School selection II - a (humorous) helping hand

This was posted on bschoolers.com by Ben Siscovick. Sure made me chuckle... 1.) Harvard - Pros: The best academic brand in the world, people from East Timor will know where you went to school. Graduates are extremely polished and dynamic leaders. its no coincidence that so many politicians these days are HBS grads. Cons: Students are about as pompous and pretentious as possible. Polish is a fancy way of saying full of s**t. its no coincidence that so many politicians these days are HBS grads. Office Space Character: Lumbergh (Peter’s hated boss). He’s a quintessential Harvard grad; in charge and full of platitudes that sound great but on further inspection don’t make any sense. He also drives a nice car and makes a lot of money while being universally loathed. Kind of sums up every HBS grad you’ve ever met, right? 2.) Stanford - Pros: Small class size and focus on do-gooders leads to an incredible array of backgrounds and accomplishments of students, who thrive in tight knit community. Haven for the really interesting superstars out there. Tremendous brand. Beautiful weather. Cons: It may be interesting to be classmates with a Buddhist monk-fighter pilot, but its also hard to relate to anyone (”So, did that vow of peace make it hard to take out bogeys?”). For super accomplished business students with the world at their fingertips, it sure doesn’t seem like any of them actually like business. Office Space Character: Peter (main character). He seems like the most level headed, likable and down to earth of any of the characters, but for all his talents, he ends up as a damn construction worker. He’s also a major league flake, showing up to work only when he feels like it. Can you say entitled? 3.) Wharton - Pros: Arguably the best technical business education in the world. Great brand name, and the job placements are second only to H/S. Cons: Not sure if it’s the ultra rigorous curriculum, the competitive culture, or the fact that they have to live in Philly for two years, but Whartonites are paranoid bordering on psychotic. The odds of having a nervous breakdown in your life triple after going here. Double that if you actually ask anyone at Wharton to calculate those odds. Office Space Character: Tom Smykowski (Co-worker that invents “jumping to conclusions mat”). I’m assuming that Tom was actually an excellent technical employee, but that his constant fear of losing his job made him batsh*t crazy. Most fitting quote “I’m a People Person!!!!!!” when yelling at the consultants. 4.) Northwestern - Pros: Strong team culture and arguably the best marketing program in the country. Incredibly collaborative for such a large school. Great location next to major financial center (Chicago). Cons: Very soft curriculum, these guys are poets. I’m pretty sure that Kellogg finance classes are prerecorded cartoons taught by Disney characters. Is it really worth it to pay $10000+ to drink every night? I mean, couldn’t you just do that without the degree? Office Space Character: Joanna (Peter’s girlfriend). Like Peter, she’s very likable, level headed and likes to get around. Unfortunately she’s also vastly less skilled than many of her fellow characters. Thank God she’s hot. 5.) Chicago - Pros: Finance education is second only to Wharton globally (and even that’s debatable). Probably the best facilities of all the top business schools. Fantastic job placements and close proximity to Chicago. Academic horsepower of profs is untouchable. Cons: Socially awkward is an understatement. Unlike Whartonites who are just high strung, Chicago GSBers either never learned or quickly forgot how to communicate with peers. Make sure to wear a face mask if they’re talking to you ’cause spits going to fly. Office Space Character: Milton (Co-worker that loves red swingline stapler). Milton seems like a nice enough guy, and he might be the smartest guy in the office (he pulls off the grand caper in the end). It’s just that he’s about as charismatic as a toilet bowl. Hire ‘em, just make sure to get GSBers an office in the basement. 6.) Columbia - Pros: Great location in the middle of global financial center (New York). Most diverse student body in terms of minorities and women. Very strong finance program. New York allows great social and job placement opportunities, and draws worldly, cosmopolitan students. Cons: Cliquish and commuterish. Columbia is like a high school with super rich kids. High ***hole factor. This isn’t the kind of school where you’ll be going to house parties, its more like the kind of school where you’re expected to order bottle service for twenty guys on a student budget or else be ostracized. Office Space Character: Bobs (consultants that lay off workers). They seem smart, they have great jobs, but c’mon, these guys are douchebags. 7.) MIT - Pros: World class entrepreneurship program, and probably the best supply management program in America. Attached to world class research center, and location in Boston is strong. Great job placement, especially in consulting. Cons: For all their unique academic offerings, the overall school is like 90/10 men/women including undergrads. Takes the term sausage fest to a whole new level. Nerdy culture. Office Space Character: Michael Bolton (Peter’s co-worker and friend). Michael Bolton desperately wants to be cool, listening to rap music, talking in slang, but lets face it, he’s a dork. He’s also hampered by his dorky namesake, which seems to attract a lot of nerdy people (to his obvious dismay). 8.) Tuck -Pros: Small class size and tight culture leads to maybe the most enthusiastic students in any school. Great respect from recruiters. Alumni network is arguably the most responsive and helpful of any top school. Strong rigorous program. Cons: Very conformist culture, and really limited social options. These guys seem so enthusiastic about their school that I’m almost certain that all students are given ecstasy at orientation. Listen, if two years in the middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire were to constitute the best two years of my life, I would kill myself. Office Space Character: Brian (Works with Joannas at Chotchkies, wears 37 pieces of flair). Brian is well meaning and LOVES his job. Never mind that he’s a waiter at a glorified TGIF, he still loves it with all his heart. They say ignorance is bliss, in which case, maybe Tuckies have the secret after all. That or, like Brian, they’re borderline retarded. 9.) Michigan - Pros: Maybe the most hands-on practical curriculum of all the top schools. New facilities coming up in 2009. Largest alumni network of any business school. State school, so the 2nd year is cheaper. Cons: Location proximity leaves something to be desired (Detroit? Why not put it next to Beirut). The overall atmosphere here is very fratty and college like. Every single UMich student and alumni I’ve spoken to say the highlight of their experience was tailgating and watching football. EVERYONE. Not that football isn’t awesome, but no one else had any other experience that was noteworthy? They probably forgot the rest after beerbonging Jagermeister. Office Space Character: Lawrence (Peter’s next door neighbor and friend). Lawrence is a good guy. He’s loyal, and salt of the earth. He also has a few rough edges, and would use 1 million dollars to be intimate with two other women. Have a great time with old Lawrence. Just don’t be surprised if all you end up with is a job he hooked you up with at the local quarry. 10.) Haas - Pros: Great location in the bay, and strong ties to Silicon Valley. Great weather. Small class size and tight culture. Berkeley has very strong international brand name. Cons: Weak ties to financial sector, and east coast in general. The culture here is definitely about as PC as it gets. This seems like the type of school where you’d need to get a permission slip before you held a woman’s hand on campus. Office Space Character: Stan (Joanna’s manager at Chotchkies). Stan wants Joanna to do more than the bare minimum. After all, people can get an MBA anywhere, but they come to Chotckies/Haas for the atmosphere! Don’t you want to do more than the bare minimum? Then put on your flair, burn some bras and save a whale you selfish jerk. 11.) Duke - Pros: Maybe the best health care management program in the country. Great brand name, especially in the south. Strong team culture. Cons: Relatively young MBA program, so alumni network is small. As such, the brand cache just isn’t there yet. People that come here seem very cookie cutter to me, not in a bad way, just very comfortable and relatively unambitious. Office Space Character: Samir (Peter’s co-worker and friend). Samir is a nice guy, very practical and unassuming. You get the feeling that he’s happy as long as he has a job in hand. Won’t make waves, won’t screw up, and won’t take any risks. But he’s a happy guy, and will have a house with 2.2 kids and a dog in a suburb somewhere (probably Durham). 12.) Darden - Pros: Strong Case method program and rigorous curriculum is universally respected. Alumni network is very strong and active with current students. Cons: Middle of nowhere. Intellectual horsepower not as strong at a lot of the other top schools. Office Space Character: Anne (Peter’s ex-girlfriend who was cheating on him). Anne just seemed really high maintenance and uptight. You try doing twenty cases a week for a year and see what happens to you. Just don’t be surprised if it’s a bigger bi**h than you imagined. 13.) NYU - Pros: Great location within spitting distance of Wall Street. Strong finance curriculum, and media program. Cons: Location in downtown Manhattan make this the ultimate commuter school. Weird inferiority complex with Columbia. If you don’t go into finance or media, good luck. Office Space Character: Other Lumbergh (ex-co-worker of Peter, Joanna’s ex-boyfriend). From all accounts, the other Lumbergh was a likable guy who was good at his job and got a great job offer to move on somewhere else. We just never actually saw him. Kind of like your NYU classmates. 14.) UCLA - Pros: LA! Sun, beach, beautiful glamorous people everywhere! Strong ties to Southern California business and great real estate program. Cons: LA. UV rays, crowded beaches and shallow, materialistic people everywhere. You get the feeling that UCLA students are there just to spend two years in SoCal rather than to get jobs. As such, this place draws vapid, materialistic people. But damn they’re hot! Office Space Character: Drew (Peter’s co-worker, describes the famous “O-face”). Drew’s a fun-loving guy that people like. He’s also the kind of guy that would tell anyone who was willing to listen graphic descriptions of all his sexual exploits. I liked Drew when I was 19. When I’m 26..? 15.) Cornell - Pros: Maybe the best Hospitality management program in the country. Ivy league brand name, and strong ties to some top consumer management companies. Small tight knit culture. Cons: In the middle of nowhere, and it’s definitely a cut below a lot of the top tier programs. I mean, hospitality management? Seriously? Office Space Character: Peggy (Lumbergh’s secretary). She’s kind of in hospitality: “Initech, can I put you on hold? Thank you! Initech, can I put you on hold? Thank you! Initech, can I put you on hold? Thank you! .” 16.) Yale - Pros: World class brand name. Arguably the best social enterprise program in the country. Relatively strong job placement for the rank. Cons: Newer program means little real rep with employers or alumni to lean on. Office Space character: Dr. Swanson (Peter’s psychologist/hypnotist). The Dr. has a very strong reputation, and he makes Peter go from depressed to happy (what a do-gooder!). But when it comes to the rankings, he just falls over dead.

Brussels and Wall Street

So, I've signed up for the MBA2U presentations being run by McKinsey in Brussels next week. I have to admit, I'm really excited about the event. Not quite sure what to expect, though: How much time am I likely to get to speak to my shortlist of target schools? And how much real insight will it give me? I have pretty high hopes for it, but then I'm an optimistic kind of guy! Update to follow... This week has been nuts. Lehman, AIG, Merril Lynch, HBOS, WaMu... even Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have taken a beating! The storm has been billed as the worst for at least a generation, and taking stock of its implications is not easy. One thing it makes me consider whether an MBA is the right thing for me. Competition for places in MBA courses is likely to be incredible over the next couple of years, as the fall out from this credit crisis becomes clear. Competition for jobs in M&A / Private Equity thereafter will also be crazy. I'm doing pretty well where I am, thanks. I'm working on interesting stuff, I'm recognised in the Firm as an emerging high potential asset, I get paid pretty well. My job isn't in threat, really. Yet, I can't help but think that this is all short-sighted thinking. Long term, an MBA is yet another string to your bow in times of strife. This won't be the last economic crisis of my career, and I'm likely to be better equipped with an MBA than without. If anything, my conclusion is that I'm even more determined than ever to get the degree. One thing is for certain following recent events... I'm expecting Brussels to be a busy place.

School selection

It is fair to say that taking an MBA at a top school is not a fashionable choice for budding executives in Scotland. The alumni network is largely non-existent, and there are few places to turn to for a point in the right direction. So, where to begin? For any serious prospective MBA student searching for a top programme, rankings tables are a good start. Looking at them can be a confusing game, though: how can one programme be first in the Wall Street Journal and not even feature in The Economist? And how can something be 10th in the US rankings in Business Week and 4th in the global rankings? First lesson: take rankings with a pinch of salt. Personally, I didn’t see the merit in researching how each of these separate rankings were compiled and what factors they took into account – I just accepted that schools that were mentioned on at least a couple of them were worth a further look. US-based schools were my focus? Its position as the world's only superpower may be in serious jeapordy, but I am still in awe of the place. The American dream is my dream. The Constitution gives me hope. It isn't perfect, but it's as close as I have found and I want to be a part of it. So, I made a list of around 20-25 US schools that I wanted to research and made their websites my first port of call. Can you really choose where you want to spend two years of your life and the school you want to be an alumni of by how good the website is? No. But in the absence of unlimited time, I was willing to rule some schools from my preliminary list out on that basis. At least I would find out exactly where each was located (the importance of which shouldn’t be underestimated) and get a ‘feel’ for the schools. Beyond that, key factors for me were: - Brand - Alumni - Faculty - Focus - Geography. My initial list (the schools I chose to send my GMAT results to) were Harvard, Columbia, Chicago and Tuck. Nothing like setting the bar high, then!

The GMAT

GMAT was the dreaded first hurdle en route to fulfilling my dream of going to a top business school. I spoke to my mate Jasper about it (PwC alumnus and part of Chicago GSB class of ’09) and he told me it was really nothing to worry about for guys like him and me. He got 760 and, to be honest, I’m not sure I was comfortable with him bracketing us together with “guys like him and me”. OK, I don’t believe that anyone who seriously considers applying for a top b-school thinks of themselves as truly average, and I’m no different to the majority. I’m not superman, but I consider myself to be a pretty capable sort of chap when it comes to intellectual matters. But the advice from a proven high-flyer with a 760 under his belt that the GMAT was nothing to worry about gave me little comfort. I took his advice on study methods and bought the GMAC question book from Amazon. I read through it during the 2007 Christmas holidays and, slightly daunted, took the diagnostic assessment at the start of the book. The grades available were “Below Average, Average, Above Average, and Excellent.” I hadn’t so much as looked at a mathematics question since High School, so it was pretty daunting. I got a mix of Excellents and Above Averages for the Verbal tests and Below Averages and Averages for the Quant section. So, I knew what I had to work on. A few weeks later, I booked the test and, over the first few months of 2008, spent a few hours here and a few hours there getting up the Quant learning curve. As the test came closer, I got cracking with a couple of practice ‘Real Time’ tests that you get sent when you book the GMAT. For the first of these, I scored a 740. Result! The second, only a week or so before ‘G-day’, I scored a meagre 690. Worry set in. I deliberately booked my exam for a Tuesday in order that I could take two days off work and have the benefit of the weekend beforehand to make my final preparations. On G-day minus 1, I walked to the test centre to make sure I knew where I was going, and to make sure the model of calculator I had been studying with was OK to use in the exam. Take note, I was mistaken! I have little doubts that 99.99% of people reading this will realise that this is the case, but for anyone in the dark, you’d better get working on your mental arithmetic pretty soon! After that shock, I seriously considered cancelling and losing my deposit. Then I thought about going through all that studying again – not appealing. I always thought that this test would be a reality check for me – if it went pear shaped, then maybe I wasn’t cut out for b-school. I concluded that I would just go in and give it my best shot. Both essay questions were pretty favourable: something about whether a society should be judged on the merits of its business achievements or its achievements in the arts and sciences, and another about graduates struggling to get jobs as lecturers. Good start. The quantitative did not go well. Unarmed with my valuable defence of a calculator, I felt myself having a complete nightmare. This was going to be a catastrophe. I took a complete beating from that paper. During the break, I felt like I was 3-0 down at half time in a cup final. It was going to take a super second half to turn around the deficit and get the result I needed. Luckily, the wind was at my back in the second half (i.e. I was going in to take care of my forte – Verbal). I went in and absolutely nailed it. I ended up with a 730/5.5 – not setting the heather alight, but clearing the hurdle and setting me on the road to applications!

About Me

I'm pretty much an adcom's least interesting prospect - caucasian male with a business background! I graduated in 2004 with a 1st Class Honours in Accounting from the University of Glasgow (4th oldest University in the Western world, and the home of Adam Smith). Since then, I've worked for PwC, initially in audit while studying to become a Chartered Accountant, and now in Corporate Finance, where I work on advising entrepreneurs and corporations on mid-market ($25m-$500m) M&A deals in the UK. My big passion in life is sport. I love playing pretty much anything but am less bothered about watching unless it is something pretty special (like Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt this summer!) I once had dreams of playing professional soccer and was part of the Celtic FC youth programme. Now, I play a broad range of sports (rugby, field hockey, mountaineering, sailing...), organise our office sports committee (which in recent years has included trips to compete internationally in Vancouver, Amsterdam and Guernsey) and coach soccer to kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. I'm also really in to music. I used to play bass and sing in a band that got airplay on regional radio. Now, I limit myself to serenading my girlfriend with the aid of a Yamaha acoustic, and playing at the occasional accoustic night. Unlike sport, I enjoy watching live music almost as much as playing it. Right now, my spare time is mostly devoted to a project that I conceived a few months back, which has turned into a potentially major charitable event. The idea is to help a group of wounded Scottish soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan to climb Ben Nevis (the highest peak in the UK) and through that to raise public awareness of the 10 individuals' stories and raise cash for PoppyScotland, a charity that supports our veterans.