Getting an MBA after graduating from top undergrad

Denzera
Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:03:49 +0000

sakky, minor point, but that 1-2% who has “no work experience” usually in practice has “no FT work experience as an employee following their college graduation”. In practice, many started and ran businesses during or even before college. At least, the two whom I met at HBS College Day a few years ago both fit that profile, and were clearly smart enough to toast bread with their brain waves.

But enough about all that. How about the OP’s question? For non-finance careers, does an MBA really have a much higher ROI than a top undergrad business degree (like Wharton, Hass, Stern)? I mean, there are some top mgmt consulting firms which will promote without an MBA (not McKinsey, but I know people at Bain, Deloitte and Monitor for whom this is true). For them, if you don’t need an MBA for networking purposes (to help source eventual deals as you try to make partner), it’s essentially a 2-year gap in their career which costs them a net, let’s say $150k in cash outlays and another $150 (avg salary $75k at least by that point) in foregone salary.

Or say he does marketing. Or nonprofit mgmt. What’s the ROI comparison look like there? I guess we can’t get exact numbers, but it’s a fair question in that view. For Finance, the MBA clearly is a huge net positive. For general management in industry, it can be hard to get hired at the director level of a big organization, into the management structure, without an MBA’s recruiting outreach power. But for other careers - does it really make that much sense?