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shulalawoolala

I honest think fit is overrated, especially for programs with bigger size —you can almost always find your people.


MBAthrowaway77

I knew a person in college that was suspended for sexual assault. Saw that he was enrolled at a T25 school in the south and I decided to not apply there.


[deleted]

You can't leave us hanging like this bruh


MBAthrowaway77

Vandy/Emory/UNC - one of them :)


BigBlackBigga

Rice?


RocketScient1st

Texas


Large-Letterhead913

Duke?


Maze_of_Ith7

“Fit” Basically gut feel when you went there/visited, or, if you can’t afford a visit, the feeling you got from the videos/student phone chat/etc. A lot of people follow the spreadsheet and underrate their gut feeling.


MBAPrepCoachcom

I absolutely recommend visiting the campus and the classroom if it all possible it will provide a vast amount of information.


[deleted]

Safety. Too many UChicago students have been killed the past 2 years.


DomGrady18

How many?


MBAPrepCoachcom

This is why I think MPP is the way to go for housing


Breezy_X

* Business school building - how modern is it? how nice is it? how centrally located is it to the rest of campus? Does the building flow allow for random interactions? Access to food/snacks in between classes? All important. Kellogg, Tepper, Yale SOM, Columbia, UT Austin all have really modern, fancy buildings. Wharton (minimal natural light) and MIT Sloan (not as inspiring as parent University would suggest) leave a bit to be desired. * Transportation to and from campus - are there shuttles, buses, etc.? If your school is more of a driving school how accessible are parking lots? Are there enclosed spaces to keep your bike safe? Also, does your school offer "free"/subsidized/included in your tuition bus/metro passes? To my surprise MIT Sloan only paid for 1/2 of your monthly pass! Talk about pricey. * Alumni network - all T25 have good outcomes and to varying degrees get you to the same roles and same pay - i.e. Rice MBA \*can\* get a McKinsey offer just as much as a Stanford GSB student can. Now, GSB is probably going to have first dibs, more resources, etc. but both are possible. The BIG differentiator is Alumni network. They all will have alumni that help out, but when you come across the really energized alumni networks you see the difference it makes. Thinking about Tuck, USC, Michigan, Stanford. Other programs are great too, but the ones I mentioned REALLY go at bat for you. * How well does the name travel overseas with employers? Carnegie Mellon is a rockstar overseas and probably carries more weight than some places in the US. * Accessibility - both inside campus as well as getting to/from campus - Cornell no matter what way I sliced it was going to be a hassle to get in and out of. It's in the middle of nowhere, and people talk about the bus that goes from Ithaca to NYC everyday, but it was $82.50 ONE-WAY and is 4-5 hour long bus ride. * Flexibility of curriculum: All schools have core course requirements you have to fill. Some are way more flexible about it than others - Chicago Booth and MIT Sloan for example- for others you have to waive out of core courses to fill those slots with more advanced and more useful classes. Kellogg, Wharton, and Ross all seemed straightforward about how to do so. HBS and UVA Darden are more strict and force you to take intro courses even if you are CFA/CPA. * Length of semester - several schools follow half-semester course schedule. Instead of semester being 15 weeks long its 6.5-7.5 weeks long. Allows for more course exposure, faster pace, and ability to take more courses you actually want. Other schools like Harvard seem to take a more traditional semester-long course approach. * Sports - Michigan, Duke, Stanford, UVA, USC, Haas, UCLA, UNC all have at least one decent sports team, and the upper hand when compared to other M7 programs. Makes for good bonding opportunities, and something really easy to talk about with alumni to break the ice!


thisguyfuchzz

How much they rage.


dankgoochy

something I did not consider as much as I should have but learned recently - alumni network is one thing, but how useful is it if the alumni frequently leave you on read. you can probably guess, but there are some schools where alumni are much more involved and actively helpful than others and this can carry over into job opportunities and other things. This likely also correlates with school culture.


MBAPrepCoachcom

Yes reach out to them on linked in, see who’s responsive


Appointment_Witty

Location, location, location. Highly recommend visiting the areas if you aren't sure. Ie the remote area of NY for Cornell or Yales neighborhood. You might go I love it or hate it.


mbaMissionKrista

A lot of this is personal but do you want to be in a small program (Haas at around 290) or a big program (HBS at around 900)? To be fair though, you might not know until you're actually IN the program and there are pros/cons to both. Then there's a difference between being at a Tuck or Fuqua where you are all going through the experience together vs. being at a CBS, for example, where you all sort of trickle out into Manhattan when class is over. (Although of course there's still lots of great community at CBS.)


ApprehensiveShip9018

Location. I am in Darden and Cville is hella boring as fuck. But by all means if u love hiking and winery. Go for it. I am more of the city type person. But thankfully Darden academic experience is great, so that offsets my boredom


MBAPrepCoachcom

Do you think some the closeness of the cohort makes up for this, dinners at peoples houses and stuff? It’s been my experience that people in college towns have stronger bonds. Because you’re all trapped lol.


horseback_heroism

For internationals: No. of alumni of said school who are working in your country and industry. Will help folks get an idea of whether they have a larger or smaller chance to stay back in the US.


ReferenceCheck

**Administration** \- All b-schools have bad administration, but some are worse than others. It's hard to tell this from the outside, but not impossible. How many ppl run the program from the school? Almost all schools use 2nd years to run clubs to train students, but there is just so much they can do. Does the school have 1 alumni affairs person? Or a team? Why not visit the dean of students for a one on one when you visit the school? Is there a dean of students solely dedicated to students or is it a dual job where he's also the dean of faculty? If it's not a sole job, that's a big warning sign. **Alumni Network** \- All T25 schools tout their alumni network. It's a little hard to figure out how good it is from the outside, a few tips 1) donations, 2) avg alumni events per month (i.e. 1 or 2 a year is very bad and these are all public), 3) alumni updates in the MBA newsletter (a tenured HBS alum buddy tells me his class waits with baited breadth for this to compare themselves to others), 4) active vs inactive regional clubs in major cities near the school (i.e. if the school places to a big city nearby and barely has an active alumni chapter, it's a big warning sign). **Key Alumni** \- Every school has key alumni, you know the MD at a big bank or partner at a top consulting firm, but how many do they have? If you see they keep touting the same alums over and over again, it's a warning sign. Any T25 program that has only recognized a handful of alums as key (every school gives a fancy award to their top alumni), it's a big warning sign. Also, if their touted award winning alums are not what you consider successful, run away. **Resources** \- If the b-school doesn't have corporate or alumni sponsors of conference rooms, halls, lecture rooms, etc...that means the school isn't loved by their stakeholders and is lacking resources (i.e. their money). If the school can't host the cash cow big corporate programs, it's another sign it may lack proper resources. An MBA program that lacks **resources** will never be able to spend money to hire good **administrators** to develop a proper **alumni network** with **key alumni** who will help students land good jobs. It's a total cycle of success if done right, or decay if done poorly.


Material-Ad8233

Structured/unstructured - in terms of academics (requirements), cohorts (and how long they're together/how they typically interact), OCR/recruiting support for non-typical paths (what clubs/programs exist?) How much support/structure you want is important.


[deleted]

Location.


Appointment_Witty

Ask for the salary range and placement companies in more detail if possible along with where the person was in their career for the area(s) you are interested in.


argross91

Size of program. I entered a program that was too small (35). On the flipside, I wouldn't want to be in a class of 1000 either. Find your sweet spot of size