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Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

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Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#141

Post by bluedevil2k »

rowanG077 wrote: post #81
bluedevil2k wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elite schools move much faster and cover more material than a regular school would. Obviously with the smarter kids at the elite school they can get more advanced.

Do you have any examples of this? I don't feel people I have met from elite schools actually know more material theory then from other schools. If I look at online courses the content of those from elite schools doesn't differ much from courses I have taken in a non-elite school.

Not macro, no I don't have examples. Just my personal observation based on classes I took at an "elite" college vs. the ones taken by a friend at the state school.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#142

Post by NeedMoreTea »

dinodub wrote: post #130
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 dec…

That's very disturbing as there seems to be no basis in statute (IANAL either). Course being Wiley I can't read beyond the abstract.

The FT has run frequent articles particularly, but not solely, US and UK focused that appear to contradict that, including some quite in depth pieces.

Not the most definitive of the many they've run, but from first page of search a US-centred piece from a US author, who's also a US lawyer:

But the controlling legal rule is universal and rock-solid: in every US jurisdiction, boards are allowed to use their “business judgment” to pursue ESG (environmental, social, and governance) principles for the purpose of creating long-term corporate value

Which is what you'd reasonably expect, as short-term pursuit of shareholder value can be of extreme detriment to the longer term prospects of the company - and therefore shareholders.

https://www.ft.com/content/6e806580-d560-11e9-8d46-8def889b4...

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#143

Post by [deleted] »

airstrike wrote: post #87
iamasoftwaredev wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a pedigree that allegedly excludes the dumb rich kids Yeah, it's exclusively for the smarter rich kids.

I don't know. As the son of a High School teacher and an unemployed father from a third world country, I'm probably not what you call "smarter rich kid" yet I went to a top 5 MBA. Many of my classmates came from equally diverse backgrounds and nationalities. I think 30%+ of my class were foreigners. But go on, it's easy to hate on MBAs. It's the one bigoted view everyone is seemingly allowed to have.

[deleted]

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#144

Post by vincent-toups »

airstrike wrote: post #74
rswail wrote: post #6

Good. The rise of the MBA has seen the downfall of quality. "Business Administration" is not something that can be taught in such a generic way that an MBA qualifies you to actually run a business. In particular, the rise of Financial "Engineering" has led to huge inequality and the total disconnection of "Wall St" from "Main St" such that their relationship has been completely inverted.

It's not really that generalized as you can pick 1 or more majors and focus on what you want to learn most. Not to mention each MBA school has different characteristics, attracting different candidates and campus recruiters. Stanford and Booth couldn't be more different if they tried. MBA graduates are also not fit for running literally any business. The only thing employers know is that if you come from a top 10 MBA…

Everyone I've ever met who went to one of these schools strikes me either as a straight-psychopath or someone who really wants to be one.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#145

Post by headmelted »

airstrike wrote: post #134
headmelted wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 reaso…

> 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. Where do you get the notion that MBAs have zero real world experience? That is factually incorrect.

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-mba-effectively-does-not...

"Actually, 40 Years Of Data Show The MBA Effectively Does Nothing -- It Has No Impact" - Business Insider

https://www.economist.com/whichmba/nothing-special-mbas-are-...

MBAs are no longer prized by employers - The Economist

There's a lot more links like that on Google, I'll leave it to the reader to find them. That said, I found this one interesting:

Https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2018/mar/19/why-the-mb...

It's an article in the Guardian that, to give the tldr version, suggests that MBAs retain usefulness for getting jobs, but with no evidence of impact on capability.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#146

Post by formercoder »

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...

Who cares about average salary?

The two most popular post-mba paths are investment banking and consulting, I know exactly what the post-mba IB comp is:

1st full year associate: 150k base, 70-100% bonus

VP comp is easily above 400k

Consultants make $165k+ base with slightly smaller bonuses out of school

The numbers schools put out are not contextualized. The high paying roles out of the top ~20 MBA programs command total comp that is almost totally unacheivable as an employee, even in tech, especially if you don't want to count on equity appreciation.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#147

Post by jevgeni »

ethbro wrote: post #107
clairity wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The rise of the MBA has seen the downfall of quality." specious and unsupported statement. what "quality" are you talking about? what "downfall" has there been? when, how and why did "it" rise in the first place? you're making a fundamental attribution error (a topic taught in an MBA program, no less) by hinting at structural issues that are much wider and far-reaching than a simple graduate degree. make a reasone…

The reorientation of companies, driven by MBA conventional wisdom, into shareholder-centric, stock-price optimizing machines has come at the detriment of building long term value and delivering better products to customers. Rebuttal? And let's center our conversation on the average MBA graduate. I'm sure there are schools with different approaches, but no true Scotsman doesn't seem like it would be productive.

@airstrike is pretty on point, but here's some more.

A private business is always shareholder centric. Anything else would be schizophrenic. Non-profits and government organisations are different, but thinking that people start a business NOT because they want to earn money is insane.

What you are talking about is the agency problem where CEOs manipulate financials of a company to reach their bonus targets. That's only possible for public traded companies and it's a well-known problem in organisational behaviour. Thing is, there is no connection with an MBA degree. It would be great if people needed an MBA before they would be corrupted by power, but unfortunately it's not the case.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#148

Post by airstrike »

headmelted wrote: post #145
airstrike wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Where do you get the notion that MBAs have zero real world experience? That is factually incorrect.

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-mba-effectively-does-not... "Actually, 40 Years Of Data Show The MBA Effectively Does Nothing -- It Has No Impact" - Business Insider https://www.economist.com/whichmba/nothing-special-mbas-are-... MBAs are no longer prized by employers - The Economist There's a lot more links like that on Google, I'll leave it to the reader to find them. That said, I found this one interesting: Ht…

Strawman. I didn't claim there aren't articles out there about how useless MBAs are.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#149

Post by stevesimmons »

bertjk wrote: post #106
airstrike wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really that generalized as you can pick 1 or more majors and focus on what you want to learn most. Not to mention each MBA school has different characteristics, attracting different candidates and campus recruiters. Stanford and Booth couldn't be more different if they tried. MBA graduates are also not fit for running literally any business. The only thing employers know is that if you come from a top 10 MBA…

I can accept the pretty smart part (I've never seen the GMAT but I'll accept it for the sake of argument) but what part of getting an MBA filters for "possessing soft skills, being personable, ready to meet with clients or manage people and probably well-connected"?

> what part of getting an MBA filters for "possessing soft skills, being personable, ready to meet with clients or manage people and probably well-connected"?

MBAs at the top schools demand intense team work. Without it, you won't pass.

My MBA experience was INSEAD, in France. For the first 3 terms (of 5), all work was done in teams of 5. The school chose the teams explicitly to maximise the chance of conflict (by maximising differences in background, nationality, prior education, work experience, age and gender). The professors then threw tons of work on us. A well-functioning team could just about cope. Totally impossible if working individually.

So we had no option but figure out how to work together, maximise the combined value of each person's skills, and rely fully on each other.

A few teams exploded spectacularly. But most of us learned how to work as a team and succeed under intense pressure.

Re: Elite MBA Programs Report Steep Drop in Applications

#150

Post by ChuckMcM »

One of the more interesting (to me) effects of the dot com crash was the evaporation of all the hot shot MBAs looking to find a technical co-founder who could make their lead-into-gold business plan work. Perhaps the dying of the unicorns has taken the shine off "making it big in Silicon Valley" once again. That and the softening housing market might almost make you think we were headed into the next 'down' cycle.

I also learned from that experience that understanding value chains, organizational dynamics, and market positioning were in fact a very real and solid component of company success. There are good MBAs and there are bad ones, just like there are good and bad engineers, or chefs or lawyers.

If the drop in applications mean that it isn't considered the next "get rich quick" exit then I think that is a good thing.

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