The Naked MBA

If you’re applying to business school, joining the military probably isn’t your backup plan. But maybe it should be. While MBAs are having tough time with the job hunt right now, veterans were scoring jobs right and left at a recent career fair in San Diego that I read about. Nextel, Amazon.com, Morgan Stanley, Johnson & Johnson and Clorox (among others) were all there hiring veterans. According to the head of leadership development at one company, "The No. 1 thing is their leadership ability. They learn fast. They're disciplined. They are a lot more serious than their civilian peers." A senior exec from another firm said, "We find that military people really understand managing multiple priorities, and overall customer satisfaction. They have a real go-get-it attitude. They are self-starters who won't leave until the job is done right."

Wait a minute—isn’t that what you’re paying $100,000 to learn during your MBA? The same things that military officers are being PAID to learn? Of course after you factor in the risks (death and dismemberment are a lot less common in business school than in combat) an MBA probably still seems more attractive. But does it make you more attractive? The military prides itself on turning out serious, disciplined, goal-oriented professionals with hands on leadership experience and a “failure is not an option” mentality. To me that sounds a lot like the qualities an investment bank or any of the companies I mentioned above are looking for.

Top companies complain that there is a gap between the training that business schools provide and what companies expect of their new hires. MBAs are often great with case studies but lack the real world experience that companies expect them to have. Even in Season 3 of the Apprentice, which pitted MBAs against entrepreneurs with less education, the MBAs stumbled through most of the simpler tasks.

I’m not advocating joining the military over going to business school, but I think it’s important to remember that there are other places to get leadership training than at a top-tier MBA program.

Last month ago I wrote about graduating in a recession. Since then the news has only gotten worse. The giant sucking sound made by Bear Stearns’ implosion could be heard by business schools around the country.  Now students are not only worried about getting a job, but about losing the jobs they worked to hard to land! There are reports (unconfirmed) that Bear Stearns is rescinding MBA offers. In the recent Business Week issue, one career services official (who asked that his school not be named) said an MBA student had accepted an internship offer from Bear Stearns just last weekend and was told shortly after that the position was not being filled.

Clearly the news is not good for anyone with anything to do with Bear. But what about the effect on hiring, in general? Offers from Citigroup banking and capital markets are down 10%. Starting salaries at financial institutions, in general, are down by a couple thousand dollars. Consulting is another industry that usually contracts during an economic downturn. Publicly, Deloitte has said that it will continue to recruit at the same levels, but told one student privately that recruiting had become “more competitive” due to the current economic state.

The news is not all bad, though. According to Kenneth Keeley, director of Carnegie Mellon's career office, 85% of MBAs had job offers this year, compared with 79% last year. And so far there haven’t been widespread reports of delayed start dates or rescinded offers from companies other than Bear Stearns, as was the case in 2002 and 2003.

Everyone aspires to graduate from business school with their dream job, but at this point many bschoolers just aspire to graduate with a job. I’m curious as to your experiences on the ground—has anyone gotten a bad surprise from Bear or another company?

Getting in to a top-tier business school is worth celebrating, and that’s exactly what I did when I found out I got into NYU. Then came the news that I received a full scholarship—a free ride to business school! There was just one small problem; the scholarship wasn’t from NYU. It was from the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota, my safety school. So now I had to decide: attend a top-tier school and graduate $100K in debt or attend a second-tier school and graduate debt-free?
 

The debt issue looms large and most potential bschool students don’t give it as much weight as they should. The assumption is that you’ll have a six-figure salary after your MBA and pay it off right away. This is true in a lot of cases. But in my case, working my way up the chain at an investment bank was never the goal. I wanted to use my MBA to help change the world for the better. And last time I checked, you don’t get paid six-figures for that kind of work. Some business schools have loan forgiveness programs for students who take government or non-profit jobs, but NYU doesn’t. If I went to New York, I’d be on my own for repayment, which was enough to keep me up at night—and I hadn’t even signed the loan agreement yet!
 

Staying in Minnesota didn’t feel right either. For me an MBA was about a change bigger than just switching careers. I grew up in a small town and always felt like there was so much happening in the world that I was missing. New York seemed like the center of it all.
 

I thought about how I would feel at each school. At the Carlson School my GMAT was above average and my work experience probably was too. It was clear they considered me a valuable asset to give me a full ride. I wouldn’t have to worry about finding a new apartment, making new friends or leaving my boyfriend behind. I could stay in my comfort zone. On the other hand, I had the feeling I’d gotten into NYU by the skin of my teeth. My GMAT was at the bottom of NYU’s average range and I’d be going to school with people who had already spent years at top investment banks and consulting firms. Not to mention moving to a city where I didn’t know a soul.

I slept on it for a few days. I called my parents, who still live in my small hometown. “I made my decision,” I said.

“Oh,” said my mom. “We didn’t know you still debating—we didn’t think there was anything to decide.”

“There wasn’t really,” I replied. “But you guys will come visit me in New York, right?”

The best thing to do once you’ve submitted all your applications is to forget about them. Don’t wake up everyday wondering if today is the day you’ll get your admissions decision. Don’t obsessively read blogs to see if other people who applied to the same school have gotten their decisions. And above all, don’t check your email 20 times a day to see if you have news.

I followed none of this advice. Patience may be someone’s virtue, but not mine. After I submitted my last application I went to dinner and a movie with the Boyfriend. By dessert the suspense was killing me. “Do you mind if we swing by my apartment on the way to the movie?” I asked. “I, uh, forgot my phone.” He wasn’t happy about it but we detoured to my place and I ran upstairs while he waited in the car. I waited for my ancient laptop to boot up. After a few minutes my phone rang.

“What are you doing? We’re going to miss the movie,” said the Boyfriend.
“On my way down,” I said, clicking on the email icon.
“You’ve got mail!” announced my computer.
“I KNEW IT!” yelled the Boyfriend. “You’re checking your email!”
“I just wanted to see if there was any news!” I whined.
“But you only applied two hours ago!”

The first problem is that the emails the schools send you don’t actually contain any news. They just tell you that “Your status has changed” with a link to another website for your update. The second problem is that your status is always changing. First they tell you that you’ve successfully submitted your application. Then that they are processing your application. Then that your application is complete. Now multiply all those emails by five—the number of schools I applied to. That’s a lot of heart-palpitation inducing emails popping up in your inbox every day. Especially if you check your email at work. My productivity took a serious nosedive from March to early April. All I could talk about were my status changes. My boss finally gave up and worked it into our staff meetings. “First order of new business,” he would say. “Any status change updates from Caitlin?”

Then came the humiliation. Rejection from Stanford. Rejection from Columbia. Oh god, was I even going to get in to business school? I immediately regretted making the process so public. Even the guy at the deli where I bought my lunch every day now asked me if I’d gotten in. Rejection from Haas.  My options were becoming limited. I couldn’t get my mind of fit so I did the only thing there was to do. I took a vacation.

Nothing cures a wandering mind like drinking fruity cocktails all night and sleeping on the beach all day. And that’s exactly what I did for five days with my best friend in Miami. The cold Minnesota weather and my bschool applications all seemed very far away. I checked my email only once when we forgot what time our return flight left. That’s when I saw the email from NYU staring back at me: “Your application status has changed.” It was our last night in Miami. If I clicked on the link and it wasn’t good news, there weren’t enough fruity cocktails in all of South Beach to console me. I clicked.

Status: Accepted.

Bienvenidos a business school.

You blew off your coworkers to work on your essays during lunch. You shunned your friends on Friday nights so you could wake up for your Saturday morning GMAT prep class. You had to break the news to your boss that you were planning to jump ship when you asked him for a letter of recommendation. And all you have to show for it is cold, hard REJECTION. You didn’t get in to business school. Now what?

First, call all the friends you ignored for the months and let them take you out for a stiff drink. Then, makeup with your boy/girlfriend whom you dumped (on my advice) because you were moving across the country in a few months anyway—you’re going to need a shoulder to cry on. Once you’ve dried your tears and slept off your hangover, it’s time to start over.

Starting over doesn’t mean charging right back in and signing up for $5,000 worth of private GMAT tutoring. First, take a good look at whether business school is right for you. Do you have a clear idea of what you want to do after business school? If not, bschool won’t help you to figure that out. If you do have a clear idea, is an MBA necessary or is there another path you can take that won’t cost $100K? Did you apply because you really want to go back to school or because you hate your job? It’s a lot less expensive to find a new job than to go to business school—someone actually pays you instead of the other way around!

If you are certain an MBA is what you want, get some feedback before trying again. Find out if the schools that rejected you offer feedback to rejected applicants. A lot of them do. Once you have a better idea of why they turned you down—low GMAT, weak essays, etc.—you can focus on addressing specific weaknesses when you reapply. This will also give you a sense of where you fell in the pack. If you missed being admitted by a hair then apply to the same school. If it wasn’t even close you may want to target a different school.

Use the time between now and next year’s application deadline to network. Get in contact with current students and start a dialog with them about the school. Join on-line admissions chats so that the admissions directors start to recognize your name. If you haven’t visited campus, schedule a tour and sit in on a class. And as you get to know the program better make sure you highlight this in your application.

Demonstrate that you’ve made progress from one year to the next—emphasize promotions or additional responsibilities at work. Take a class that will be relevant to your MBA and highlight this on your résumé. You want to prove that you’ve grown and changed—but not too much! If your first essays described your dream of becoming the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, then turning in new ones about how you want to a non-profit organization will raise eyebrows. Stay consistent.

Finally, don’t get discouraged. Your chances of getting accepted the second time around might actually be higher than the first time you applied. At Wharton, for example, acceptance rate is around 18%, but for reapplicants it’s 5-10 percentage points higher. If you don’t get admitted the second time, though, then you might want to reassess whether the universe is trying to tell you something.

In yesterday’s post I wrote about the advantages of going abroad to get your MBA. A lot of people, though, want an international experience but aren’t ready to give up the experience of an American MBA. So they do the next best thing—study abroad for a semester. A semester abroad is kind of like moving in with your boyfriend but still keeping your own place in case it doesn’t work out. It’s commitment-lite. It gives you the chance to experience another culture, spice up your résumé, learn about international markets and customs, and—from what I hear—learn to order a beer and ask for someone’s phone number in another language.

The decision to study abroad should depend on the reputation of the business school you go to and that of the international business school you would attend. If you go to Stanford, it may not be as attractive to spend part of your MBA at another school. If you go to Ole Miss and can spend a semester abroad at INSEAD or LBS then you just struck résumé paydirt.

How much research did you do when choosing where to go for your MBA? My guess is that you wracked up the hours, especially if you count the web-surfing to MBA sites you did at the office while you were supposed to be putting together Powerpoints. If you do a semester abroad you’ll spend 25% of your MBA at that school, so put at least 25% of the effort you spent researching your primary business school into researching your study abroad options. Put it through all the same tests—ranking, reputation, what it’s known for, caliber of faculty, etc. A word of caution: often only a limited selection of classes are available to exchange students, so make sure the classes you want to take are open to you.

Going abroad can also throw off the recruiting process. If you go abroad in your third semester, as most people do, it means a lot more is riding on your summer internship. If you don’t like it or don’t get an offer you will miss the fall recruiting cycle and be left on your own to job hunt when you get back. One of my classmates hated her internship and but was scheduled to head to a European school for fall semester. She got an offer at the end of the summer and ended up accepting because she was scared of going abroad with no job. Guess what? She ended up hating the job.

Finally, think about what it means to spend a semester away from family, friends, and from the MBA experience of your school. Two years fly by, and it’s not a lot of time to forge friendships and professional connections. A friend of mine spent first semester of our second year in Europe. She told me that “when I came back it felt like I didn’t have any friends anymore. During first year everyone hung out together, but in second year groups formed and I missed out on that.” You also have to choose your commitments—I thought about going abroad but when I was tapped to become co-president http://caitlinweaver.blog.com/2835117/ of one of the largest student organizations, I had to choose. I stayed.

Competition is fierce for entry into American MBA programs. Although the MBA originated in the U.S., it’s now one of the most internationally recognized degrees. There are MBA programs on six continents, many of them on par with top U.S.schools in quality and reputation. American students are taking note of this, and of the many other advantages of crossing the pond for their MBA.

There are no exact numbers on how many American students are going abroad for their MBAs, but the number of U.S.students attending business schools in the UK almost tripled during the last decade, from 235 in 1994-95 to 648 in 2004-05. One advantage of a British MBA is that the normally two-year curriculum is condensed into two semesters. As tuition skyrockets in the U.S., a compressed degree is more attractive. The average cost of an MBA in Britain is 16,000 pounds--about $32,000. In the U.S. an MBA will set you back around $100,000. Even with the higher living costs that result from today’s weak dollar, that’s a huge savings. And the opportunity cost of a one-year degree is also less since you’re only giving up one year of salary. 

I only applied to American business schools, but a friend of mine was much more savvy. She got into Columbia and into Cambridge, and chose to go to Cambridge. “I’m sure I would have had a great experience at Columbia, too,” she told me, “but I’d have a lot more debt and would have had to delay starting my career by one more year.” and into

Many students also find that they’re ready to go back to the real world after one year. Recruiting calendars mean that second-year MBA students often accept job offers as early as October, leaving them with little incentive to focus on school for the remainder of their second year. A classmate of mine got his Sales & Trading offer at the beginning of our second year. “After two weeks of celebrating and slacking off I was pretty much ready to start working,” he told me. “Instead I spent the next seven months drinking and blowing off class. I didn’t get much out of second year.”

Americans aren’t the only ones who have discovered international MBA programs. In the UK, 75-90% of MBA students come from other countries. This international makeup of classes gives a much broader international experience than you’ll find even at the most “international” of U.S. business schools. If you’re considering working in another country, getting your MBA abroad is a huge advantage. And as the American economy weakens, it might be time to think about a career in another country. Not to mention that London is now vying with New York for the role of financial capital of the world.

The UK isn’t the only country with great MBA programs. You can find Business Week’s top picks here. And for the most part you don’t have to worry about the language barrier, since most of the time classes are taught in the international language of business—English.

One of life’s first rules is that you should never make any important decisions over cocktails. I tend to ignore this rule, which is why, after three caipirinhas on a beach in Brazil, I ended up as co-president of one of my business school’s largest student clubs.

During my first year I was ultra-committed to the club. I narrowly avoided being hospitalized for exhaustion while planning a spring break “study” trip to Brazil for 100 students and alumni--on top of recruiting, socializing and studying. I decided it would be a good idea to tone down my responsibility and be more relaxed my second year. Then on the Brazil trip D caught up with me. We had several caipirinhas and convinced me to run for club president with him. It didn’t take much—all he had to do was bow and start introducing me to people as “Madame Le President”.

A week later we were being toasted by the outgoing club presidents as the new leadership team. “This is gonna be the best job ever,” said D, raising his glass to me. “All we have to do is tell other people what to do.” The outgoing presidents shared a knowing look.

The next day an email showed up in my inbox, “inviting” me to a mandatory all-day club leaders training—scheduled for 9 am the morning after the semester’s biggest all-school party. Then other emails started showing up:

From the club treasurer, “We have to submit our financial report by tomorrow and my account access is frozen—what should I do?”
From the events officer, “The keynote speaker for tomorrow’s conference is stranded in a tornado in Chicago—what should I do?”
From a school administrator, “Alumni want to know why they weren’t invited to last week’s wine tasting event—what should we tell them?”

Soon my inbox was full. My calendar was next. There were meetings with each of the club committees, with administrators and with the presidents of other clubs. There were reports to file and action plans to author. Second year was well underway and I was anything but relaxed. I ran into D in the club office and he looked as haggard as I felt. “Who knew telling other people what to do was so much work?” he asked. We needed a system or we’d never survive to enjoy spending our signing bonuses.

There were two of us, so we divided and conquered. D handled the events and technology committees. I handled conference and membership. We worked together on the spring break trip. We also selected good people to work with us as club officers. Instead of just choosing our friends, but we made sure to pick the most dependable, organized people. That way we could delegate with confidence. We did most of the club business over email to minimize meetings. When we did force everyone to come to meetings we brought beer to keep them happy and working hard for us. My inbox cleared out and open space appeared in my calendar again.

D and I caught up one night at a club happy hour. “Hey, nice job to us!” he said. “Things are running smoothly.” We clinked glasses. Just then a fellow student came up to us.

“You guys are the club presidents, right?” We nodded. “Well your technology officer has had a bit too much to drink—he’s outside puking and asking for you. Someone needs to take him home.”  I sighed and looked at D. I bet Jack Welch never had to deal with this…

It’s that time of year when all you would-be MBAs receive your admissions decisions. Many of you have gotten in to multiple schools and have tough decisions to make. You’re about to invest two years of your life and a large chunk of cash in an MBA program and you want to make the most of it. So how do you begin to sort through the staggering volume of information and statistics to make the right decision?

Go visit. Making a decision without visiting the school is like agreeing to marry someone based on their Match.com profile. You need to know what you’re getting in to! Visiting the school will help you get a sense of the social atmosphere. But to do this, you have to make sure to step off the beaten path. Duck out of the standard admissions tour and strike up a conversation with real students. See if you can get invited to happy hour with them. Get them drunk and ask them what they really think about the school, what they don’t like, where they hang out, how they made friends, etc. Is the atmosphere collaborative or hyper-competitive? Is it a commuter school or do people go out together on the weekends? Your happiness for two years will depend a lot on the people you spend your time with and the environment you’re in.

Don’t depend on rankings alone. I don’t deny that they are important—my life would be a lot different if I’d gone to my hometown university instead of striking out to a top-ranked east coast school. But once you get inside the top 20 schools, stop and pay no more attention to rankings. Statistics rarely show the whole picture, and b-schools are often ranked on narrow criteria that don’t capture the true pros and cons of each school. The only “best” you should be concerned about is what is best for you.

Diversity is important. It’s important if you are a minority, because seeing successful people that look like you encourages your success. If you’re not a minority it’s still important, because diversity contributes to the business goals of an organization: being responsive to an increasingly diverse world of customers, improving relations with the surrounding community, increasing the organization's ability to cope with change, and expanding the creativity of the organization. In short, diversity makes organizations more successful because people learn new things from one another. This is especially important in business school because the most important learning doesn’t always come from your professors. It comes from your classmates who bring with them a wide range of experience and knowledge.

Reputation is important. Not just overall reputation, but how a school is viewed by specific industries. For example, Chicago is known for consulting and NYU is known for banking. Companies recruit accordingly, so if there is an industry you want to focus on then you should go to a school that’s strong in that area. Talk to students at the schools you’re considering to get an idea of what industries the school is known for.

There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a business school, and I’ve listed the ones I think are most important. But there is one last factor to consider above all else: the gut factor. If you visit a school and your gut tells you it’s the right place for you, it probably is. And if it tells you to run screaming in the opposite direction, then that’s what you should do. Because in the end, it doesn’t matter what the research, the rankings or the admissions websites say. Only you can know what’s best for you.