPA from a HYP style undergrad and 2-3 years of work experience at a slightly off-beat but prestigious consulting firm? I would rather not spend more time practicing than needed/waste $ on retakes. If that question doesn't make sense, I'm basically trying to figure out when you hit diminishing returns with GMAT scores.
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May 18, 2015 00:39
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semicolonsrock posted:How did the GMAT become a thing anyone took seriously? We will see how it pans out, but I'm trying to get some scholarships that the school explicitly states GMAT scores are part of the criteria. Other than that, the goal is to hit the average so you don't have to explain anything extra. I do agree I think its a a pretty dubious measurement (why do you think Exec MBA programs don't need it), but I'm sure the folks who run the GMAT are in cahoots with MBA schools or accreditation boards or something so it is what it is To answer the HBS question, I used to read a series on poetsandquants that was basically an HBS admission consultant (ie bullshit artist) grading normal folks chances based off undergrad, GMAT, and work/life experience. I think it may be behind a pay wall now but try Googling it, read a lot (there are probably like 40+ cases) and see which relates best to you.
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May 18, 2015 02:31
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semicolonsrock posted:I would rather not spend more time practicing than needed/waste $ on retakes. If that question doesn't make sense, I'm basically trying to figure out when you hit diminishing returns with GMAT scores. Study hard for two months rather than stretching it out. I shelled out for the Economist GMAT prep, studied 2 hours a day for 2 months, and got a 750 on my first try. The GMAT is about endurance more than raw intelligence. You need to be able to quickly move through lots of "gotcha" questions for 3 hours.
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May 18, 2015 03:09
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The poets and quants thing just requires a throwaway email registration to get spam. He just says if gpa is below 3.6 or gmat is below 700 or your employment history isn't blue chip that you won't get in to Harvard. Also if you're Indian or white and male you're hosed
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May 18, 2015 11:09
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