Thided what Jsnipes side. I've started a company, learned a lot from the experience, went to B-school, and am now learning even more about what I did wrong and how to leverage that experience when starting my next company. There's a tremendous amount of support, as others have mentioned, from professor mentors to access to capital. There is also the psychological support and strength of the community, which may sound soft and emo, but is surprisingly important in a such a lonely function such as entrepreneurship. In fact, for me at least, the hardest part of entrepreneurship wasn't the hours or uncertainty, but the constant feeling of being alone and unable to rely on or even commiserate with hours. B-school changes all that, and I've noticed a marked uptick in my productivity.

are bschools as good at inflating (read: lying) that stat as law schools are? i bet most of them inflate the heck out of it.


starting your own business usually means getting a job first in the field where you want to start your business. considering how many businesses fail, that's how you minimize your chance of failure.

My view through 75% of the first year of business school is that it is very much what you make it. You have to decide what you want early then formulate a plan to achieve your goal(s).

If you want to work at a name consulting firm or whatever, just get good grades and figure out how to formulate an intelligent response to figuring out how many gallons of paint were sold in the US last year and an example of a time you worked well in a team. If you want to be an entrepreneur though, you have to take advantage of the opportunities available to you. Simply by being a student, as opposed to another ******* with an idea, you can get meetings with high level people that you would never otherwise get. And professors, who often consult with people at the very top, are inclined to help you if you indicate that you give a ****.

Cliffs: be proactive. Unlike undergrad or even law school, showing up, following the rules, being smart and trying hard at school isn't enough.

Because it's not a word. Entrepreneurship is generally looked upon well by admissions committees. No reason to worry mentioning that.

Both of these are very true. I cold emailed one of the named partners at a top-3 VC firm and got to have a few nice conversations with him that he almost certainly got nothing out of but were super helpful for me.

Alumni and .edu email addresses are a great thing.

Your right I guess B-school isn't a bad option for the reasons you stated.

I guess I was just thinking that alot of wildly successful people have attained great success without the things you mentioned. I def understand the fund raising aspect. I was thinking of people like Steve Jobs or even Warren Buffett who started with mostly funding from family and friends.

Its a most splendifirous displativity of entrepreneurialism

I didn't think it was a word as I was typing it, but it passed the spellcheck test, and a quick google shows the word used often by a variety of writers

Huh. I wonder if it's a British term since I also see a lot of search entries on it and most relate back to someone at a .co.uk website or with a British background.

Updated US News rankings:

Full Time: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsa...s/mba-rankings

Part Time/Fully Employed: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsa...-time-rankings

Executive: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsa...utive-rankings


Recent Financial Times Globabl Rankings:

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoo...a-ranking-2013

bold decision. good luck to him.

any1 heard back from R2 results and decided where to go?

MIT/Harvard deny (may have already said this)
Tuck - wait list

Whipping up a R3 app to Kellogg. If that doesn't work and I don't move off the Tuck Waitlist, I'll be applying to some combo of Stanford/MIT/Tuck/Kellogg early action and R1 next year.

How come you didnt apply to some of those schools in the first place?

riverfish/anyone - if anyone is applying to kellogg or if you are thinking of visiting, pls pm me. would be happy to chat about the school (pros/cons) and to grab a coffee if you were to come on campus.

good luck/chin up

you mean Stanford? Because I had limited time to apply when I decided to and Stanford is a shot in the dark on a completely different order of magnitude than most of the other schools (even Harvard has twice the acceptance rate of Stanford). Tried to maximize my chance of getting in, while still attending an elite school where I wouldn't mind shelling out $150k + losing 2 years of income to go.

I'm currently finishing my Bachelor degrees in Business and Engineering in Europe and am debating whether I should continue with a top Masters in Management here in Europe or get some more work experience and then apply for an MBA later in the US. Alternatively, I could always get a Master Degree in Engineering but currently that doesn't seem very appealing to me. I have a solid GPA and a GMAT of 740 without much preparation (could probably reach like 770-780 if needed). Which choice would be preferable overall to most of you for what reasons?

so bump. Got off the WL at Tuck in Friday. Looks like that's where I'm going in the fall. Pretty stoked.

Congrats riverfish!! It's great to hear people's patience paying off

I just found out I got WAitlisted R4 without interview at UT. I'm quite pleased as I know how hard it is to get in this late, but does anyone know why they wouldn't interview me first? Am I just that awesome?

my guess would be that they already have enough people who fit your exact profile, but may want a certain amount of people who fit that profile so waitlisted you in case someone else with the same profile who accepted decides to go elsewhere.

Grats riverfish! I'm getting ready for the upcoming season and was thinking about starting a thread. Best of luck at Tuck

Question for all current MBA students / recent grads: (AnthonyH, Ezra, higher_energy, and others I might've missed):

How's the general management program at your school? I was in professional service (IB) for a while and have no interest in going back (IB, mgmt consulting) at this point so a lot of the "draw" of most finance-heavy business schools dont really apply to me. I'm in corporate now so I'm mainly interested in learning about the general management track. Curious to hear your thoughts. Planning to apply this upcoming season and aiming for R1.

Here's my two cents, but please keep in mind I'm speaking entirely off the record and based only on personal anecdotes and general school vibe rather than anything empirical. At Columbia, and I would imagine at other M7 schools, general management (and I'm lumping marketing, manufacturing, and other 9-5 type of jobs in here too) is viewed kind of as a backup to the aforementioned IB or MC. Again, not trying to knock the GM path at all, but a big part of the value of a top MBA is access to high paying, high prestige jobs in IB/PE/MC. In fact, about 75% of our class goes into either finance or consulting (http://www7.gsb.columbia.edu/recruit...ploymentreport), with entrepreneurship, non-profit, and general management making up the remainder. Even Harvard, which is generally touted as the top general management program, primarily sends its "management track" graduates to Mckinsey or BCG first before they go on into executive level positions in corporations.

That being said, even at a traditional finance heavy school like Columbia, LDP programs from top companies such as Chevron, GE, etc. recruit here regularly. I can't speak from experience, but most of the second years I have talked to are not at all worried about landing jobs in general management, so if that is your desire I'm pretty confident about your chances here at Columbia. However, you may want to consider a more regional, and perhaps cheaper alternative for your MBA. For example, UTA places extremely well in oil and gas, and despite its mediocre ranking it'd be an excellent general management destination. I've heard similar things for Georgetown and healthcare. Hope that helps.

Have to say I mostly agree with that. Although there are definitely a bunch of people who don't view it as a back-up though. GM just doesn't have the popularity or prestige of the other paths and thus I can't speak confidently about the quality of the program at my school.

Thanks for the replies! Hmmmm that's interesting. I've already went down non-BB IB and I was pretty sure I was done with IB forever, and MC never attracted me

As to a cheaper alternative, I'm looking into that. I'm in SoCal so there are some very good options here locally for me. However, brand trumps all in the industry I work in...(media & entertainment).

BUT I do find it interesting yet unsurprising that people use it as a "back-up". My main interest is in-house strategic planning but I think that's lumped under GM AFAIK.