Top 5 Schools vs. the Rest

sakky
Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:48:38 +0000

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.



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).