<p>Would you say there is a significant difference in job prospects and competitiveness coming out of a school such as Darden vs. Wharton?</p>
<p>I would say there is at least somewhat of a difference, which can be seen in avg starting salary, % of class employed, desirability of offers received. Wharton vs Darden is probably about a #3 vs #12 comparison. So, more of a difference than say UChicago vs MIT (say #5 vs #7), but less of a difference than HBS vs URochester (say #1 vs #23).</p>
<p>Then why is that according to various rankings/charts avg. starting salary among t1 all the way down to t30 is relatievly the same? I think Wharton and Georgetown for example differ only by about 5K.</p>
<p>Real significant difference? No. </p>
<p>Reputation/strength in specific programs often lure in an additional set of (smaller) recruiters to a school. But, overall, grads from most top 15 schools get the same face time with an almost identical set of major hiring firms. </p>
<p>The avg salary used in national ranking don’t factor in geographical differences and the pay difference between industries. E.g. Yale historically has a larger percentage of grads who go into non-profit/public sectors. Those low salary figures hurt them (in ranking) even though their Wall-St grads make about the same as others. Some schools break down salary/bonus information based on industry so compare those.</p>
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<p>Because starting salary is a * deeply * misleading way to look at MBA’s, to the point that I don’t understand why rankings insist on printing them. The truth is, the great bulk of compensation, especially in fields like finance, comes not from salary, but from the year-end bonus, or if you’re talking about fields like private equity, then in the ‘carry’, which is a form of bonus. Of course, nobody actually knows exactly what the bonus is going to be in any given year, so I suppose that’s one reason why rankings refuse to print them, but you can make some estimations. For example, it is now widely understood that Ibanking pays about 250-300k for 1st year associates, all included (meaning salary + bonus).</p>