Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications • Hacker News Board

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#121

Post by headmelted » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #116

headmelted wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easy to hate on "prestige" MBAs, but I think it has more to do with there being little to no empirical evidence that it prepares students for business success in the real world. Also, a lot of people have endured "elite" MBA's entering the workplace into positions of seniority with no prior experience and exactly the results you might expect under the circumstances.

> little to no empirical evidence that it prepares students for business success in the real world. I haven't seen much evidence to the contrary, either. All I see is anecdotes from both sides, so I'll give MBAs the benefit of the doubt. Speaking for myself, I am an entirely different person after completing my MBA. I've become an analytical thinker to a fault and maintain my soft skills. Learned a metric shit ton of…

"Shitty people exist everywhere. You don't have the counterfactual to know if those bosses would be even worse without an MBA"

Not at all what I was saying, but since you brought it up: MBA or not, I'd expect the outcome of someone with zero real-world experience being elevated to a position of making executive decisions would be universally shite.

Yes, it's entirely to do with HR processes, but nonetheless the reason MBA programs exist at all is because they offer students the outcomes that they do - outcomes that are entirely unwarranted based on any evidence that currently exists.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#122

Post by drharby » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #95

slap_shot wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have several friends with top tier MBAs. They all got them in an effort to jump from the sell-side to the buy side, and most saw salary increases from 300-400k to 600k-1M+. The ROI on that specific career move is pretty clear and is really the only path I would personally justify for an MBA. They all say the course load and work is a joke. It's mostly an accreditation to the buy side hiring process and networking.

I don't know about your friends but the average salary out of an elite b-school is something like 160k in the best of cases [1], not the ranges you mention... Either they're total outliers, or you're talking about something like an exec MBA, or something else altogether. [1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-b...

I'm in the quant side of finance, sellside. His/her numbers check with my experience and knowledge

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#123

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

laurentl wrote: post #119

ameister14 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as to #2, if you get an MBA right out of college it's theoretically more likely to be worth it, simply because the multiplier effect has more years to work with

Actually, it was the first exercise we did in my EMBA finance class :D Even with an EMBA, which happens later in a career, the NPV is quite positive.

Did you use a bell curve to figure out if it's worth it -- on average -- or did you use a madelbrot curve? Unless you go to an elite school, and the tuition is cheaper than anywhere I'm aware of, you're either 1) banking on being on the good side of the curve, 2) imagining there's a gaussian distribution to salaries (which there isn't), 3) enrolled somewhere very elite or incredibly cheap, or 4) vastly underestimating how much you could be earning presently -- which if you got enrolled in an elite school, you probably could've gotten an elite job...

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#124

Post by mikeryan » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

I'm a Software Engineer by trade but now run an interactive agency. I got a night MBA at a local state school (actually got tuition covered by my company) while still working as a Software Engineer and wondering if I wanted to stay on that path indefinitely.

Did my MBA qualify me to run a business? No but that being said I found a lot of what I was taught really valuable in providing a baseline of getting me past not knowing what I didn't know. Marketing and Accounting classes were really interesting and provided some value. Innovation classes also provided value.

Its a strange degree because of its broad nature it doesn't provide a singular skill (sans specialization) to lean into but it does provide a lot of valuable knowledge and while it's not something that will "get me a particular job I did find the experience valuable.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#125

Post by m23khan » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:14 PM UTC

Frankly speaking, I don't have MBA nor am I in Management. Infact, I can't afford to get MBA. But as a Developer, even I recognize the need for MBA grads from elite schools especially as Company scales in size. You can definitely have CEOs / founders who are like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates but reality is, once your corporation gets big enough, even if the CEO doesn't have MBA, they will probably hire army of elite MBA grads to formulate and execute successful business plans.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#126

Post by ohbleek » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #96

iamasoftwaredev wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think 30%+ of my class were foreigners. Because foreign born people can't be rich? What income percentiles are Harvard MBA students coming from?

Many of us weren't. You claimed MBAs are exclusively for rich kids. I provided data to refute that baseless claim. The point on how many foreigners there were is just a freebie. I don't know about Harvard MBA students, I didn't go there. But you can go ahead and google each school's class profile. Maybe that info is out there.

That was not data, that was a guess about your class.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#127

Post by mdorazio » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #95

slap_shot wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have several friends with top tier MBAs. They all got them in an effort to jump from the sell-side to the buy side, and most saw salary increases from 300-400k to 600k-1M+. The ROI on that specific career move is pretty clear and is really the only path I would personally justify for an MBA. They all say the course load and work is a joke. It's mostly an accreditation to the buy side hiring process and networking.

I don't know about your friends but the average salary out of an elite b-school is something like 160k in the best of cases [1], not the ranges you mention... Either they're total outliers, or you're talking about something like an exec MBA, or something else altogether. [1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-b...

To build on this for others wondering, back when I was considering an MBA program, Wharton had the most reliable numbers [1]. Median base comp for grads is now 130k, at graduation age around 28-30. Really not that great these days. The other problem is when they talk about a salary bump from when students enrolled, they tend to ignore that students likely would have gotten a significant raise + promotion in the same amount of time as the program took to complete, so the perceived value increase is likely overstated. As the GP comment states, for specific career tracks where an MBA is expected and highly rewarded, it's worth it. But for most career paths, the financial ROI is no longer there, especially in tech.

I will say that I think a lot of people can benefit greatly from learning basic accounting, finance, statistics, and microeconomics especially people who want to be entrepreneurs. But you sure as hell don't need to attend an MBA program to learn these things. Also, a lot of the other MBA coursework around things like marketing, global trade, operations, and management is either not even close to practical in a small business environment, assumes you'll be managing people who actually know what they're doing, or is useless without actually having significant real-world experience to match the theory.

[1] https://mba.wharton.upenn.edu/value-wharton-mba/

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#128

Post by bredren » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

mikeryan wrote: post #124

I'm a Software Engineer by trade but now run an interactive agency. I got a night MBA at a local state school (actually got tuition covered by my company) while still working as a Software Engineer and wondering if I wanted to stay on that path indefinitely. Did my MBA qualify me to run a business? No but that being said I found a lot of what I was taught really valuable in providing a baseline of getting me past not…

I have a computer engineering BS and got my MBA from a full time, two year program without financial assistance.

The price of the program has been a very difficult burden in retrospect. I would have financed it differently and made different spending decisions if i could go back.

But the education was as parent describes, offering a very useful set of skills, from business presentation, teamwork, research and finance.

Things that inherently are not a part of YC startup school, (I just graduated from that with EasyALPR)

Startups require a whole other set of skills, but what they teach in MBA is valuable—-so long as it is financed carefully.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#129

Post by hos234 » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #114

hos234 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They come knowing certain things that most non biz grads have no clue about. Try getting technical people to do sales or PR or admin work. Of course some are unfit but try hiring 200 people by next quarter to expand sales or launch a new product without MBAs and watch the madness unfold.

The question isn't "biz" or "technical", it's "biz" or "biz plus MBA". That last bit brings no value to a person straight out of university and there's a good chance that by the time they have a chance to use that knowledge it's already lost.

The article is not saying orgs have reduced hiring MBAs is it? That would be a sign of not having value. It's saying people are not applying because they have better opportunities and don't want to deal with immigration headaches.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#130

Post by dinodub » Tue, Oct 15, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #29

dinodub wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep-- The economic ethics and models espoused by business schools focus on an economic system where companies are expected to maximise short-term gains regardless of consequences. A focus on profit over everything else. It's a matter of law as well-- heads of companies are legally compelled to prioritize shareholder value.

> It's a matter of law as well That is simply not true. It's merely cargo culting the Friedman doctrine. It has no basis in corporate law, and never has. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

I think you're right that it is a misconception that there is a legal obligation to put shareholder value (profit) first. It seems that it's more of a doctrine.

I was wrong to state it as a claim without any backing to my claim.

From what I am reading online (I am not a lawyer), it stems from a court case "eBay v. Newmark"

"The Delaware court's decision in eBay v. Newmark has been viewed by many commentators as a decisive affirmation of shareholder wealth maximization as the only legally permissible objective of a for‐profit corporation."

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/basr.12108

"A 2010 decision, for example, eBay Domestic Holdings Inc. v. Newmark, held that corporate directors are bound by "fiduciary duties and standards" which include "acting to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of its stockholders.""

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...