MBA Chances at a Cal State School

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

<p>I am currently attending Cal Poly Pomona and have a 2.3 g.p.a. I will be changing my major to mhr from finance since I have a history of obtaining 3.0’s and above in these classes( and I am more interested in the management side of business). I am concern as a junior that my past grades in finance will affect my g.p.a in the future. Besides this information, I also have:</p>

<p>-4 years of work experience with the state government
-2 years of work experience assisting in running of a tutoring center for our school.
-1 year internship with the Americorps(federal Gov.) Justicecorp division which is the first program created for would be lawyers that has us doing paper work, filing and going to court with litigants.
-2 years of experience being the manager for a large on-line textbook company for our campus.</p>

<p>I also have a 4 year scholarship from Telacu Education Foundation
And about 20 hours of service a year.</p>

<p>As you can see I am really busy. I also have harships since I am supporting myself and my mother. She is currently unemployed and I travel by bus to campus from L.A since I can’t afford a car now. So, that’s my summary so far. I would like to know if I could get into a cal state school (L.A or San Bernardino) or a small private school?</p>

2

<p>How old are you?</p>

3

<p>The way CSU calculates GPA for grad programs is to calculate the GPA for the last 60 units of your bachelor’s degree. You can use the “last 60 units” calculation to improve your profile, which is good, because with a 2.3 GPA you have zero chance. The absolute CSU grad division minimum is 2.5 and many programs require a 2.75 or 3.0. If you have any unpaid or low-paying extra-curiculars, I would get rid of them since you really have to work on the GPA. If you get into a MBA program or any other grad program, a GPA below 3.0 at any time puts you into academic probation and you cannot graduate with a GPA below 3.0.</p>

4

<p>I am 20 years old. </p>

<p>Also, will having a minor help my grades or my chances if I do good in the field.</p>

5

<p>Why are you trying for a MBA so early? At 20, you don’t have a lot of professional managerial experience to build upon with an MBA even though the CSU will gladly take your tuition money. Most students have a couple of years increasing managerial experience outside of academia before doing the MBA.</p>

<p>Forget the minor. Focus on getting better grades period. Think quality, not quantity.</p>

6

<p>Not to bash the Cal State system, but why aren’t you also looking at a UC school? It is early in your life, and the average MBA student is usually around 27-29 when they start their program, so you still have time to build your profile. Improve your grades, get some good work experience, and maybe even do some other kind of Master’s degree before applying for the MBA so you can have a good GPA in a grad program to help offset your undergrad GPA. Also do well on the GMAT. I know I’m making a challenging task sound easy, but that’s pretty much what you need to do. All of your hardships will be able to explain your UG GPA a little bit, but you still want to improve, obviously.</p>

7

<p>Of course UC schools like Haas and Anderson are much better than the CSU. However, there is one feature the CSU has the the UC doesn’t. CSU is much cheaper (about $3k/yr) while UC is a bit over $20k/yr. You get what you pay for but if the tuition reimbursement program at your employer is stingy, the CSU is the way to go. Note: I have a bias against getting a MBA unless the employer fronts a significant portion of the cost.</p>

<p>If you go the UC route, getting some GOOD work experience with a lot of promise in management, good GPA, and very high GMAT is top priority.</p>

8

<p>I know that cost is important, but if you can get in to a school like Haas or Anderson, you should definitely take that over a CSU. You will make up the difference in cost almost immediately. I don’t know what the average starting salary for an MBA out of a Cal State, but I’m sure it’s at least $15-20k less than the average starting salary of a grad from Haas or Anderson. That right there will make up the tuition, and you’ll have a more respected degree as well.</p>

<p>Usually employers will only pay for an MBA if the employee plans on returning to that company afterwards. At your young age, do you even know what you want to do? A lot of people, myself included, get MBAs to help facilitate a career switch. In that case, having an employer pay for you is highly unlikely.</p>

9

<p>But a CSU grad isn’t likely to get the job a graduate of a better B school gets, so really, is the CSU a bargain? If you look at salaries of B school grads, they start dropping incredibly quickly when you get below the top 15. You then need to weigh what it’s worth to be in a school, and sometimes you’ll find it’s not worth it.</p>

10

<p>CSU is not a bargain if you’re paying for it. But the interesting case comes if your employer pays for all of it.</p>

<p>The name of the game is ROI, risk and the risk transferred to your employer. If you have a tuition reimbursement fund of $3k and CSU costs $3k, then your risk of not coming out ahead is nil. The risk is transferred to your employer other than your time studying. The first job or promotion that you can attribute to the MBA will make your ROI positive.</p>

<p>If you go to a daytime top-15 MBA program on your own dime, you have to forego your salary for three years plus tuition and make that all that back plus inflation to break even. Your upside is far higher but you will start 6 feet in the hole and need to climb out. </p>

<p>If your employer thinks an MBA is good, they need to ante up instead of just talk. If you’re a career changer or unemployed or can’t get your employer to ante up, then I think it’s a much bigger gamble with both CSU and top-15.</p>

11

<p>If you go to a top MBA program, your ROI will not be in question. There is however, a huge question about ROI for a mediocre or lower MBA. Who cares if your present employer pays and likes the degree. Most will change employers often in the course of a career. CSU MBAs just dodn’t seem to do much for the investment.</p>

12

<p>no chance with a 2.3 even at the worst CSU.
at the top MBA program, SLO, you need a 3.5.
at CP Pomona you need a 3.3.
at many other CSUs a 3.0 or even better.
need some radical uptick in your GPA, dude.
a stanislas or dominguez hills might nibble at 2.5-2.75.</p>

13

<p>zagat, how is ROI easy to solve with a top-15 MBA program if you consider 3 years of opportunity cost + tuition? If your old salary is $75k, your salary is down $225k in 3 years. Then you add tuition + books/supplies at Haas at $25k (in after tax dollars) for 3 years. That means you are down $300k. For that risk, I would want a nice return far greater than $300k or something to mitigate my risk (like my employer’s blessings). </p>

<p>The average 2004 Haas postgrad salary is $88k (with $13k signing bonus).</p>

<p>I’m not sold that top-15 means $$$ commensuriate with the risk. CSU isn’t worth much but you can come out ahead much sooner with less risk if your employer pays for their bargain MBAs and if you get to keep your salary.</p>

14

<p>Business school is only 2 years</p>

15

<p>Bouncingboy, you also have to do your calculations consistently. </p>

<p>First , as has been pointed out, B-school is only 2 years long.</p>

<p>Second, if you want to talk about taxes in certain parts of your calculation, then you have to calculate taxes in all parts of your calculations. You can’t just pick and choose to talk about taxes whenever you want. So your 75k of pretax, preMBA salary, actually becomes something like 40k or so of aftertax salary, depending on your tax bracket and whatnot. </p>

<p>Third, I would also point out that some MBA costs can be tax-deductible in and of themselves. This may be especially important if you are married and filing taxes jointly, which thereby allows you to deduct some of your MBA expenses from your spouse’s income. And if you happen to be a small-business owner that continues to generate income while you’re in school, then you may be able to deduct much more. The point is that there are tax shields that you can take advantage of to make the numbers look better. </p>

<p>Fourth, I would also point out that for most incoming students of top MBA programs, their pre-MBA salary is not 75k. Even at a place like Harvard Business School, the average pre-MBA salary is only about 67.5k or so. And that’s at Harvard. At Haas, the average pre-MBA salary is about 56k. </p>

<p>Here is the data, you can do the calculations yourself. For example, the salary of HBS graduates 3 years after they graduate is about 160k, and that is a 140% increase over their pre-MBA salary. Hence, their pre-MBA salary is about 67.5k.</p>

<p><a href=“http://rankings.ft.com/rankings/mba/rankings.html[/url]”>http://rankings.ft.com/rankings/mba/rankings.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Fifth, I would also point out that you generally are not going sans salary for the entire 2 years. Most MBA students, especially at the top-flight ones, will do a summer internship between their first and second years, and depending on the field they do their internship, and how long in the summer they work, can make anywhere from 15-25k (pretax) during that summer. And during that year, you are generally going to be in a low tax bracket because you don’t make much money during that calendar year. Furthermore, you can deduct your MBA expenses off of that summer money.</p>

<p>Sixth, if money and ROI is a problem, then there are definitely things you can do to make the numbers look better. For example, many MBA students who do well will take TA-ships, hence, getting a good chunk of their tuition paid off for the semester (in some cases, all of their tuition paid off), as well as a stipend. Furthermore, there are some extremely generous MBA programs out there that will provide you with heavy merit scholarships. The entire LFM program at MIT-Sloan (the MBA/MS program at MIT) gives all of its students nearly-full-tuition scholarships (although they do have to agree to take an unpaid LFM internship during the program). Nor is this specific only to MIT-Sloan. Lots of B-schools do the same. For example, I knew a guy who got his MBA from Duke on a full-ride merit scholarship plus a stipend. You never know if you’re get a deal like that until you apply.</p>

<p>Seventh, let’s also keep in mind that many employers of fresh MBA’s have a strong tuition-reimbursement policy where they will basically pay for your entire 2nd year of the MBA program. This is especially common at the major management consulting firms and investment banks.</p>

<p>Eighth, I would assert that if your pre-MBA salary is higher-than-usual, then your post-MBA salary will also probably be higher than usual. After all, if you are making 75k before your MBA, you are doing pretty well, relatively speaking to other people getting their MBA, which means that you are probably going to have a better chance of getting a better job than those other people once you all graduate. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I do agree with you that an overall ROI calculation is important, and this is something everything should do. It is true that for some people, even the best MBA program does not make sense from a pure ROI perspective. I would proffer that for many people, the goal is not to come out ahead from a pure ROI perspective, because money isn’t everything. Some people just want to do what makes them happy and more fulfilled. Most PhD degrees, for example, make no sense from a pure ROI perspective, but lots of people get them anyway because it’s what they want to do. </p>

<p>To those people who are highly successful such that they are making so much money that the traditional MBA is nothing other than a ROI bath, then I would recommend going somewhere part-time and keeping your job. Nor does this have to necessarily be at a no-name school. Lots of elite B-schools run part-time/executive MBA programs. Haas, for example, runs a strong part-time MBA program. So does Chicago. Wharton runs an executive MBA program that is designed to be completed while you are working (although, admittedly, with some difficulty). Kellogg runs both part-time and executive-MBA programs that allow people to continue working. Columbia runs an executive-MBA program that is basically a part-time MBA program. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mbaexecutive/curriculum/schedule/[/url]”>http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mbaexecutive/curriculum/schedule/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/EWMBA/prospective.html[/url]”>http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/EWMBA/prospective.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/emba/index.htm[/url]”>http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/emba/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/tmp/index.htm[/url]”>http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/tmp/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://chicagogsb.edu/parttime/index.aspx[/url]”>http://chicagogsb.edu/parttime/index.aspx&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/emba/[/url]”>http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/emba/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>And then of course there are the special 1-year MBA programs. Kellogg runs one. So does MIT-Sloan. Then of course there are the elite European MBA programs, most of which are 1-year long. So if you are really worried about ROI, and worried about going for a long time without a salary, you may want to consider going to INSEAD, or IMD, or Oxford, or some place like that. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/admissions/programs/1yearmba.htm[/url]”>http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/admissions/programs/1yearmba.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://mitsloan.mit.edu/execed/fellows/degrees.php[/url]”>http://mitsloan.mit.edu/execed/fellows/degrees.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.insead.edu/[/url]”>http://www.insead.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www01.imd.ch/mba/index.cfm?content_id=157&site_id=3723&node=13[/url]”>http://www01.imd.ch/mba/index.cfm?content_id=157&site_id=3723&node=13&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/html/default.asp[/url]”>http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/html/default.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that everybody has to get an MBA from a top-ranked school, nor am I saying that nobody should ever consider getting an MBA from a CalState. I absolutely agree that for some people, it makes no sense to get an MBA, even part-time. And for some other people, it makes perfect sense to get their MBA at a CalState rather than elsewhere, even if it’s part-time. However, the point is that if ROI is a major hurdle for you, there are a lot of things you can do to improve your return. Whether it’s going to a part-time/executive program, or a 1-year program, or getting a job at a consulting company/Ibank that will pay back a chunk of your tuition, or working as a TA, or getting a merit scholarship, etc. The point is, there are things you can do.</p>