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USC or UCLA? Which Business School Is Right For You?
If you are in the midst of choosing your perfect MBA program, it’s likely you’ve already considered factors like cost, location, and prestige. But even within each of these categories it can be difficult to narrow down your selection to just one perfect school. Some of the nation’s top MBA programs can be found just within California, considered one of the best states for higher education. Today, our School v. School comparison will take a look at two of these top California programs: UCLA Anderson and USC Marshall.
U.S. News & World Report Best Business Schools Rankings

U.S. News & World Report offers one of the world’s most comprehensive school ranking systems available, highlighting hundreds of business schools in the United States. The annually released ranking organizes school programs according to peer and recruiter assessment, career success, and GMAT/GRE scores into a weighted average.
Full-Time MBA Rankings
Ranking | School |
---|---|
1 (tie) | The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania |
1 (tie) | Stanford GSB |
3 (tie) | Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management |
3 (tie) | University of Chicago Booth School of Business |
5 | MIT Sloan School of Management |
6 | Harvard Business School |
7 | UC Berkeley Haas School of Business |
8 | Columbia Business School |
9 | Yale School of Management |
10 | NYU Stern School of Business |
11 | UVA Darden School of Business |
12 (tie) | Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business |
12 (tie) | Duke University Fuqua School of Business |
12 (tie) | University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business |
15 | Cornell University SC Johnson Graduate School of Management |
16 | UCLA Anderson School of Management |
17 | USC Marshall School of Business |
18 | UT Austin McCombs School of Business |
19 | Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business |
20 (tie) | University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School |
20 (tie) | UW Foster School of Business |
22 | Emory University Goizueta School of Business |
23 (tie) | Indiana University Kelley School of Business |
23 (tie) | Owen Graduate School of Business of Vanderbilt University |
25 (tie) | Georgetown University McDonough School of Business |
25 (tie) | Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business |
27 | Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business |
28 (tie) | University of Florida Warrington College of Business |
28 (tie) | University of Minnesota Curtis L. Carlson School of Management |
30 (tie) | Notre Dame University Mendoza College of Business |
30 (tie) | Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School |
30 (tie) | Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University |
33 (tie) | University of Georgia Terry College of Business |
33 (tie) | UT Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management |
35 (tie) | Arizona State University W.P. School of Business |
35 (tie) | University of Rochester Simon Business School |
37 (tie) | Ohio State University Max M. Fisher College of Business |
37 (tie) | University of Wisconsin School of Business |
39 | University of Pittsburgh Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business |
40 | Eli Broad Graduate School of Management at Michigan State University |
41 (tie) | Penn State Smeal College of Business |
41 (tie) | SMU Cox School of Business |
41 (tie) | Manderson Graduate School of Business at University of Alabama |
44 (tie) | Mays Business School at Texas A&M UniversityCollege Station |
44 (tie) | UMD Smith |
46 (tie) | University of Arizona Eller College of Management |
46 (tie) | The Haslam College of Business at University of TennesseeKnoxville |
48 (tie) | Graduate School of Management at University of CaliforniaDavis |
48 (tie) | Boston University Questrom School of Business |
48 (tie) | Boston College Carroll School of Management |
48 (tie) | The David Eccles School of Business at University of Utah |
52 | Poole College of Management at North Carolina State University |
53 (tie) | George Washington University School of Business |
53 (tie) | The Isenberg School of Management at University of MassachusettsAmherst |
53 (tie) | Iowa State University College of Business |
56 (tie) | Raymond J. Harbert College of Business at Auburn University |
56 (tie) | The Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University |
56 (tie) | TCU Neeley School of Business |
56 (tie) | Rutgers Business School (New Brunswick, Newark) |
60 | School of Management at University at BuffaloSUNY |
61 | The DAmore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University |
62 (tie) | Baruch College Zicklin School of Business |
62 (tie) | Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business at University of Missouri |
62 (tie) | Darla Moore School of Business at University of South Carolina |
62 (tie) | The Raymond A. Mason School of Business at College of William and Mary |
62 (tie) | Temple University Fox School of Business |
67 | UC Irvine Merage School of Business |
68 | The School of Business at University of Kansas |
69 | E. J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State UniversityBaton Rouge |
70 (tie) | Howard University School of Business |
70 (tie) | University of Colorado Leeds School of Business (Boulder) |
72 (tie) | Babson College Olin Graduate School of Business |
72 (tie) | University of Miami, Miami Business School |
74 (tie) | Chapman University Argyros School of Business |
74 (tie) | A. B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University |
74 (tie) | School of Business at University of Connecticut |
77 (tie) | School of Business at Stevens Institute of Technology |
77 (tie) | Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University |
77 (tie) | Gatton College of Business and Economics at University of Kentucky |
80 (tie) | Fordham University Gabelli School of Business |
80 (tie) | Krannert School of Management at Purdue UniversityWest Lafayette |
80 (tie) | University of Denver Daniels College of Business |
83 (tie) | School of Business at Clemson University |
83 (tie) | Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business |
85 (tie) | College of Business at Florida State University |
85 (tie) | The Michael F. Price College of Business at University of Oklahoma |
85 (tie) | College of Business at University of Louisville |
88 | Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University |
89 (tie) | David D. Reh School of Business at Clarkson University |
89 (tie) | Rady School of Management at University of CaliforniaSan Diego |
89 (tie) | Saunders College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology |
92 (tie) | Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University |
92 (tie) | Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration at Texas Tech University |
92 (tie) | School of Business Administration at University of Mississippi |
95 (tie) | A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management at University of CaliforniaRiverside |
95 (tie) | C.T. Bauer College of Business at University of Houston |
95 (tie) | Lundquist College of Business at University of Oregon |
Real Humans of the Rady School of Management MBA Program
In less than 20 years since opening in 2001, the University of California San Diego Rady School of Management has quickly cemented itself as one of the best up-and-coming business schools in California. Regarded as one of the 100 best business schools in the world by The Economist, with an impeccably strong and celebrated faculty, Rady has nurtured an increasingly excelling MBA class.
The Rady School of Business Class of 2019 MBA sported a gaudy median GMAT score of 670 and an undergraduate GPA of 3.21. These students also joined the program having amassed more than five years of professional work experience, on average, with numerous prospective graduates coming from well-known companies like: Intel Corporation, Loreal, Princeton University, and Scripps Health. As well, about 16 percent of students within the class joined the program having already earned either their Ph.D. or an additional Master’s degree.
Considering San Diego’s strong connection to the United States Armed Forces, it isn’t surprising to hear that many students in the Class of 2019 come directly from the U.S. Army, Navy, and Army. The Rady School of Management, along with many of UC San Diego’s additional graduate schools, show a concerted effort to bring in those with military experience, offering MBA fee waivers, as well help from an extensive network of school alumni that continue to work with the U.S. military.
But the Class of 2019, and the Rady School of Management itself, goes much deeper. With a budding entrepreneurial culture, students are coming in from all over the world to help build groundbreaking startup companies. In fact, more than 40 percent of the MBA Class of 2019 comes from outside the United States, utilizing Rady’s numerous startup resources, like the StartR Accelerator program, mystartupXX Accelerator, and the Rady Venture Club, among others.
To get a greater understanding of what it means to be a Rady MBA, and how the school continues to help develop a rich entrepreneurial foundation, we spoke with several current students, including a consultant from Bangalore, a software developer from Kolkata, and a local equine veterinarian hoping to build a “biotech and medical industry consulting firm in for both the human and veterinary market.”
Read on to see what’s in store for these students at Rady and what life after an MBA may look like.
How Can You Get a Job at Boston Consulting Group in 2018?
Boston Consulting Company—a global management consulting firm— has offices across more than 90 cities and 50 countries, advising clients in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors, including a healthy chunk of Fortune 500 companies. Considered one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in the world, BCG was ranked fourth in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2018.
But, how can an MBA help you land a BCG job?
Working for BCG
According to Management Consulted, BCG has a demanding recruiting and hiring system. The firm hires undergrads as associates who work for two to three years before moving on or pursuing an MBA. However, it is very difficult and highly unlikely for an associate to make the leap to consultant without an MBA. If you’re hired as an MBA, you enter as a consultant with plenty of room for growth—to project team leader, principal, and then, finally, as a partner partner.
According to former BCG senior partner Lucy Brady, the company looks for a candidate’s record of academic and professional success, but also want to hire candidates who have overcome setbacks.
“We look for resiliency and adaptability, and the ability to learn from your mistakes and grow from them,” she said in a previous interview.
CNN revealed that 11.72 percent of MBAs want to work for BCG. However, BCG’s recruiting process is demanding, with Glassdoor previously ranking the firm among the most difficult companies to interview with.
The high job demand and lengthy interview process isn’t without reason: MBAs typically thrive at BCG due to the companies the emphasis on career development. BCG’s PTO (predictability, teaming, and open communication) policies allow for a healthy work-life balance for employees, which has paid numerous dividends. Internal surveys have shown that the program has led to a 74 percent increase in reported intentions to stay with the company for the long term. BCG was also among the companies that signed the 2016 White House Equal Pay Pledge.
BCG Recruiting on Campus
BCG actively recruits students on college and university campuses around the world. Campus visits are a way for students to connect with BCG, learn more about potential job opportunities, and feel out whether a career at BCG is a good fit.
“We have a presence at many of the top universities across the U.S., including Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, University of Michigan, Duke, and the University of Texas,” Tina Gao, BCG recruiting director, said in a previous interview. “We come to campus and hold a presentation to introduce the company and then are available for Q&A sessions. We also come back to help people train for our interviews and learn more about the company. We’ll come back to campus to interview the candidates we choose.”
You can see more upcoming BCG on campus events here. However, if your campus does not have a dedicated page, BCG encourage students to complete an online application for consulting internships.
BCG Internships
BCG’s consulting internship programs can be a great opportunity for students to get a feel for the the life of a consultant. BCG Associate and Consultant interns work with current BCG consultants, and are expected to contribute to a real client project. Interns are considered as true case team members and are tasked with everything from working on client projects to socializing with colleagues.
According to BCG, internships vary depending on the project or location. Some interns are expected to travel, but do return to their home offices at the end of each week for special events and social activities. Orientation and training sessions ease interns int their roles before being assigned to a case that aligns with their personal and professional goals, as well as the firm’s business needs.
BCG accepts online applications from exceptional business school, engineering, science, law, and humanities students who are nearing the completion of their undergraduate or graduate studies.
BCG MBA Fellows
If you’re an MBA who wants to get your foot in the door at BCG, it’s worth looking into the BCG Fellows MBA Program, which provides top applicants with monetary awards and individual mentorship by BCG consultants.
The fellow program is only available to full-time MBAs studying at the following business programs: Columbia Business School, Fuqua School of Business, Kellogg School of Management, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan School of Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stern School of Business, Tuck School of Business, Anderson School of Management, Booth School of Business, Ross School of Business, Darden School of Business, The Wharton School and Yale School of Management.
BCG MBA Salaries
If you score a job at BCG, you’ll also be earning a big paycheck—well worth the hours of MBA studies and the rigorous recruiting process. According to Management Consulted, MBAs hired a BCG make earn the following within their first year of employment:
- Signing Bonus: Up to $30,000
- Base: $147,000
- Relocation: $2,000-8,000
- Performance Bonus: up to $44,100
- Retirement: Profit-sharing into a 401k
How a Rutgers Part-Time MBA Led to a Dream Job, and More – New York News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York City business schools this week.
Part-Time MBA Proves to be a Steppingstone to Dream Job – Rutgers Business School
From running phone sales in Manhattan, to working her way up the corporate business to business ladder, Allegra Kipnis, a part-time MBA candidate from the Rutgers Business School in New Brunswick, found her “dream job.”
In a recent profile with the school, Kipnis divulged that earning her MBA helped her earn multiple promotions with Verizon. But, even after being let go, she (with the help of the Rutgers community) helped her refine her career path on the way to a dream role with Panasonic as an internal communications specialist.
“The MBA program gave me the tools I needed to eventually land my dream job, but funny enough, after all I had learned, it turned out to be just one more step in the story of my career,” she said in the interview.

Kipnis, a part-time MBA candidate at Rutgers / photo via Rutgers.edu
You can more about Kipnis’ career path and the Rutgers Business School part-time MBA program here.
A Combination of Personality Traits Might Make You More Addicted to Social Networks – Binghamton School of Management
The Binghamton University School of Management recently published new research, “Personality Predictors of IT Addiction,” in which assistant professor of management information systems Isaac Vaghefi, along with DePaul’s Hamed Qahri-Saremi, examined which collection of personality traits often leads to social networking addiction among 300 college-aged students: neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. Vaghefi writes:
“It’s more of a holistic approach to discover what kind of people are more likely to develop an addiction. Rather than just focusing on one personality trait, this allows you to look at an all-inclusive personality profile.”
Read more about the duo’s research here.
Admissions Bridge Connects Diverse Undergraduates to MBA Possibilities – Johnson School of Management Feed
The SC Johnson School of Management blog recently published an overview of the school’s second annual Johnson Admissions Bridge—an event that encourages “undergraduate women and students from underrepresented backgrounds at Cornell to consider business school and discover ways to begin preparing now.”
The Bridge is “part of a larger initiative to ensure a diverse population is offered the opportunity to attend business school.” Judi Byers, executive director of admissions and financial aid at Johnson, explains:
“At Johnson, we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to contribute to the pipeline of diverse talent ultimately seeking entry into top business schools and the companies and organizations they will lead afterward. The Bridge is a way to connect with our undergraduate students here at Cornell and gives us the chance to talk with them about potential career paths and how an MBA might offer value to their short and long term career goals.”
Learn more about the Cornell Bridge here.
Georgetown Launches Implicit Bias Training Program for MBA Students
Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business puts a premium on the ethical and social dimensions of business, both in terms of its curriculum and its expectations of MBAs. The Graduate Women in Business (GWIB) student club seeks actively to uphold McDonough’s attitude toward social responsibility. In 2017, GWIB announced the launch of its implicit bias training program.
The pilot program, which was developed as a collaboration with the MBA Program Office, seeks to increase awareness of implicit bias in the workplace and to integrate training against it as part of the MBA student experience. It helps participants looks at how implicit bias unconsciously affects actions and decisions related to hiring and promotion practices, client services, and organizational culture.
The goal of the new program is to offer more comprehensive training than those typically offered by corporate implicit bias programs.
GWIB researched curricula, trainers, and other details for more nine months before inviting Bryant Marks, a seasoned implicit bias trainer and the lead trainer at the National Training and Education Institute, to facilitate the pilot. Marks also has experience as an associate professor of psychology at Morehouse College and as the former senior advisor to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
During its first semester the training program attracted 30 participants, including students, faculty, and administrators. Participants reported that the training was “relatable” and of the data Marks presented, “some were a revelation.”
According to Kerry Pace, associate dean of MBA programs, implicit bias training is absolutely vital for students. She elaborated in a press release that this type of training “better prepares students for successful careers as principled business leaders and continues to improve our amazing community. By spending time reflecting on and acknowledging our own biases, we are following our Jesuit heritage of women and men in service to others and to ourselves.”
To learn more about the new program as well as other social justice avenues to explore at Georgetown McDonough, read the original press release.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Rotman Prof Talks Theranos Fraud, and More – Toronto News
People affiliated with Toronto‘s finest business schools have been making the news. Below, we’ve laid out some of this week’s highlights.
How Board Diversity Might Have Prevented the Theranos Fiasco – The Globe & Mail
Andras Tilcsik, Canada Research Chair in strategy, organizations, and society at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management coauthored an opinion piece in The Globe & Mail with Chris Clearfield, Principal at System Logic. The article addressed the fraud charges lodged against Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
Holmes, who was listed as one of Forbes’ “Youngest Self-Made Billionaires” has been charged with “massive” fraud involving upwards of $700 million USD. Holmes has agreed to cede control of her company, which was boating more innovated methods of blood-testing to potential investors.
Tilcsik and Clearfield argue that Holmes’s mistakes might have been prevented had a systemic problem in businesses been addressed at Theranos: board diversity. All but two Theranos board members were white men over 60. According to the article, “… lab experiments show that while homogeneous groups do less well on complex tasks, they report feeling more confident about their decisions.”

Holmes’ equity stake in Theranos, the notorious blood-testing startup she founded, has been reduced to virtually nothing after being charged with large-scale fraud from the SEC.
Learn more about the importance of board diversity here.
YouTube Star Choreographs a Career Blending Bollywood and Business – The Globe & Mail
Shareen Ladha, graduate of York University’s Schulich School of Business, used her MBA to guide her in an unconventional career goal. She wanted to build success producing and dancing in Bollywood-esq videos on YouTube, achieving massive momentum when she did a Bollywood-style remix of Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.” The video quickly went viral, and now Ladha balances making YouTube videos with her career as a senior strategist with McCann.
“Through my MBA, I decided that this was the thing that made me unique and it was proof I could bring a creative aspect to strategy and consulting,” Ladha said in a recent profile with the Globe & Mail.
“It started getting woven into my daily life and daily conversations I would have with people. All my social media accounts were public, so if they ever looked me up or were friends with me, they’d know about it. There was such a positive response.”
You can read more about the YouTube star here.
Ivey Students Learn the Three Gs of Good Investing – News@Ivey
Multi-billion dollar Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital Management recently let students at the Ivey Business School at Western University Canada in on a simple secret: the three Gs to successful investing are “good business, good management, and good price.”
3G managing partner Pavel Begun spoke with professor George Athanassakos and his value investing class last month, further explaining what each of those three Gs (get it?) meant:
Good Business:
“’We define good business as one that is competitively entrenched, generates high return of invested capital and is in solid financial shape.’” Specifically, 3G looks at businesses that are industry leaders and show industry longevity in order to predict their future value. They also look to businesses that generate with ROEs, or return on equity, of 15 per cent and above. Finally, they look at the debt payback period of business to ensure it is no greater than three to five years, helping to determine their financial shape.”
To read the rest of the advice gifted from Begun, click here.
What Toronto MBA Can You Earn in the Least Amount of Time? – MetroMBA
Several of the most well-regarded business schools in Toronto offer MBA programs that do not take the typical two-years that a traditional full-time degree often requires.
For instance, the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University has an accelerated program that takes just eight months to complete. Alanna Shaffer further explains:
“By exempting students from the required first year MBA courses, students can earn their degree quickly while also cutting their overall tuition expenses in half and accelerating their path to employment. The program is designed for students who have earned their undergraduate business degree in the last ten years, and have at least one year of professional experience. Students may start the program in either September or January.”
Check up on the rest of the fastest MBA programs in Toronto here.
What Toronto MBA Can You Earn in the Least Amount of Time?
It’s easy to see why earning an MBA could be a huge boost to your career—but if the thought of putting those things on hold for two years while pursuing your degree is a source of great anxiety, you are not alone. Many who might otherwise have the ambition and skills to thrive in an MBA program may simply not have the option of putting their life on hold for two years and enrolling in school full-time. This can mean that many talented and driven individuals won’t have access to the kind of opportunities for advancement and growth that an MBA provides.
Not every MBA program requires two years of full-time work. But part-time and weekend programs can often have the opposite problem for individuals eager to earn their degree and reap its benefits. While such programs allow students to continue working full time while earning their degree, they can often take up to three years or more to complete.
For individuals driven to earn their degree quickly, there are a number of programs that allow students to earn an MBA in under one year, reducing the amount of time without an income and moving allowing for a quick path to the salary increase and advancement opportunities an advanced degree is likely to offer.
In Toronto, many top business schools offer accelerated or abridged versions of their MBA programs that can be completed in as little as eight months.
The Fastest Toronto MBA Programs
Ivey Business School – Western University Canada
The Accelerated MBA at the Ivey Business School is available for students who have recently graduated from Ivey’s HBA program, allowing students to earn their degree in just eight months—without needing to take the GMAT exam. This makes it not only among the fastest Toronto MBA programs you can find, but also among the most unique.
The program takes place over the course of eight months, building on the base of knowledge earned during the HBA program. The courses are designed to refresh students on business fundamentals, while also providing career-centered electives in fields like marketing, finance, entrepreneurship, and more. The program also allows students to pursue study abroad through an optional trip to China, South East Asia, or South America.
The benefits of Ivey’s Accelerated MBA are evident for graduates: 97 percent of students earned an offer of employment by within three months of graduating, reporting an average post-graduate salary of $107,116. About 65 percent of employment offers were also facilitated by the university, demonstrating the indelible benefits of the connections made while in school.
DeGroote School of Business – McMaster University
The DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University also offers an Accelerated MBA for students graduating from a Canadian university with their undergraduate degree in business. Attending full-time, the program can be completed in as few as eight months, making it one of the most time-efficient MBAs available to students in Canada.
By exempting students from the required first year MBA courses, students can earn their degree quickly while also cutting their overall tuition expenses in half and accelerating their path to employment. The program is designed for students who have earned their undergraduate business degree in the last ten years, and have at least one year of professional experience. Students may start the program in either September or January.
Wilfrid Laurier University – Lazaridis School of Business & Economics (Toronto Campus)
The One-Year MBA at Wilfrid Laurier’s Lazaridis School of Business & Economics is a unique program that immerses students fully in an integrated model of business education, asking students to constantly make use of the knowledge gained during the program through team projects, case study analysis, and as consultants for a real business. The degree is designed for graduates from any four-year university with at least two years of professional work experience.

Wilfrid Laurier University also offers one of the fastest MBAs you can earn in Canada, with the One Year Lazaridis School of Business & Economics MBA.
The Lazaridis MBA can be completed in just twelve months, offering one of the best return on investments of any Canadian MBA program. Located in Waterloo, a center of technology and finance within Canada, the One-Year MBA also allows students to choose from over 10 different MBA concentrations, such as entrepreneurship, strategic management, supply chain management, and organizational behavior.
Schulich School of Business – York University
The Schulich School of Business‘ Accelerated MBA allows students to bypass many of the Year 1 MBA requirements, cutting the time it takes to complete the degree by half. The program can be pursued either on a full-time or part-time basis, and can be completed within just eight months with the full-time option. The program is reserved for students who have earned a BBA or BCom degree in Canada within the past ten years. With 89 percent of all Schulich MBA students earning a job offer within three months of graduation from their respective programs, the Accelerated MBA gives students the chance to join the workforce much sooner and quickly reap the benefits of their education.
Rotman School of Management – University of Toronto
For prospective MBAs with several years of professional or managerial experience, another way to quickly earn an MBA is by pursuing an Executive MBA, designed specifically for senior managers and executives. Executive MBA programs, such as the One-Year EMBA at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, can typically be earned in 13 months or less and are designed to accommodate the schedule of a busy professional. While executive programs typically cost more than other MBA variations, the Rotman One-Year MBA stands out as the fastest EMBA you can earn in the Toronto metro.
The Best Business Schools for Landing Top Consulting Jobs
Clear Admit recently explored which business schools help prepare MBAs the most for a career in consulting, which you can read below.
With starting salaries in the $140,000 to $150,000 range and a customary $25,000 signing bonus on top of that, it’s no wonder so many business school students target the prestige consulting firms known as the “MBB”—McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Bain & Company—as their post-MBA landing pads. That $170,000+ annual compensation package can quickly cut any MBA loan debt you may have taken on down to size.
Indeed, management consulting has been one of the most coveted career paths for fresh MBA grads for ages. And though the technology industry has in recent years been stealing some grads from the consulting industry’s traditional slice of the pie, the most recent MBA employment reports reveal that consulting is already making a comeback against tech at certain schools.
The opportunity to work with a range of clients comprised of many of the world’s most celebrated businesses across industries—tech included—is part of the appeal of consulting. In many ways, a top consulting gig allows MBA grads to continue their management education while getting paid for it—and further honing their skills and expertise by helping solve a wide variety of business challenges. And, not for nothing, breaking into the MBB is a highly competitive pursuit—one that almost assures that your colleagues will be smart, driven people you’ll get a lot out of working with.
Finally, where the top consulting firms are choosing to find their talent reflects on the quality of the education those schools’ students are getting. In many ways, the hiring practices of the MBB can serve as a gold star standard of sorts for MBA programs.
Elite Firms Hire Grads from Elite Business Schools
The crème de la crème of leading business school talent has headed toward the top consulting firms for decades—and performed well there—creating a virtuous circle of sorts in which the firms’ appetite for such talent only grows. And while this piece focuses on MBB, we should note that a host of other consulting firms—Deloitte, A.T. Kearney, Accenture, Strategy&, and Oliver Wyman among others—are also highly prized post-MBA destinations.
If you are looking to see which business schools send the greatest percentage of their graduates into consulting overall, don’t miss our September 2017 analysis of leading consulting industry feeder schools. Which schools top the list? And what stands out about how these schools successfully train students for careers in consulting?
Looking at Class of 2016 graduates, the University of Virginia’s Darden School led the pack, with 38 percent of its graduates heading into consulting. Columbia Business School was next, sending 35 percent, followed closely by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, which sent 33 percent.
The 2017 employment reports, which have been released since our analysis last fall, show some shifts year over year. Darden tied with Emory’s Goizueta School of Business in terms of the percentage of Class of 2017 grads who headed into consulting, with each school sending 34 percent. Close on their heels were Columbia, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, and Dartmouth’s Tuck School. All four sent 33 percent of their most recent graduating class off to consulting firms.
2 Non-U.S. Schools Lead All Others in Consulting-Bound ’17 MBA Grads
But year after year, one thing remains the same. INSEAD, with campuses in France, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi, beats all leading U.S. business schools when it comes to consulting. INSEAD’s 2016 MBA employment report, detailing employment outcomes for December 2015 and July 2016 INSEAD grads, shows that 46 percent went into consulting. And the most recent figures reveal that almost a full half—49 percent—of the 1,029 students who completed the INSEAD MBA program in December 2016 and July 2017 chose to either enter or return to the consulting field.
We should note here that INSEAD is distinct from many other schools in that it includes sponsored students who are returning to their pre-MBA employers among its hiring stats. This is in contrast to many U.S. schools, where the reported number and percentage of students hired by sector and employer corresponds to those students actively seeking employment, excluding sponsored students. Of the 49 percent of INSEAD 2017 grads headed into consulting, 33 percent were new hires and the remaining 16 percent were returnees.
London Business School (LBS) was the runner-up for the Class of 2017, sending 41 percent of grads into consulting. This was a 6 percentage-point gain over the school’s previous class of MBA graduates. Like INSEAD, LBS’s reported sector designation and top employer information includes sponsored students, only its employment report does not disclose what percentage of the class those returning students represent.
What is the Most Valuable San Francisco MBA?
There’s no doubt: San Francisco is a great city to earn your MBA. Located near Silicon Valley, business schools throughout the area provide not only an excellent education but also opportunities to interact with many tech and industry leaders in the area. But which MBA programs in San Francisco are the best?
This is not an easy question to answer. You can check rankings, to see which MBA programs perform well based on surveys and statistics provide to The Financial Times, U.S. News and World Report, and The Economist. And that’s a great place to start, but probably the most essential value when determining the right MBA program for you is your return on investment (ROI).
The ROI of an MBA program is one of the best indicators of what your MBA is actually worth. It looks at statistics such as average salary increase, post-graduation employment, tuition cost, cost of living, and more. To help you out, we looked in-depth at the best business schools in San Francisco to see which offer the best ROI. Continue reading…
Joe Biden Talks Industrialization, Income Inequality at Northwestern Kellogg
On March 9th, an eager audience gathered at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management to hear what wisdom Joe Biden might have to impart from his distinguished political career to the world of business.
Speaking the day after observations of International Women’s Day around the world, the former vice president opened his talk with with a message about inclusion. He cautioned the crowd that “in order for a country to succeed… it has to husband all its assets. It cannot leave half its initiative, half its brain power, half of its courage, half of its capability, half of its strive behind.”
Although it was only a preface, the call for gender equality set the tone for the rest of the speech. The overarching theme, in Biden’s words, was inequity. And he didn’t just discuss the wage gap; he focused on what he called “geographic inequity,” or the rising inequality between various American cities and towns.
For much of his time at the podium, Biden decried the recent fate of industrial America, and of the middle class. He gave a bleak description of once-thriving Midwest towns and cities: “It’s called depression,” he said. “Empty factories, empty storefronts, empty homes, empty wallets. And the underpinnings of this geographic inequity are no mystery. It’s been in the making for years. States, and state laws, have undercut organized labor and the right to bargain, stunting the movement. The labor movement has been hollowed out and good, middle class jobs have been lost.”
Biden went on to discuss the disparity between cities on the coasts and those in the Midwest, saying that “a poor child in San Francisco has twice the chance of making a top income than one born in Detroit or Wilmington or Saginaw.”
He concluded that this is due to the fact that “they come from less segregated communities. There’s less income inequity, allowing them to see success around them. Their school systems are better funded. Social networks are stronger. More people are taking part in their communities.”
The talk was framed by current political issues, and the general solution that Biden gave spoke directly to the audience, comprised of MBA students and faculty. The major takeaway of the speech was that business leaders—those who will go on to shape the economy and, to some extent, policy—have a social responsibility.
He emphasized the importance of work, not just for economic stability, but as a source of identity. Biden recounted his father telling him, “Joey, you gotta remember a job’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about your respect, it’s about your place in your community. I mean this literally, not figuratively.”
As an example, he brought up causal links between unemployment and other social ills. For instance, he added that “every one percent increase in unemployment raises opiod deaths in a community by four percent.”
For Biden, the social obligation to push for fair wages and workers’ rights is not just about raising morale. Rather, it is central to the spirit of capitalism. The role that the business community must play in this scenario, according to Biden, is to push back against policies that limit workers’ rights.

Students at Northwestern Kellogg during the Biden speaking event. Photo via Evan Garcia / Chicago Tonight
Making sure that workers earn wages that match their productivity is a necessary part of a healthy economy. And, by extension, a healthy economy produces and furthers a healthy society.
Biden identified a few common business practices that he described as both anti-labor and anti-competition. He posed a rhetorical question to the audience: “The capitalist system, I thought—and I’m a capitalist—is all about being able to compete and bargain. So how do you justify non-poaching agreements to prevent one franchise from hiring away workers from another franchise?”
He added, “How do you justify taking hourly wage-earners, not managers at all, and re-classifying them, denying them in 1.2 billion dollars in wages, to go to shareholders. Where’s that bargaining deal? Where’s that capitalist competition?”
While Biden’s expertise and experience do not lie in business, he did highlight the importance of responsible business practices in a stable and equitable society. And perhaps, ultimately, that is the most valuable insight that he can provide to MBA students—a unique vision about business that tries to examine its role in the rest of the social world, along with profit and productivity.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
California Job Growth, and More – Los Angeles News
We’ve rounded up some of the biggest news coming out of Los Angeles business schools this week.
California Gains 35,500 jobs, and Unemployment Falls to Record-Low 4.4% – Los Angeles Times
In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business and Management economist Dave Smith spoke about California’s remarkably positive streak of job growth, saying, “I don’t see how we can avoid decent wage growth, which is a positive thing for workers.”

“In Los Angeles County in January, employers added 7,200 jobs. In Orange County, payrolls rose by 4,300; in the Inland Empire they increased 2,000.” – Andrew Khouri, Los Angeles Times
You can read more about the story from the Los Angeles Times here.
Graduate Career Mentor Programs for Spring 2018 – CSULB Newsroom
The Graduate Career Mentor program for spring 2018 at the California State University, Long Beach College of Business and Administration kicked off on February 12th, continuing its work of connecting industry professionals with current CSULB graduate students. Currently, 20 graduate students in both the MS Supply Chain Management and Accelerated MBA program have mentors.
The program, which is overseen by assistant director of graduate business career services Michelle Levy, aims to pair current students with professionals to develop a strong mentor-mentee relationships. Not only will the mentor help students navigate through their business degree, but will also vastly expand their professional network, offering professional advice and helping discover new opportunities.
Click here for more information on the Graduate Career Mentor Program at CSULB, or to learn how to become a mentor yourself.
YouTube Will Add Information from Wikipedia to Videos About Conspiracies – The Verge
YouTube CEO and UCLA Anderson MBA alumni Susan Wojcicki has been dealt an unfortunate hand with her company; being forced to confront the rise of conspiracy theories.
Wojcicki spoke about the way YouTube is changing its methods at South by Southwest in Austin, saying, “When there are videos that are focused around something that’s a conspiracy—and we’re using a list of well-known internet conspiracies from Wikipedia—then we will show a companion unit of information from Wikipedia showing that here is information about the event.”
Buzzfeed technology reporter Ryan Mac recently discussed the issue in more detail on his Twitter feed, noting those utilizing the site to spread conspiracies tend to craft shady or out-right false information much faster than Wikipedia can counteract it.
.@SusanWojcicki “If there is an important news event we want to be delivering the right information.”
Minutes later she says, “We are not a news organization.”
— Ryan Mac (@RMac18) March 13, 2018
Find out more about Wojcicki and YouTube’s attempts to curb toxic conspiracies here.
What Are The 5 Highest Paying Consulting Firms in the World?
“Is this going to be worth it?”
If you are currently or have ever considered earning an MBA degree, it’s likely that you’ve asked yourself this question. Given the burgeoning cost of tuition—especially for top business programs—plus the loss in income and cost of living while pursuing your education, it’s a fair question to ask. Does it make sense to invest this sort of money into your education with no guaranteed result?
Of course, many of the benefits of earning an MBA simply can’t be quantified and boiled down to raw numbers. The new opportunities created through study abroad or case competitions, the expansion of your professional network and chance to connect with industry professionals. All of these considerations can make it difficult to ever truly gain perspective on an MBA degree’s worth.
Thankfully, there are some areas where the numbers still do the talking. In particular: post-graduate salary. This is one of the easiest and simplest ways to see the true value of an MBA. And it’s not just helpful to look at the increase in salary after earning an MBA—it can be just as enlightening to see the difference in post-graduate salary for various MBA concentrations. This data can help you make important choices about what kind of path you’d like to pursue while earning your MBA, and how to make the most out of the time and money spent on your education.
U.S. News & World Report found found that strategy, while one of the least popular MBA concentrations (chosen by just 4.3 percent of business school students), led to some of the highest paying jobs after graduation. Since students concentrating in strategy typically go into jobs at consulting firms following graduation, they are more likely to earn high salaries that can help increase the overall value of their degree—not to mention pay off their student loans much faster.
For students looking to increase the worth of their MBA with a high-paying job in consulting, we’ve rounded up the highest paying firms in the consulting industry. Working towards careers in these top companies will guarantee that the answer to “is this going to be worth it?” will always be “yes!”
The 5 Highest Paying Consulting Firms
Formerly known as Ernst & Young, EY-Parthenon is one of the top paying consulting firms for MBA graduates. The company is headquartered in London, England, with more than 250,000 employees at offices throughout the world. EY is known as one of the “Big Four” accounting firms, joining Deloitte, PwC, and KPMG as the four largest professional services networks in the world. Last year, EY was also named 29th on the “100 Best Companies to Work For” list from Fortune.
According to Business Insider, EY-Parthenon employees with just an undergraduate degree make up to, on average, $110,000 annually, including base salary, signing bonuses, and extra incentives. Management Consulted data found that MBA grads earned an astounding base salary of $170,000 at the company. That figure doesn’t include signing bonuses, relocation expenses, and more.
Founded in 1926 by University of Chicago economics professor James McKinsey, McKinsey & Company has transformed into one of the world’s most iconic consulting empires. The company has opened in more than 120 global cities, employing more than 14,000 consultants—many of which comes from prestigious MBA institutions.
According to Management Consulted data, McKinsey & Company is the second-highest paying consulting firm in the world for MBA grads, with offered base salaries coming in at $152,000. With an added potential performance bonus of $35,000, those figures can rise to $187,500 in just one year.
Strategy& has grown exceedingly since its beginnings as Booz & Company in 1914. One of the top global strategy consulting firms in the country, the company now has 57 offices throughout the world, revenue upwards of $1.3 billion, and 3,000 employees. Nearly a century after their founding, in 2013, the company was acquired by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and officially renamed to Strategy&.
The company comes in third overall among for annual base compensation for MBA grads, at a lofty $152,000. The company also offers one of the most unique and lucrative retirement funding options for consulting employees, with 6 percent of base salary and bonuses matched for its 401k plan.
L.E.K. is technically the youngest company to make the top five, which was founded in the early 1980s by former Bain partners James Lawrence, Iain Evans, and Richard Koch. Headquartered in both Boston and London, L.E.K. is also the smallest company on this list, with around 3,000 employees.
Despite its size and relative newness in comparison to many of the other companies on this list, L.E.K. pays its employees more-than-handsomely, offering a tempting base salary of $150,000 and upwards of $25,000 in performance-based potential incentives.
Bain & Company, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, is a global management consultancy firm providing advice for public, private, and non-profit organizations. Along with the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company is one of the “Big Three” firms. Founded in 1973, Bain & Co. today has more than 8,000 employees throughout the world and an estimated revenue between $3.7 and $4.5 billion.
Bain offers its recently employed MBA grads a starting base salary comes in slightly above aforementioned Deloitte employees, snagging $148,000 per year, which can grow to $185,000 in total compensation.
Honorable Mentions
The Boston Consulting Group, founded in 1963, now has more than 90 offices in 50 countries, advising clients throughout the private, public, and not-profit sectors.
The Massachusetts institution offers its MBA graduates right around the same compensation as Bain & Co, the companies unofficial direct competitor. Base salaries come in around $147,000, but massive (and we mean massive) bonus incentives can bring that total up to $191,100.
Another one of the “Big Four,” Deloitte has witnessed non-stop growth since its founding in 1845. Today, the firm makes more than $38.8 billion USD in revenue with roughly 263,900 employees throughout the world. As of 2016, Deloitte was ranked as the sixth largest privately owned organization in the U.S. The firm’s offerings span across audit, tax, consulting, financial advisory, and enterprise risk services, with offices across the world in cities like Los Angeles, Tokyo, Madrid, Tel Aviv, and many more.
Management Consulted data found that MBA grads at Deloitte reported a base salary slightly smaller than its aforementioned contemporaries, pulling in $140,000 per year. Deloitte separates itself from its competition by offering returning interns a potential to pay for the send year of their MBA education in the form of reimbursement.
What MBAs Should Know About BMO Financial
BMO Financial Group, established in 1817 as Bank of Montreal, is one of the largest diversified financial service providers in North America. According to BMO, more than 45,000 employees serve the financial needs of more than 12 million customers. Continue reading…
Northwestern Explores Healthcare Costs, and More – Chicago News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Chicago business schools this week.
When Healthcare Providers Consolidate, Medical Bills Rise – Kellogg Insight
Despite the claim that hospitals make in terms of cost savings when, say, a GP is acquired by a local hospital, Northwestern Kellogg professor of strategy David Dranove, along with research assistant professor strategy Christopher Ody and Bates White Economics Consulting’s Cory Capps sought to research the real financial impacts of integration for instance among healthcare providers.
The researchers found that from 2007 to 2013, almost 10 percent of physician practices in the data were acquired by a hospital. Once acquired, prices for the services provided by those physicians rose an average of 14 percent. “The rising prices are partly due to ‘mechanical elements’ of how prices are set in contracts,” with insurers, Dranove says. For example, insurers often write contracts that allow hospitals to bill more for a procedure than a physician group can. Additionally, Dranove says, “when a hospital owns a physician practice, they gain market power.”
You can learn more about the trio’s research here.
Economics Professor Studies Monetary History of Ecuador – Loyola Quinlan School of Business Blog
Julián P. Díaz, Ph.D., Quinlan School of Business assistant professor of economics, recently presented research on the financial history of Ecuador between 1950-2015 as part of a conference that explored the macroeconomic crises of the 11 largest Latin American countries.

“The Latin American Debt Crisis of the 1980s made this strategy unsustainable since international creditors stopped lending to Ecuador, and the rest of the region. This should have prompted a significant fiscal adjustment, which, however, never really took place in a significant manner. Instead, the government resorted to seigniorage—printing money—to finance a large portion of its spending. This in turn led to a lengthy period—almost three decades— of persistently high inflation, which averaged nearly 30 percent between 1972 and 1999.” – Julián P. Díaz, Ph.D.
“Businesses operate in environments influenced by governments’ actions,” he notes. “Identifying fiscal and monetary policies that lead to undesirable outcomes and hurt the ability of businesses to thrive is of critical importance. For our students, many of the tools used to analyze the countries’ performances in this project are taught in a number of economics classes at Quinlan. This highlights the fact that the topics we cover in class are not just theoretical exercises. They are being used to understand why some countries fail, and what can be done so that such costly experiences are not repeated in the future.
You can check out the full interview with professor Diaz here.
Investing for Social Impact – Chicago Booth Magazine
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business’ Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation has become a frontline for investing “with the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return” or what has become more commonly known as “impact investing.” Impact investors are a growing segment of managers, consultants, and professionals who seek to blend their financial acumen with “their commitment to improving people’s lives and the health of the planet.”
“Impact investing is just increasing at a faster and faster pace,” Rogers said. “I think it’s a very promising career, and I think the industry will continue to grow as millennials become more socially conscious about how they’re investing their money.”
Read more about the future of impact investing here.
March Madness Begins: Consortium MBA Draft Takes Place Today
Clear Admit recently highlighted this year’s Consortium for Graduate Study in Management MBA Draft, which is offering huge scholarship payouts for a lucky few. Check it out below.
No, it has nothing to do with basketball. A draft of another sort will take place today, but for some MBA applicants it could be as big as getting by the Golden State Warriors. We’re talking about the annual draft for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. Each year, the group’s member business schools offer tens of millions of dollars in fellowships to hundreds of MBA applicants, most under-represented minorities.
Held annually in mid-March, the draft is a complex matching up of leading business schools and applicants based on the order of preference expressed by each. Consortium member schools include the University of Michigan’s Ross School, UVA’s Darden School, UC Berkeley’s Haas School, Dartmouth’s Tuck School, and NYU Stern, to name just a few. When applicants apply as part of the Consortium Fellowship process, they benefit from being able to apply to six of the 19 members schools using a single application (with volume discounts for multiple schools). But then comes the tough—and critical—part.
The Importance of Ranking Your Consortium Schools Carefully
You have to rank your selected schools in order of your desire to attend, which will determine the order in which you’ll be considered for the Consortium Fellowship, a merit-based, full-tuition award. (There is the pesky little detail about needing to gain admission to a school or schools on your list.) Provided you are admitted to some or all of the schools on your list, your ranking then comes into play. If your first-ranked school declines to award you funding through the Consortium, the opportunity will be passed on to the next school on your list, and so on. According to a Consortium employee, the order in which applicants have ranked their choices is not revealed explicitly to the schools. Instead, each school is just not given an opportunity to offer you the fellowship until theirs is the top remaining school on your list.
Of course, another important part of the Consortium application is demonstrating a proven commitment to increasing the ranks of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans in business education and corporate leadership. The Consortium was founded in 1966 by Washington University professor Sterling Schoen around the mission of equipping more African American men with the requisite business skills to succeed in corporate America. Three schools and 21 men took part in the first year. Additional schools began to join as members, and in 1970 applicant membership was widened to women, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. In 2004, in compliance with a Supreme Court ruling a year earlier, membership was opened to all U.S. citizens and permanent residents who demonstrate a track record of supporting the Consortium vision.
Today’s Consortium MBA Draft Day
Fast forward to today, draft day. Representatives from the member schools are gathering with Consortium staff to begin the complicated matchmaking process, which at least in recent years has taken place in a St. Louis hotel room near the Consortium’s Chesterfield, MO, headquarters. Unless things have changed dramatically with recent additions to the number of member schools—the group has grown from 17 in 2011 to 19 this past July—the process includes six rounds and takes about four hours to complete.
Schools come in with their draft picks in hand, and the school designated as first choice by the most applicants gets to choose as many of those students as it wants to offer the fellowship. And so it continues, passing on to each successive school to select from its first-round applicants. If a school passes on an applicant at any time in the process, another school can then select that applicant in a later round.
From the applicant’s point of view, here’s what it looks like: Let’s say that Yale SOM is your first-ranked school and you are admitted into its MBA program. In today’s draft, Yale SOM will have first dibs on offering you the Consortium Fellowship. If Yale SOM does offer you the fellowship, everyone’s happy and you can choose to attend with the benefit of the fellowship. You may still be admitted to other programs on your list, but these programs cannot offer you the Consortium Fellowship.
But say you were admitted to Yale SOM but it doesn’t offer you the fellowship—or you don’t get into Yale—then the opportunity to offer you the fellowship is made available to your second-ranked school, and on down the line.
While only one school can offer you the Consortium Fellowship, that does not preclude the other schools on your list from offering you other school-specific scholarship funding. Once awarded by one school, the Consortium Fellowship is not transferable to another.
Regardless of whether you ultimately accept the fellowship and attend the school that offers it, you retain your Consortium membership status, granted as part of the application process. As long as you attend a school within the Consortium, you’ll get take advantage of a wide range of membership benefits, including valuable recruitment and networking events, webinars, and chats.
Why Would Anyone Turn Down a Consortium Fellowship?
Consortium member schools will typically select more students than they have fellowships for to account for the fact that some fellowship recipients will ultimately turn down their offers. What would make a fellowship applicant turn down a free ride to a top-ranked business school, you ask? Sometimes it’s admission to an even higher-ranked business school not part of the Consortium (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, and Chicago Booth don’t play the Consortium game). This becomes an easier decision if these other schools offer their own attractive financial aid enticements, which they often do. So in the coming Decision Week(s), keep in mind that schools that have picked you now get to anxiously await word of whether you pick them. It’s nice when the tables get turned, right?
The official Consortium Fellowship notification deadline is March 23rd, but we’d guess many schools will be eager to share the news of the fellowship award in tandem with the news of acceptance. It should be fun to watch on MBA LiveWire! Those of us here at Clear Admit are wishing luck to the applicants and schools involved in today’s Consortium MBA Draft and hope some terrific matches are made, resulting in hundreds of successful MBA careers and further expansion of the Consortium mission’s reach.
To those on MBA Livewire who have speculated about why some Consortium applicants learned of decisions from certain schools before stated decision deadlines, that’s also related to today’s draft. Consortium member schools will have needed to make admissions decisions for their potential drafts picks by today, regardless of the school’s own decision deadline. Some schools may choose to communicate those decisions to applicants early since they already will have been reached.
Learn more about the Consortium application process here. Applications for the Class of 2021 open in August 2018 are due in two rounds, the first in October 2018, and the second in January 2019.
The Future of Employment at Philly Business Schools
When considering where to get your MBA, one of the first questions you should ask is, “What will my employment outlook be?” After all, the reason you get an MBA is to improve your career. But what is important when it comes to employment trends at the leading business schools in Philadelphia? There are quite a few different statistics you should look at.
Important MBA Employment Statistics
To choose an MBA program based on your future career success, there are a few questions you need to answer.
- What industry do I want to work in and does the school place a majority of their students in that industry?
- What percentage of students receive and accept job offers? The same for internships?
- Self-employed or entrepreneurship data?
- What salary can I expect?
- Where do most students end up living and work?
- Who are the top employers?
You also want to look at any trends between years. For example, the percentage of students receiving job offers should increase year-over-year. And if you see a shift from the consulting industry to financial services, you want to be aware that the school could be changing its direction.
So, what does employment look like for three of the top Philly business schools?
The Wharton School
At the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the employment trends year-over-year are fairly consistent. While the percentage of students reporting job offers dropped from 2016 to 2017, part of that reason may be the increased number of students seeking employment (75.2 percent vs. 79.1 percent).
As for the increase in median salary, that can be attributed to inflation as well as an increase in job salary for each industry including professional services rising from $160,000 in 2016 to $180,000 in 2017. The location of jobs also changed slightly between 2016 and 2017, but that could be due to various reasons including the current state of international affairs for the U.S.
The Wharton School | 2017 | 2016 |
---|---|---|
Percentage of students reporting job offers | 97.1 percent | 98.3 percent |
Percentage of self-employed students or those starting their own business | 4.8 percent | 5.8 percent |
Median Salary | $130,000 | $125,000 |
Location Choices | 88.7 percent U.S. 11.3 percent International | 86.9 percent U.S. 13.1 percent International |
As for where MBA students at the Wharton School gain employment, there are a few important notes. The same top three industries—financial services, consulting, and technology—attracted students in both 2016 and 2017. However, the percentages were a little more evenly distributed in 2017. As for the companies hiring students, most of the same companies showed up each year.
Top Three Industries | Percentage of Students (2017) | Percentage of Students (2016) | Companies Employing Two or More Students (2017) |
---|---|---|---|
Financial Services | 32.7 percent | 35.1 percent | Barclays, CITI, and HSBC |
Consulting | 28.3 percent | 26.6 percent | A.T. Kearney, McKinsey & Company, and Boston Consulting Group |
Technology | 16 percent | 12.6 percent | Adobe Systems, Amazon, and IBM |
Penn State Smeal College of Business
Pen State’s Smeal College of Business is consistent year-over-year in regards to its MBA employment trends. The percentage of student reporting and accepting job offers increased between 2016 and 2017 from 88.9 percent to 91.5 percent. However, the median salary stayed consistent at $105,000, and the hiring trend of most MBA students staying in the U.S. also remained the same.
Penn State Smeal College of Business | 2017 | 2016 |
---|---|---|
Percentage of Students Reporting Job Offers | 91.5 percent | 88.9 percent |
Median Salary | $105,000 | $105,000 |
Location(s) | 98 percent U.S. 2 percent International | 96.5 percent U.S. 3.5 percent International |
As for where MBA students at Smeal College gain employment, there are a few important notes. While the same industries made the top four each year, where they placed changed. In 2016, the top industry was consulting (25 percent) while that changed to manufacturing in 2017 (20 percent). In 2017, retail also moved into tie consulting for the second most sought-after industry, while technology actually decreased year-over-year (23 percent vs. 15 percent).
Top Four Industries | Percentage of Students (2017) | Percentage of Students (2016) | Companies Hiring |
---|---|---|---|
Consutling | 18.5 percent | 25 percent | Deloitte, EY, and PricewaterhouseCoopers |
Technology | 15 percent | 23 percent | Amazon, Apple, and Dell |
Manufacturing | 20 percent | 14 percent | Amphenol Corp, CHEP, International Inc. |
Retail | 18.5 percent | 14 percent | Anheuser-Busch, Proctor & Gamble, and Johnson & Johnson |
Rutgers Business School, Camden
In 2017, the Financial Times ranked the Rutgers MBA as the best program for MBA employment across Big 10 schools. In 2016, Bloomberg Businessweek also ranked Rutgers as the best MBA program for job placement in the U.S. This indicates a relatively steady year-over-year employment trend for MBA students.
As for the median salary of a Rutgers MBA, students in 2017 could expect to earn $95,680. As for the most popular industries, they were:
- Pharmaceutical/Biotech/Healthcare: 46 percent
- Consulting: 13 percent
- Consumer Products: 13 percent
- Other: 14 percent
Babson Reveals New Scholarships, Rankings, for Blended Learning MBA
What if you could earn your MBA with minimal time in the classroom? That’s precisely what the Blended Learning MBA program at Babson College’s F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business offers. It’s a unique MBA program that combines online classes with face-to-face instruction to provide students with flexible scheduling and the ability to continue working full-time. Continue reading…