MyCC wrote:
Hey everyone,
30 y/o, male, URM. Moving to B-school with my wife & 5 y/o daughter this Fall. Born and raised in Southern California. My reach was Haas, target was UCLA, and safety was Marshall. Haas was my dream school starting this process.
However, the full tuition scholarship at Marshall, Marshall's rise in the rankings, and the higher cost of living in the Bay is making me think twice before taking on additional debt.
Post MBA goal is to pivot into Consulting, preferably MBB. Long term I'd like to strategy/corp dev in Fintech/banking. I attended Marshall's Admit Day and they introduced us to two students who were able to land McKinsey internships/offers. But most students/alum seemed to ended up with T-2 Consulting roles. I haven't been particularly inspired or blown away by anything besides the $$$$ from Marshall. On the otherhand, the outreach from Haas has been phenomenal. I'm sure after visiting Days at Haas this weekend, I'll been even more swayed. But I wanted to check the pulse on whether Haas is worth it passing up the money. While my wife will hopefully find a new job wherever we move during MBA, we also have to factor in the price of daycare (likely another $18-20k/year) if she does.
All advice is welcome.
Hello!
Firstly, congrats on the admits. You have managed to get great options after all the hard work.
I was in a similar situation with more money from Anderson and initially zero from Haas. First thing I would recommend you to do is to negotiate with Haas by showing your scholarships. I did that and they gave me an amount that I was satisfied enough with to forgo other MBA programs.
Secondly, I think you may want to chat with more current students to understand the impact of the school on their employment opportunities. It has been a tough year for internships for all universities and Haas has far less MBB admits this year, although more than USC. I am not sure whether it is higher because of the ranking, better chances to network as we are closer to the Bay Area or the quality of profiles. My sense after recruiting this year is that your profile and effort in recruiting is the most important factor, so being in Haas might not make the biggest difference.
Plus, it’s better to have less debt on your hands in case things go south. Many students aimed for MBB or T2 consulting and did not get offers, some even don’t have internships in this bull market. I have even heard of second years who have loan repayments activating once they graduate and they don’t have jobs yet so they are incredibly stressed. We don’t know when the MBA recruitment market will recover so I would weigh having a full ride more strongly next year.
All the best! Lmk if you need help linking up with Haasies!
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