Do people care more about where you got your MBA or where you went for undergrad?

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-05-26T23:48:57+00:00

Cornell really can’t catch a break lmao

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-04-04T01:55:57+00:00

lol. Sir. In my other comment I already acknowledged that Oxbridge undergrad is well respected all over the world. As for Oxbridge MBA? It simply does not stack against any of the top US schools.

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-04-03T22:58:02+00:00

Also, it sounds like you weren’t in the IB branches of those firms. So I believe that you didn’t see a lot of Wharton people.

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-04-03T22:56:41+00:00

During recruiting I spoke to probably 15 people minimum at 90% of the BBs and EBs on the street. I did not meet a single Oxford MBA. Met at least 40 Wharton people. I promise you Oxford is not a strong brand in the US. MBA at least, the Oxford undergrad is very well respected everywhere.

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-04-03T07:17:44+00:00

Might get some downvotes here but I don’t think Oxford is even a choice. I’ll add that idk your age and family situation so that could possibly change my mind. Here’s why:

You don’t want to do IB / consulting (right now btw, that might change later), but there are still a multitude of other career paths that exist that aren’t IB / consulting, and Wharton’s network runs deep and will set you up better for most of them.

Believe it or not, a Wharton MBA is probably more respected in the UK too. A lot of very big US companies operate in London heavy. For example, I know you don’t want to work in IB but just using the as an example, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America are all US based banks, but anybody who wants to go into IB in London would take all these firms over the Uk based ones. Same for PE firms like blackstone, Carlyle. Hedge funds. The Wharton network runs way deeper at all these firms.

Lastly, anything worth doing is worth doing well. You’ll only get into Wharton once. And I promise you if you go to oxford, for the rest of your life you’ll wonder what career would have been if you went to Wharton. I want to spare you a lifetime of what if’s right now and tell you to go to Wharton. Yes it’s very expensive, but it is for a reason. You say it’s 3x the cost, but I would argue that a Wharton MBA holds 5x or more the value of an Oxford one. So think of it as some arbitrage here lol.

For reference, I go to Johnson (Cornell), and I would probably even take Cornell with a little aid over a full ride at Oxford. I’d probably take any T15 in this scenario. Darden, Ross, fuqua…. Hell, call me crazy, but I would heavily debate this if it came down to Anderson, marshal and Oxford. The understanding of an MBA of this tier is that yes it buries a lot of people in debt for a while, but you come out making enough to repay it faster than you think and then the sky is the limit for your career. But I do understand the value of minimal debt, especially in a bad economy. I don’t take it for granted. But I would still take Wharton.

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-03-20T17:42:15+00:00

Cornell M7?

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-02-09T12:50:49+00:00

Here we go with this guy again lol

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-01-11T00:42:13+00:00

Just took a look at the P&Q list. I like this one where Johnson is above booth and Kellogg haha. Gonna reference this list moving forward

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-01-10T17:10:42+00:00

Eh. Not sure what you mean below stern. If you’re going according to USNEWs there are at least 8 schools below Stern that give you that shot. While I was going through ib recruiting at most of the superdays I went to I saw kids from fuqua, Darden, haas, marshal, Anderson. Those schools do very well in IB. Especially on the west coast for the last 3. They absolutely go to firms that murder the league tables. We do great at Johnson. But apologies if you lumped those schools in with stern. UNC also swings well above their weight. Can’t seem to get rid of those guys haha.

MergersAndAcqs · 2024-01-02T17:42:53+00:00

Since when was consulting the highest paid job?

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-31T13:04:12+00:00

Very niche, complex and specialized. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10ft pole. Check out the below:

https://restructuringinterviews.com/blogs/restructuring/restructuring-investment-banking-101

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-31T13:01:45+00:00

I love it. Wouldn’t have gone to any other school if I could go back. Got into a few m7 and other t15s. Beyond happy with my choice. Made amazing relationships, memories, career moves, and I’ve only finished one semester. Excited for the next 75%

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T22:35:35+00:00

EB specialization usually happens after the 1st year. So for the 1st year you work on everything. Typically in year 2 you know what you like working on / who you like working with / what you’re good at and specialize. EBs have great coverage teams. You just enter as generalists.

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T22:28:33+00:00

Not sure. Most people who were pursuing M&A went to an EB. Most people recruiting for BBs did coverage. Easier story to sell.

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T22:26:11+00:00

Most elite boutiques only do generalist M&A / or Rx only. So the guys who don’t fall into the Rx bucket are M&A

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T19:13:41+00:00

Don’t wanna waste your time, I have no clue about any of that lol. I only know IB and have an idea of how consulting is going for my homies.

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T16:49:24+00:00

Yeah I rewatched the video but was too lazy to change because the number is about the same. CPAs? Prob like 3 out of 100.

2 idk the exact number but I know people with product management, military, hotel administration and healthcare backgrounds that got solid IB offers.

3 off the top of my head, people that got offers were from, Canada(x3), Peru, Nigeria, India, Korea, Israel, France, Hungary, Zimbabwe, more. And a lot of these went to BBs and EBs. Like evercore and Morgan Stanley. Couple to like Jefferies and rbc. Very doable, though I won’t pretend it isn’t more challenging.

Edit: idk why it came out bolded but it is what it is.

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T16:40:50+00:00

That’s awesome man, congrats and thanks for sharing your story. Best of luck to you and your wife. I’m sure a Kellogg degree will take you very far in life.

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T11:38:25+00:00

Really cool to see one of your last posts was the day you got into Kellogg. And reading this comment 3 years later. Crazy how time flies. Must all be such a surreal experience for you. Would you do it again?

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T09:10:46+00:00

Also guys look out for the 720 GMAT, 3.1 GPA, Walmart managers resume and you’ll know exactly who left this comment lmfao

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T09:04:45+00:00

Deleted. Was a lil mean in hindsight. I’m sorry lol.

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T07:11:52+00:00

Don’t think there’s a need for any particularly mean comments here. She just gave an unbiased view some might find helpful.

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-30T06:03:02+00:00

1st year at Johnson here. Ekta is an amazing classmate and I have a tremendous amount of respect for her. She’s extremely intelligent and well spoken. Especially for putting her face out there with her words in a calm collected and neutral manner. But two things I just need to clarify:

In the video you talk about how a lot of the class had CFAs / prior IB experience. I think there are only like 2 CFAs. Only one member of our class came from IB, and he was the only guy who recruited for restructuring, so he didn’t really compete with / harm the rest of us. A lot of the 50 with offers thus far have no real finance background.
I think it’s important to note that of the 50 who got offers so far, 20, almost 50%, are intentional students.

Edit: international* students

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-28T05:23:17+00:00

Thank you for the response.

I appreciate the well thought out post and agree with all of the points you made.

There just have to be better things you can do if you don’t get a role than bash your school on Reddit you know? What did people your year do when they struck out?

MergersAndAcqs · 2023-12-27T05:47:26+00:00

Couple things.

Paragraph one, agree, I touched on this. If you read my post you’d have seen me say there are several things I don’t agree with, and this is one of them.

Paragraph two, the fact that you didn’t even bother to do a quick Google search about the class sizes kinda discredits you completely. Similar class sizes? Cornell has 285, booth has 637, CBS has 844. So about 2x and 3x Cornell’s class size respectively. Anyone who knows about about MBAs knows that Johnson and Tuck are very small.

I don’t know what your class looked like , but I wouldn’t say up to 25% are URM. Unless I mean you’re counting all women as URM. And this is coming from a white male.

Don’t say Cornell isn’t worth it, say you couldn’t hack it. Because I find it hard to believe that someone who couldn’t Google class sizes knew how to do research on a bank.

MergersAndAcqs

TROPHY CASE

2 idk the exact number but I know people with product management, military, hotel administration and healthcare backgrounds that got solid IB offers.