According to my research there are 454 business schools in the US that offer an MBA
I think everyone has a little bit of a different definition. Just curious as to everyone’s thoughts. Thought it might be interesting to discuss because I think there are many different answers to this question. An additional factor that complicates it, is what ranking system do you go by? Princeton Review? Businessweek? US News and Rankings? Something else?
I would say Top 20 but that’s from the perspective of an international candidate. My criteria for the “top MBA” is based on their job placement rate for international students and Gmat score (median score should be above 700). I have also observed that the job placement rates for schools outside top 20 starts falling sharply even for local candidates so it does not make sense to take tons of loans out and finding yourself searching for a job. Imo, the school’s brand name should do 80% of the work in finding the job.
Imo, if the school gets you your desired job without much hassle, then it’s not hacksaw and the top 20 schools seem to do that. And btw, I follow Businessweek’s ranking.
Top 10 or don’t bother wasting your time/money has been the mantra over the past decade. Then the recession hit and with finance crashing as it did, top 10 was no longer enough. Thus the new MBA ranking scale: Harvard, Stanford, Wharton or hacksaw.
Different schools are hacksaw for different specializations. NYU is hacksaw for most career tracks, but is non-hacksaw for finance. Berkeley and Michigan are non-hacksaw for many career tracks, but are hacksaw for finance. Discuss.
Stanford is a tippy-top school in general. But if we’re specifically talking about finance, Stanford wouldn’t even crack my top 5. For (non-VC, non-tech) finance, I’d choose both Chicago and Columbia over Stanford.
Yes, I found this phenomenon too. Kellogg comes at number 5th in BW’s ranking but apparently it’s a hub for consulting recruitment. I did not find any noticeable recruitment by top finance firms so I would it’s a hacksaw for finance people. Similarly, MIT & Berkley are great if you are a techie and want to start a start-up. The only school which is great at everything and is undeniably the best bs in the world is Harvard but idk why all the rankings don’t put them at 1st place.
Location is another thing which a prospective MBA needs to keep in mind. Somebody who wants a job in NYC might be better off by picking Columbia/NYU/Cornell than U.Chicago (Booth). You will get to use your MBA internship and alumni network in a much better way.
For me personally, I wouldn’t go anywhere outside of the top 5 (ROI not large enough imo), but from a hiring standpoint probably top 10. I disagree that it is down to top 2-3, I don’t think the list will ever become that narrow, regardless of competitiveness etc. There are just too many other ways of getting in front of people (alumni referrals, OCR, etc) that happen at way more than the top 2-3 schools that would make 3 or 4-10 “hacksaw” in the eyes of recruiters at top places. After that I think it drops off a bit.
I think I’d maybe call Berkeley or UCLA the start of hacksaw territory. U.S. NEWS – BEST BUSINESS SCHOOLS FOR MBA FINANCE #1 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA (WHARTON) #2 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO (BOOTH) #3 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (STERN) #4 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY #5 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (SLOAN) #6 STANFORD UNIVERSITY #7 HARVARD UNIVERSITY #8 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA—BERKELEY (HAAS) #9 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY (KELLOGG) #10 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA—LOS ANGELES (ANDERSON) #11 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN—ANN ARBOR (ROSS)
I don’t work in a traditional financial services role, thus, I’m not certain what would qualify a financial services company as a ‘hacksaw’ employer. The other day, I posted a thread for some available equity research positions here in St. Louis as I know there are several people on this forum that dream about those types of roles, and they’re not my cup’o’tea. I figured St. Louis would be less competitive than New York/Chicago. The jobs were from RW Baird and Stifel Nicolaus… my question is, are those two firms considered hacksaw?