Traditional IB progression had been summer internship as a rising senior into full time analyst role upon graduation.
Analyst roles used to be 2 years and with few exception off to MBA. Upon returning you were a newly minted associate with a 2-5 year runway to VP.
This progression has dramatically changed over the last 15 years. IBs no longer expect or encourage 2 year analysts to leave for an MBA. IBs were loosing too many analysts to PE and VCs during the analyst years and unable to hire them back post MBA.
Currently analysts are frequently “tracked” to be promoted straight from analyst to associate. In my opinion an MBA makes little sense these days unless trying to pivot a career.
I thought your daughter was happy about a couple of options she already has(since she did not apply to /get accepted to UVA). She may end up liking her program and not want to transfer. Always nice when they find a good program to begin with.
I agree. If she is happy where she’s at, she should stay. But she looks to me for guidance, so it’s just me doing my own due diligence so that she knows what her options are. I mostly relay information to her when she asks, and she asks me a lot of questions, some that even I’m curious about. It’s ultimately up to her to decide what she wants to do.
If I’m coming across as someone trying to push my daughter into something that she doesn’t want to do, that’s 100% not the case. She’s much too strong-willed for that, and I’m much too concerned about her happiness for that too. I’m 100% glad I didn’t make her apply to UVA as a freshman. I think if she had gotten in, she would’ve been miserable like she said she would have been. I’m seeing all that pressure to go to UVA she was talking about playing out right now with her peers.
But I also think this discussion might be helpful to other parents who have to help their kids decide between direct admit or not direct admit. All this research has also helped me decide on whether I would send her to her top choice private school if she gets in, which I was on the fence about. But I no longer am.
Full time MBAs are now primarily pursued to pivot careers, although there are still some (elite) positions that require a top MBA, even if one is already on that career path. Otherwise, I agree that the opportunity cost can be high and even if an MBA is needed to move up, an executive MBA is the better option.
My DD has deferred MBA admission and was ambivalent about going due to opportunity cost. But once she figured out her ultimate career goal, she learned through the extensive networking she did that she needed the full time MBA to be competitive for the roles she wants long term.
This is absolutely true. I have a finance major and have tried to be sure he understands that his first out of college job may not be what he ends up doing as a career and there are many paths to success. He is feeling a lot of unnecessary pressure to get the “right job” at 22. We have a friend who started out in sales with an undergrad finance degree, went back and got an MBA from a mid tier business school and is now the CEO of a fortune 500 company.
Very helpful thread! Given the changes, what does it currently seem to take to get into McIntire? Hard to envision freshmen having leadership opportunities in established clubs?