Ranking Online MBA Programs
Maria |
December 25, 2024

In this episode of Business Casual, the hosts delve into the dynamic realm of online MBA programs, focusing on the latest rankings where the University of Texas at Dallas emerges as the top institution for the first time, followed closely by Michigan and Indiana University. They unpack insights from an extensive survey of recent graduates, confronting common myths about online education—like limited networking opportunities and the challenges of career switching.

Joined by Christie, the architect of the online MBA ranking, the hosts explore compelling alumni testimonials of significant career shifts and impressive career outcomes. They highlight the considerable career advancements and salary increases that many graduates achieve, effectively dispelling doubts about the value of online education.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.390] – John

Well, hello everyone. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants. Welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast. We’re going to talk about online MBA programs, and frankly, online education overall. We just completed our annual review of online MBA programs, which results in the ranking this year for the first time, UT, Dallas, US is number one. We’ll find out why. Michigan is number two. Three, Indiana University, which is often a number one player. Actually, they tied with Michigan for second place. University of Washington and Rice University round out the top five. Then we have a USC, Carnegie Mellon, Jack Welch Management Institute, Hofstra, and the University of Florida in 10th place. But what always intrigues me about this project is the fact that we survey thousands of recent graduates of online MBA programs. It’s the most extensive survey of these graduates anywhere in the world. This year, we had a 17% response rate, which amounts to something like, I think it’s 1,300 people responded. You really get a sense for what they got out of these programs. There are a lot of myths about online education education. One myth is, well, you really won’t get to know or bond with your fellow students or the faculty.

[00:01:37.560] – John

Another myth is that it’s going to limit, if not make impossible, a career transition outside of what you already do.Our survey work shows that actually there’s a different story to that. Now, joining Maria and Caroline with me today is the architect of our online MBA ranking, Christie, who’s a member of our staff. Welcome.

[00:02:03.860] – Christie

Well, thanks for having me. Other than who’s number three and who’s number 10, let’s get into the results. What surprises you about the responses that graduates have reflecting back on their online education?

[00:02:20.930] – Christie

Well, I think the biggest surprise for me since I started, really, this is my second year of managing the ranking and really diving through the results and looking at what the alumni say about the programs. And we are talking about the top programs in the United States. As a former online MBA student myself, who took a program that wasn’t quite up to this tier. The surprising part to me is throughout any of the 57 schools that we ranked, the alumni really reported having a great ability to make connections. And that is one thing I think that is a big misconception of the top programs these days. They think that you’re sitting at your computer, you’re locking yourself away late at night, doing it when you can. But for the students who want to get involved and meet their classmates, it’s just been changing ever since, I think maybe the pandemic really accelerated this, but the ability to make connections with both your classmates, your professors, alumni for that career progression is really available if you want to partake in it.

[00:03:36.460] – John

Yeah. I also think the career outcomes can be somewhat surprising because a number of people actually don’t use a degree merely to enhance their trajectory inside the company they’re already employed at, but also use it to change their careers. That always surprises me because obviously in an online program, there are no internships. There are no recruiters who come to campus to interview because there’s no campus generally. And online students tend not to have many of the opportunities that in-person MBA students have. And I’m talking about companies that come and do coffee hours or drinks with students who do interviews right on campus. In other words, the courtship that occurs between employers and students doesn’t really exist in the online world. And yet a surprising number of them are able to leverage this degree and its experience to actually change what they’ve done in the past, right?

[00:04:37.460] – Christie

Yeah, absolutely. According to the alumni on the very top of these programs, they’re utilizing the same career services as the full-time MBA program. They are getting together with alumni to make connections and find new opportunities. In fact, some of the questions that we ask the alumni on the survey, and by the way, we reached out to more than 7,800 alumni of these 57 ranked schools, and we got back just around 1,300 with a 17% response rate. We feel like we have a good collection of a measurement of how alumni really view these programs. But a couple of the questions that we ask as a part of the survey is, were you able to change industries? Did your job function Did you change employers? And at some of the top schools on this, Bryant University, 60 % of its alumni actually changed industries, and they attributed that to the online MBA program. Again, 80% of Bryant online MBA alumni reported that they had also changed job functions. If it’s not just a way to advance in your own organization is a lot of times the perception. It really can help people pivot if that’s what they want to do.

[00:06:09.360] – John

The other interesting thing looking at the list is that the four top programs are all at public universities. I don’t know what to make of that. What do you make of that, Christie?

[00:06:20.180] – Christie

I think it’s an ROI question. Those kinds of universities usually have a pretty comparable price tag compared to some of the Ivy Leagues, especially for what you’re getting out of the program these days. University of Texas, Dallas, which is the number one, the alumni this year really told us that if they wanted to go on an emersion trip to Japan or do consulting projects, much like you would find in a full-time MBA, they were able to take electives to do that. They were able to get this immersive experience, if that’s what they wanted while maintaining their current jobs and their family obligations and not having those kinds of astronomical price tags that you might find in a full-time MBA, particularly at those private institutions. I think those public universities, their mission is to provide education at a more affordable price, and I think that reflects that.

[00:07:29.280] – John

Now, Maria, Christie and Caroline are both graduates of full-time residential, meaning in-person MBA programs. Caroline, I wonder what you make of the online MBA world.

[00:07:40.470] – Caroline

I’m very impressed with the data that you’ve gathered here. It’s very surprising to me, actually, the extent to which, particularly as you highlight Christie, the extent to which people are achieving career change, because my preconception was that it was more about career progression and acceleration rather than switching careers, because we know how challenging that is even for full-time MBA students often to switch careers. So that’s wonderful. I think that there’s a lot to be said with these programs for the ability, if you can juggle your work with study, whether that is in an online program or also we see this with executive MBA programs, that the ability to then apply the learning directly really helps with the learning process and helps you absorb what you learn in the classroom and apply it and just retain that information often more effectively, frankly, than in a full-time MBA program. With a full-time program, you’re learning so much, you’re getting through so much material. And of course, you are doing a lot of teamwork and projects and so on to help you apply that knowledge. But still, I think that there is an advantage in some ways for these different format programs where where you are juggling the study and your work, that if you can apply it, take it back to your workplace, use that learning, then it just ingraines some of the key points and helps you to retain that much more effectively I think, in many ways than you can get on a full-time program.

[00:09:18.970] – Caroline

And that comes across clearly in the surveys that you shared here.

[00:09:23.910] – John

And impressed your boss, probably, because you’re making a contribution that perhaps otherwise might not be able to make, being able to apply what you learn immediately on the job. You can even bring your own professional challenges to the program and get help with your classmates and faculty members, which is free consulting help, really, in an online or any part-time program. Maria, what’s your take on all this?

[00:09:52.270] – Maria

Similar to Caroline, I was super impressed, shocked in a positive way with many of these results. I think in particular, one of the ones that really caught my eye was the question, did your salary increase as a result of the online MBA program? The reason I like this question is because it’s quantifiable. Many of these other questions, obviously in surveys, whenever we’re talking about any ranking, we often bemoan the fact that some of these more qualitative questions, Well, how good were your professors? Well, I don’t know. I guess they were good, but how do I compare them? But something like a salary increase now, that’s a real number that we can absolutely sink our teeth into. The fact that so many of these programs had Wake Forest, 83%, Rice, 82%, that’s a huge percentage of these students attributing a salary increase to the program that they did. That’s really where the rubber hits the road, so to speak. I think that there’s so much great data to dig into here, but that was the one statistic that really was an eye opener for me.

[00:10:58.030] – John

Yeah, true. Many of these well, first off, they’re all cheaper than a full-time program because you don’t have the opportunity costs of quitting your job and losing that paycheck. That’s number one. But even after that, they tend to be priced below full-time residential programs. You also don’t have to relocate yourself. Even in a hybrid program where you’re expected to go and do an in-person emersion here or there, that’s hardly like relocating yourself a country or a nation. In some cases, the fees are so low that these schools have drawn a lot of international students, which also means you have a pretty diverse class of students bringing lots of different experiences into those classes. Now, Christie, why UT Dallas? How did they manage to unseat Indiana Kelly and some other schools that have been at the top of their ranking over the years?

[00:11:59.810] – Christie

Well, I think that one thing that people should remember when they’re looking at these programs is in terms of the top three, it’s very close. We’re slicing and dicing my new data points to try to come up with a list. But they were very strong on their career outcomes, which were reported by the alumni. Again, the alumni reported really promotion and salary increases, and also not as strong as some of the schools, but a very good track record of being able to change careers. They’re, in terms of the career, very ingrained in that Texas economy. The program really tries to work with employers on training the online MBAs for what the employers need. And I think that shows up in those career outcome questions that the students are looking for. They also were, I think, number three in the academic experience. That’s how the alumni rated things like their professors, being able to make connections, and just the overall feel of how the program went. They’ve been hovering around the top. They were number three last year. I think it was just their year. The way our ranking works is how alumni feel year to year can really influence how when you’re talking about some really good programs, that alumni survey can really tip the scale.

[00:13:47.140] – John

Yeah, and I think you’re right to say we’re slicing the baloney very thin here because let’s face it, okay, so Texas has, based on an index, has a score of 100, but then Michigan and Indiana, right behind it, are 96.3 each.

[00:14:05.940] – Christie

It was very close this year for those top three.

[00:14:10.590] – John

Yeah. What I like about what we do here is we’re showing you the result so you can more smartly navigate the ranking because after all, there is really no statistical difference among those, probably the top four school because University Washington has a score of 95.3. So yes, we want to create a list because everyone wants a list. But the truth is you look at those index scores and you know there’s really no substantial difference among those schools. So I think that’s a really helpful data point for people who are looking at which school to attend and when to attend. I mean, the other interesting issue about online MBA programs, and this defied the early logic of the programs. Early on, it was thought that students to these programs would gravitate to the brand value of a program because after all, they weren’t bound by geography anymore. Yet, the vast majority of students in these programs live within a 150-mile radius of the school, so they tend to go all over, not just the big brand schools. Branding has still a big impact on your career and on your resume MBA, and even the quality of the program, frankly.

[00:15:32.850] – John

But many applicants and students find that if we’re going to stay in a rough area or so, the alumni network in that area helps them just fine with the job market in their future career prospects. Now, Maria, I wonder what you think the downside of an online MBA is. Who is an ideal candidate for an online MBA, and who should really be thinking about a full-time residential program?

[00:15:59.860] – Maria

I think the ideal participant in an online MBA program is someone who is already in a job that they really, really like, and they are worried, perhaps rightfully so, about the impact of taking two years off, one or two years off from that job and then trying to get back into that same job later on. If someone’s working at a company, they have a job, a function that they enjoy, they like their employer, I think the online MBA can be great because that way you can It’s almost like you get a two for one special in the sense that you can continue to get that work experience and grow in your day job, but then you’re adding that turbo boost of the MBA education at the same time. Even though a lot of these participants did say that they were able to change industries or change functions as a result, if you’re already enjoying what you’re doing and you’ve got a job that is giving you opportunities for growth also during the day, then you’re having two opportunities to grow yourself at the same time. I think that that’s the ideal situation. I think someone for whom it’s not as good of an opportunity as perhaps someone who needs to do a lot more exploration in terms of their career interests.

[00:17:18.930] – Maria

One of the benefits of being in a residential program is that you are surrounded by other people who come from all sorts of backgrounds, every industry you can imagine, every country you can imagine. If you are in a more exploratory phase in your career, probably earlier in your career, I would suspect, then the in-person program can be a great way to… There are all these serendipitous moments. You might be standing in line at the cafeteria and you start talking to someone who works in real estate and you’re thinking, I’ve never even thought about real estate. Let’s keep talking. If you want to be surrounded by people in person and really bounce ideas off of them and use that to try to make a pretty major pivot, then I would still choose the in person for those people. But what this survey is showing is that these online programs are… I suspect that what’s happened is that maybe the online programs have heard the concerns from prospective students about, Well, I’m a little bit worried that I won’t get to change careers. I’m a little bit worried that I won’t get to build strong bonds with my classmates.

[00:18:27.490] – Maria

I can’t help but wonder if part of why we’re seeing these strong results now is because I’m guessing that over the past few years, a lot of these programs have perhaps taken that feedback to heart and have started asking themselves, Okay, so how do we start implementing services or experiences so that our online students can, in fact, get to know each other well. I think it’s great. The outcomes, again, are stunning in a really good way. This is fantastic because it just opens up an opportunity to get this education for folks who otherwise would not be able to, perhaps logistically. This is fantastic.

[00:19:05.040] – John

The other thing is a full-time MBA program is a funnel into certain jobs that are otherwise not available to you. I’m primarily thinking things like investment banking and consulting. These firms want a tryout. They want to see you during the internship before they actually pull a trigger and say, Yeah, we’re going to offer you a job. Those Pivoting into those kinds of industries from an online MBA are going to be much more difficult unless you’re already in that industry. That’s another consideration. Caroline, you work exclusively with people who want to get into the most elite full-time MBA programs in the world. What would you say is the downside of going for an online MBA?

[00:19:54.120] – Caroline

Yeah, I agree that I think the career opportunities are going to be different, as you say, on a full-time program, you get so much exposure to different recruiters and the ability to network with them, to learn about those different career paths, and to get in front of those employers and in many cases, get interviews. So it does open doors that I think are otherwise much more difficult to open if you’re not on one of those top-tier full-time programs. So I think that’s one of the key differences. And I think also, as Maria said, there’s a lot to be said for being in an immersive environment alongside other people in that very intense community and that long period of time where you can get to know people from such an incredible variety of different backgrounds and really build very, very strong relationships that last a lifetime. So I would imagine that graduates from full-time programs probably have more extensive and deeper relationships than graduates from online programs. But nevertheless, as we’ve said, not everybody has the opportunity and the ability to take one or two years out of their career to step away from work. And so if you don’t have that opportunity, if you have…

[00:21:19.550] – Caroline

Many people have family responsibilities, and then they just need to keep earning that salary, or some people are just too risk averse, and are nervous about taking that step away And so for those people, depending on their career goals, I think this is a great option.

[00:21:36.970] – John

True. And for age, age is a factor. I mean, most elite full-time programs are looking for people between the ages of probably 26, 27 to 30. There are some outliers on either side, but basically, that’s the sweet spot. In an online MBA program, the schools are much more welcoming of people who are much older and in some cases even younger. I’ll give you a good example. This morning, I got an email from someone who wants to get an MBA but has 18 years of work experience in an interesting industry. He’s in his 40s, and he’s wondering what his options are. Well, online MBA programs would be a good option for him. The other important issue here, though, is one online MBA program is not equal to another. These programs differ greatly based on everything from branding to price to the curriculum to how high-bred they are to how committed the faculty are to whether or not the full-time tenure faculty teach them or if the school is just offering an online program on the cheap with a bunch of adjuncts. You really need to look at what you want and what you get. Typically, the higher priced programs will offer much more career support and one-on-one coaching.

[00:23:04.390] – John

They will have on a weekly basis, live internet classes. They will have the opportunity for immersions, both domestic and global. They’ll also have the opportunity to go to campus for a couple of weekends for classes, for networking, for drills. Indiana Kelly, for example, in their program, the faculty actually devise a live case study that’s brand new every year just for the online MBA students. The protagonists of the organization that agrees to be studied and is facing a challenge that students are asked to confront are there and you present to them. That happens every single year. There are lots of bells and whistles that are attached to some, and then some are completely no frills, 100% online. They may not even have live Internet classes. You really need to look at this because the differences among these programs can be very, very significant. Typically, if you go with a big brand school like an Indiana Kelly in Michigan, Washington, a Rice, a USC, a Carnegie Mellon, they’re going to send their best faculty into the program. They’re going to have the best career support, and it’s just going to be a super quality program. Now, there are a couple of programs on this that are not included in the ranking that I just want to talk a little bit about because they offer really quality education.

[00:24:47.060] – John

They refuse to be ranked, and they are really disruptively priced. That would be Boston University’s Questrom School, which has an online MBA program that’s priced at under $25,000. There are no electives in that program. Every course is mandatory, and it’s a theme-based program over a couple of years. But for the price tag in Boston University’s great brand and the quality of the teaching and the curriculum and the thought that went into it, it’s a bargain. The other big bargain of the Guise College of Business, IMBA at University of Illinois, which is probably the single largest quality online MBA program There are other online MBA programs out there that actually have higher enrollments, but really, I’ll just put it out here, they’re garbage. Guise is a terrific program taught by tenure track faculty who are all in and all engaged. There is an annual get together on the University of Illinois campus where hundreds of students come. The student enrollment is very diverse from all over the world. You have brand name companies who are sending their people to this program from Deloitte to Microsoft, Apple, and Google. It’s just a really great program. It’s also priced below $25,000.

[00:26:16.910] – John

Now, those two programs refuse to be ranked, so they’re not on this list. But for people who don’t want a lot of in-person activity, for people who don’t need a lot of career support, these are two really good options. Christie, any last words on how to use the ranking to make the perfect match?

[00:26:40.390] – Christie

Yeah, I think that all your points are very good about this is just an exercise that we do. It is a data-driven exercise, but when you’re talking about the top of the ranking, slicing that baloney, it doesn’t mean as much as a number one or a number 2 or number three. What you really need to do is, I think that what’s unique about this ranking and exercise is we put as much data out there as we can so that you can sift through it throughout this next two weeks, we’re going to be unveiling stories that looks at some of the admissions standards at each of these schools. What does it take to get into a UT of Dallas or a University of Michigan in terms of undergrad GPA A, acceptance rate, your test scores, what schools are now test optional. And so the best thing to do is to come back and we’ll go through all those support stories so that you can really get a feel for what fits you. The number one school on this list might not be the program that is what you are particularly looking for.

[00:27:56.510] – John

Yeah, that’s really true. So there you I have it. Look, for those who might be skeptical still of online education, here’s what you need to know. The technology has improved so greatly that this is really effective education. It’s serious, it’s rigorous, it’s done well. Many of the online programs have imported into them key elements of their residential program so that it’s as close as you can get to an in-person experience and yet be part-time and do it from your home, from your hotel room, even from an airplane, if you’re a road warrior. The tuition rates are more reasonable and you don’t have the opportunity cost. There are enough major brand players in this market, including some who don’t really fulfill an online MBA ranking. I’m talking about NYU Eastern, UC Berkeley Haas, and Wharton’s Executive MBA program, all of whom now have online cohorts. Now, in each of these examples, there are more substantial in-person elements to those three, but those are three other options as well. I think the existence of a lot of the major business schools in the world in this market has helped to legitimize it and bring great credibility to the effects and the impact of online education.

[00:29:39.070] – John

There you have it, our little review of online MBAs. Check out our ranking by Christie, the best online MBA programs in US for 2025. Even more importantly, check out all the survey results. We tried to make the data as transparent as possible so you can evaluate it for yourself. You can toss out what you don’t believe or let it confirm what you do believe, but we find it incredibly useful. So thanks for joining us. This is John Byrne with Poets and Quants with my co-host, Caroline Diarte Edwards and Maria Wich-Vila. See you next time.

The Economist Dis on MBAs: Is the Degree Still Worth It?
Ranking Online MBA Programs
Maria |
December 25, 2024

[00:00:00] John Byrne: Well hello everyone, this is John Byrne with Poets and Quants, welcome to Business Casual, our weekly podcast with my co-hosts Maria Wich-Vila and Caroline Diarte Edwards. Today we have a special guest, Heidi Hillis from Fortuna Admissions. She is based in Australia, is a senior expert coach for Fortuna, and has three degrees, all from Stanford, a BA in English literature, that’s my degree, an MA in Russian studies, and an MBA from the Graduate School of Business. And we have Heidi here to discuss some really fascinating research. Here’s what Fortuna did. They dug into the last Two class profiles of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

That’s the class of ‘23 and the class of ‘24. They looked up all these folks on LinkedIn to identify a little bit more about their backgrounds, including their former employers and their places of undergraduate education to come up with an incredible analysis. Heidi, welcome.

[00:00:46] Heidi Hillis: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

[00:00:48] John Byrne: Heidi, what is, what are the big takeaways from your deep dive discovery?

[00:00:54] Heidi Hillis: It’s hard to know even where to start. I think there’s a quite a few interesting kind of trends that we’ve seen that have taken place over the years. We were mentioning before the call that traditionally there hadn’t been, 10 years ago, if you’d looked, you wouldn’t have seen so many tech companies represented, but now there’s a big presence of tech companies who are feeding a lot of these MBA programs in Stanford in particular.

I think that the thing that was really interesting was, looking, not just at where the companies that were feeding the students, the applicants to Stanford. When they were working there, when they were applying, but actually the paths that they took prior to their current job.

So how many people were working, if you look at McKinsey, for example, or Bain and BCG, those are obviously companies that feed a lot of applicants to the program, but we found 20%, which seemed to be normal of, the class came from consulting, but if you actually look into the numbers in their background, You would see that actually 37 percent of these two classes had worked at McKinsey sometime prior, or actually in consulting, so it was, it’s The kind of the patterns that are behind, what you would normally see in terms of what Stanford tells us.

So you get a sense of the paths that people have taken. And so that’s something that was really interesting to see.

[00:02:16] John Byrne: Absolutely. And of course, this is this analysis goes so far beyond what any applicant would learn by simply looking at the class profile that the school up because, this level of detail is never available to people.

[00:02:33] Heidi Hillis: No, and yeah, for example, you could see that, Stanford will say that they have around, each year around 50 percent of applicants are international, which is a great statistic and gives you lots of hope if you are an international student. But when you dig into the numbers, you actually understand that.

75 percent of the people who get into Stanford actually went to a U. S. University. So even if you’re international, it does have does seem to have kind of an advantage of having been educated in the U. S. That seems to be something that they look for. However, I think. The concentration of universities in the U.

S. that are feeding to Stanford is something also that, if you’re looking at it, you might find a little bit dis, disconcerting. There’s a few programs that are really, obviously the top. Programs as you would expect places like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, the Ivies but if you look at the international universities very diverse from all over the world, really lots of people from different places, which is also really interesting.

[00:03:38] John Byrne: Yeah I tell you, one of the things that struck me in the data is how consistent it is. 10 years ago, we did the same exercise at Stanford and a bunch of other. Schools from Harvard and Dartmouth and Columbia and talk and a few others and back 10 years ago, we found that 25. 2 percent of the class of 2013 were from Ivy League colleges.

And the Ivy League 8 schools, not including Stanford. And if you included Stanford, it would have been 32. 6%. So now, let’s move forward to your data. And in 23, 30. 7 percent went to Ivy League schools, even above the 25. 2. And in 24, 27. 9 percent went to Ivy League schools. So it looks like Stanford has gotten even a little bit more elitist than it was.

Yeah,

[00:04:41] Heidi Hillis: It’s, it is it’s what the data says, right? Obviously, this is a sample. We have 80 percent of the two classes. So we don’t know where those other people went. And that might skew the data a little bit in another direction. But it is, if you look at there’s 15 schools, that include the Ivy’s and then you have UC Berkeley and obviously Stanford that really are contributing, 49 percent of the class of 23, 47. 3 percent of the class of 24. So that is a pretty heavy concentration and But, if you actually look into the data, you see a lot of people also, each of these is actually an individual story.

You see a lot of people who come from other schools as well. So it’s not like you have to give up hope if you come from a different school. I see a lot of individual stories that, from the whole range of U. S. schools that really are feeding into Stanford. So I think what the data doesn’t also tell you, unfortunately, is how many of these Of people from these backgrounds are actually applying.

So

[00:05:39] John Byrne: good point.

[00:05:40] Heidi Hillis: It’s it’s hard to know. And sometimes I think people this is. A path that a lot of people who go to these schools plan to take from the very beginning. So I would see, it would be interesting to know that I don’t know that we will ever find that out. But, um, that’s something to keep in mind as well.

[00:05:56] John Byrne: Yeah. And that’s a fair point. Because how reflective are these results of the applicant pool reflective of an elitist attitude probably a combination of if I had to guess, but, it is what it is, and these institutions obviously are great filters, so you come from McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and you go to Harvard or Stanford or Penn, and you pass through a fine filter, and it makes you less of a admissions risk than if you went to, frankly, the University of Kentucky and worked for a company that no one knows of.

That’s just the reality of elite MBA admissions, right?

[00:06:40] Heidi Hillis: Yeah. And so you will see that the people who are not going, you’ll see a lot of the people who you would, the profiles that you would expect, the Harvard undergrad that then goes to Goldman that then was working at a PE firm.

That’s a really typical profile that you’ll see. But you’ll also see some really, unique and interesting ones, which I think, Okay. Helps you understand that if you don’t have that path, you also have a real chance at these schools, and maybe even more of a chance, again, not knowing, how many of those Goldman P.

E. Harvard grads are applying. So I’m thinking of the guy that I saw who he went to UPenn undergrad, studied engineering, started out a kind of pretty typical path working in private equity, but then made a big pivot to work for go to Poland where he was working in a real estate investment firm and the head coach of the Polish lacrosse team.

So you have really interesting profiles like that, that you can see that. aren’t necessarily taking that typical path. And sometimes that really does help you stand out.

[00:07:42] John Byrne: True. Maria, what surprised you most about the data?

[00:07:48] Maria Wich-Vila: Wow. I think we already covered, the, one of the biggest ones was the number, the percentage of people who would had some sort of either their undergraduate or graduate education within the United States.

Intuitively, I had felt that was true. And sometimes when I try to, give some honest, tough love to applicants from certain countries, and they’ll say, oh, but Maria, I think you’re being a little too pessimistic. After all, X percent of the applicants at these schools are international, and Y percent are from a certain geography internationally.

I’ll say yes, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all Solely from that area. A lot of them are, do have significant international educational experiences. I think another, speaking of the international piece the percentage of people who had significant international work experience as well was something else that really jumped out at me.

Because it would signal to me that Stanford really does value this global perspective both within probably its domestic applicants and also its international applicants. So I thought that was also a really interesting piece of data that jumped out at me.

[00:08:52] John Byrne: Now remind me what percentage was that?

[00:08:56] Heidi Hillis: People who are international

[00:08:58] John Byrne: who have had international work experience.

[00:09:01] Heidi Hillis: I think it was 30%.

[00:09:02] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty

[00:09:04] John Byrne: impressive.

[00:09:04] Caroline Diarte Edwards: 30%, which I was thrilled to see. As well as coming from in Seattle and Europe. Obviously the international schools put a heavy emphasis on international experience and I hadn’t fully appreciated that. A school like Stanford would also.

really value that to the same extent. And it’s great to see that candidates are making the effort to get outside of the U. S. and get international experience because I think you gain so much from that exposure. And you bring more to the classroom if you’ve got that experience. I know that both Maria and Heidi.

I’ve worked outside of the home countries as well. Pre MBA and I think that you just have so much more to contribute to the whole experience. And it was great to see that 30%.

[00:09:50] John Byrne: What else struck you, Caroline?

[00:09:53] Caroline Diarte Edwards: We talked about the concentration of academic institutions, and I was also surprised about the concentration in employers.

So while there is a very long list of employers where the students have worked pre MBA when you dig into the career paths that they’ve taken there is some interesting concentration. Heidi had noted that the reports that There are 26 companies that account for nearly one third of the class in terms of where they were working right before Stanford.

But when you look at their whole career history, those same 26 companies represent over 60 percent of the class. So that is, yeah, that’s quite extraordinary that so many of the class have experience of working at quite a short list of companies.

[00:10:46] Heidi Hillis: I think that’s reflective of, if you really think about it, you have a lot of these companies.

You’re talking about the Goldmans and the Morgan Stanley and McKinsey that have really large programs that recruit out of undergrad that are really training grounds for. A lot of people that then on to do, work in industry or go on to work for in finance in particular, a lot of people starting out at some of these bulge bracket banks and then going into.

Private equity or smaller firms. So the diversity within finance in terms of where they were working prior to MBA is quite large compared to consulting because there just aren’t as many consulting firms, but a lot of people in financing, a lot of different firms, but they, a lot of them really do start out in these training programs, these analyst programs that are so big and popular.

[00:11:34] John Byrne: Yeah, true. And looking back, I did this exercise as well. The feeder companies to Stanford 10 years ago in the class of 2023, 22. 8 percent from McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and your data, 22. 5 percent work there. Incredible consistency over a 10 year period. When you look at the top six employers 10 years ago, they were McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JP.

Morgan Chase. They accounted alone for 34 percent of all the students in the class of 20, 2013 at Stanford. In your data for 23 and 24 they account for 29. 8%, just a few percentage points less. So remarkable consistency. And I think you’re right, Heidi, this is a function of the fact that these firms bring in a lot of people who are analysts and actually expect them after 3 to 5 years to go to a top MBA school.

So there’s a good number of them in the applicant pool to choose from and let’s face it, they’re terrific candidates.

[00:12:46] Heidi Hillis: Yeah. I think another pool of really terrific candidates that you see, and I don’t know what the 2013 data was saying, but is the US military, which is really, I think, again, something that I felt having worked with lots of military candidates myself, understand that, Yeah, intuitively, I would have expected, but to see it in the data is actually really interesting.

You just see Stanford in particular, I think, is really looking for leadership potential, and it’s so hard to show that as an analyst, as a consultant, but as in the military, these people have such incredible leadership experience that it really helps them to stand out.

[00:13:23] John Byrne: Yeah. And let’s tell people what the data shows.

How many out of us military academies,

[00:13:28] Heidi Hillis: In all in total, we had, 20 over the two years. So that’s in the two classes that we found. So that’s, a pretty large number. And they come from all the different academies, right? So you’ll find them from different, not academies, in the army, navy and the marines.

So you’ll see that. And you also see quite a few, in the data we’ll, we see a lot from the Israeli military as well, but that’s actually a little bit difficult to because every Israeli does go into the military. So it’s they have that in their background. Any Israeli candidate would have Israeli military background as well, but again, that’s.

Place that people can really highlight their leadership. So you had eight people from who had been, who were Israeli and obviously had military experience where they were able to demonstrate significant impact and leadership prior to MBA.

[00:14:18] John Byrne: Yeah. In fact, 10 years ago, roughly 2%. of the class went to either West Point or the U.

S. Naval Academy. Good number of people actually from the military. Maria, any other observations?

[00:14:34] Maria Wich-Vila: Yeah, I was also surprised at the fact that within those top employers And when we look at the tech companies, it was Google and Facebook and Meta with a pretty large showing. Google was actually the fourth largest employer after the MBBs and, but then, I was expecting there to be an equal distribution amongst those famous large cap technology companies.

So I, I would have expected even representation amongst Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, et cetera. And yet. Apple and Amazon only had one or two people each versus Google at 25. So I thought that was really fascinating and it makes me wonder if perhaps it’s a function of maybe Google and Meta might give their younger talent more opportunities to lead impactful projects, perhaps.

I’m just guessing here, but maybe Apple and Amazon perhaps are more hierarchical. And maybe don’t give their younger talent so many opportunities, but I was really surprised by that. I would have expected a much more even distribution amongst the those famous those famous tech companies.

[00:15:40] John Byrne: Yeah. You’re right. And I crunched the numbers on the percentages and Google took three and a half percent of the two classes and that’s better than Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase. Facebook had 2. 7 percent and Microsoft at 1. 5, and I was shocked at Amazon because, Amazon is widely known as the largest single recruiter of MBAs in the past five years.

At one point, they were recruiting a thousand MBAs a year, but in, in one sense, maybe Amazon quite doesn’t really have the prestige. For Stanford MBAs who might rather work elsewhere, I think that might be is, you look at the employment reports at a lot of the other schools and Amazon is number one at a number of schools and very low percentage of people from Amazon going to Stanford.

We don’t know, of course, how many. Leaving Stanford and going back to Amazon, but it can’t be that many.

[00:16:41] Heidi Hillis: I wonder if there’s something about just a proximity effect here. You have the plate, like the meta and Google just being so close to Stanford, maybe it just, attracts more people applying because they.

They’re almost on campus and maybe, just being Amazon all over the world and different places could be not attracting as many. I don’t know.

[00:17:03] John Byrne: Yeah, true. The other thing, the analysis shows, and this is what you also gather from the more public class profile is really the remarkable diversity of talent that a school like Stanford can attract year after year.

It is, it blows you away, really. The quality and the diversity of people despite the concentration of undergraduate degree holders or company employers, it’s it’s really mind boggling, isn’t it?

[00:17:33] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, they come from everywhere and really interesting paths and even the people I think that, have those kind of typical paths, you see a lot of diversity within them as well.

So I think, even if you’re coming from a Goldman or a McKinsey having lived in another country or gone to done a fellowship abroad or running a non profit on the side. These things are actually what helped them to stand out. But you do see some really interesting, I think, profiles, too, of people who’ve just done, you get a sense of what it would be like to be in the Stanford classroom.

People from really unique and different backgrounds. People who come from all different countries and lawyers, doctors people who have run, nonprofits in developing countries people running large programs for places like Heineken or Amazon too. But, it’s a real diversity of backgrounds.

[00:18:27] John Byrne: Now, Heidi, I wonder if one is an applicant. Is this discouraging to read and here’s why if I’m not from Harvard, Stanford, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, and if I didn’t work for McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman, Google am I at a disadvantage and should I even try? Some people look at the data and come away with that conclusion.

[00:18:52] Heidi Hillis: I think it’s a reality check for a lot of people. I think it’s just, it’s really, it just helps people understand, what it, the difficulty of this, why it’s so competitive, but I think that there is, again, behind the kind of the percentages, you do look at these individual profiles and I would get, I would actually take a lot of hope from it if I were looking, as an applicant, because especially if you are.

Maybe a little bit more of a big fish or small fish in a bigger pond or big fish in a smaller pond you go to Rice or you go to Purdue or, and you do really well, those are the people who, they’re definitely looking for that diversity of background as well as the international.

I think that’s really neat. think that, instead of looking at the data and saying, why not, why I shouldn’t even apply, it’s why not me look at these other profiles of people who have taken really unique paths that that do get in. So I think it is actually a Kind of a mix of both, it is a reality check for a lot of people, but it’s actually, there is so much diversity in the data as well.

I think also one thing that we haven’t really covered is about is just the prevalence of social impact in, that’s really taken hold of the class. I don’t, again, going back to your 2013 analysis, I’m not sure how easy it was to tell that, but a lot of you can see reflected in the both the types of organizations people are working for, but also their titles and the kinds of work that they’re doing that that there’s a huge 40 percent of the class of the two classes had some kind of social impact in their background.

Whether that’s, running their own nonprofit on the side or volunteering or. Running trans transformational kind of programs within companies that are, either in finance or consulting or in industry. That’s a big trend. I think that people can take heart from as well.

So if you’re working if you feel like you’re in an organization where you’re not getting the leadership that you. can use to highlight your potential for Stanford, that’s definitely a place you can go is working for in volunteer capacity for a non profit or on the board of a of some kind of foundation.

Those are the kinds of places that you can highlight your potential

[00:21:00] John Byrne: true. And I know we have a overrepresented part of every applicant pool at an elite business school are software engineers from India. And I wonder in your analysis, how many of them did you find from like the IITs?

[00:21:18] Heidi Hillis: That’s a good question. The IITs, it was again, it was one of these you have about 50 percent of classes internet, so 25 percent of the class. was educated outside of the US. The IITs are going to be up there. Let’s see from India, 2. 1 percent of the class came from India. So probably, I don’t know offhand exactly how many of those were IITs, but

[00:21:43] John Byrne: I’ve had a lot of them.

[00:21:45] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, probably a lot of them. Although I think, that’s the other thing is that people who come, to work with me from India, they feel like if they haven’t gone to IIT, then that’s going to be a disadvantage. But I think, you’ll find that there are, there’s representation of other universities as well.

Definitely.

[00:22:00] Caroline Diarte Edwards: Yeah, I was just looking at the list of undergrad institutions. And for example, you’ve got Osmania University from Hyderabad. So it is not, it’s not all IIT. Okay.

[00:22:12] John Byrne: Yeah, exactly. And Caroline, 1 of the things about the institutions that are really represented here and that I don’t really see unless I missed it.

I didn’t see a Cambridge or an Oxford. Two of the best five universities in the world. And I wonder if that’s just a function of fewer people in the applicant pool or what? What do you think that could be about?

[00:22:36] Caroline Diarte Edwards: I had a look through the uk Institutions and you have got cambridge in there.

I think I also noticed. Bristol university there are a few different universities. So i’m aston university, which is not it’s not on a par with Oxford or Cambridge. So I think that speaks to the point that Heidi made that you don’t have to have been to an elite school to get into Stanford.

Aston is a good solid university, nothing wrong with Aston, but it’s not it’s not one of the top UK universities. So there’s definitely some interesting variety in the educational backgrounds of the students going to Stanford. And

[00:23:16] John Byrne: then, yeah, it is if you’re a big fish in a small pond, like Afton, you’ll you could still stand out in the pool.

[00:23:26] Heidi Hillis: Absolutely. There’s a lot of really interesting background, you have look hard on blue and you have Miami University and some really smaller universities abroad. I think. Again, it’s really, if you look at that, it does give you hope because it’s really what you do afterwards and if you, obviously, if you come from one of these schools, you probably want to be in the top, 5 percent of the graduating class, you want to show that you have the GPA that can support an academic background that they feel comfortable that you’ll be able to compete academically, but, and maybe that’s what you’re Offset by the, the GMA or the scores, you don’t know, we don’t have those on here.

But, um, the path post university really becomes much more important in those cases. What you’ve done since then where you’ve, how you’ve risen from starting at a entry level position to, running a division or heading a country group or something like that.

[00:24:21] John Byrne: And as far as Cordon Bleu goes, every good business program needs a Cordon Bleu, for God’s sake, right?

You want to eat well at those NBA parties, don’t you?

[00:24:32] Heidi Hillis: Absolutely.

[00:24:35] John Byrne: Maria, I’m sure that was true at Harvard.

[00:24:38] Maria Wich-Vila: I wasn’t the one doing the cooking but I certainly, I was certainly a member of the wine and cuisine society where I happily participated in the eating and consuming a part of that.

But to, to the point that we were just recently talking about. regarding being a big fish in a small pond. Not only have I seen it personally with applicants that I’ve worked with who did not attend these elite universities, but even many years ago, I attended a, an admissions conference where Kirsten Moss, who was the former head of admissions at Stanford, she actually told stories about how they’ve accepted people who even attended community college.

But within the context of that community college, they had really moved mountains. And she said that one of the things that they look for is, Within the context and the opportunities that you’ve been given, how much impact have you had? So maybe you don’t have an opportunity to go to Yale or MIT or IIT for your undergraduate, but whatever opportunity you have been given, have you grabbed that opportunity and really made the most of it and really driven change?

So she specifically called out, I believe, I believe there were two students that year at the GSB who had both started their educations, their higher educations at community college. Anything is possible. It really is about finding the people who, wherever they go, they jump in and make an impact.

[00:25:55] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, I think that to that point, I think it can almost be a more difficult if you’ve gone to Harvard and then worked at one of these, gone on one of these paths because we know that there’s, that’s an overrepresented pool in the applicant pool to stand out among those to have had that, that pedigree sometimes can be a disadvantage, right?

If you haven’t done as much as you should have with that, or if you started at that high level to show that level of progress over the course of your career is actually a little bit more difficult. Okay. And coming from a community college and rising to, a country level manager in some places is actually puts you at a significant advantage, I would say.

[00:26:31] Maria Wich-Vila: Because it’s hard for those people, it’s hard for those people to stand out, but also I think some of them go on autopilot, right? I think some people are on this kind of achievement, elite achievement treadmill, where they’re not even really thinking about what do I want to do with my life?

They’re always reaching for whatever that next, what’s the best college to go to? It’s Harvard Princeton. Yeah. Okay. Now that I’m here, what’s the best employer to work for? It’s McKinsey, Bain, BCG and without actually perhaps stopping to think about what is my passion? What impact do I want to make in the world?

And so I feel sometimes those autopilot candidates, I feel a little bit bad for them because they’re doing everything quote unquote and yet sometimes when you speak with them, that passion just isn’t there. And I do think that may ultimately harm them in the very, very elite business school.

Admissions because business schools want people who are passionate because at the end of the day, in order to do hard things, you’re going to need passion at some point to get you through those low periods. And so I think that’s something business schools look for. And I do think that sometimes these.

These kind of autopilot candidates might sometimes be at a disadvantage.

[00:27:29] Heidi Hillis: Yeah, I think that, to that point look in the data, when you look at it, you see so many people who’ve gone to McKinsey, Bain, Weasley, or Goldman, but then there’s a, you see a lot of success for people who’ve actually pivoted.

So those pivots that are post The second or third job really do show you that, if you’re if you get a candidate who’s coming from, still at McKinsey, okay, that’s fine. They have to be the top 5 percent of McKinsey, like they have to be going to get so many McKinsey applicants that the only the, you can look at the data in a couple ways.

One is, oh, my God, they took 12 people from McKinsey and the others. Oh, my God, they only took 12 people from McKinsey, right? That’s So if you want to be one of those 12, you have to be the top 12 in the world, right? Whereas if you’ve gone to McKinsey and then done an externship at a health care startup and then moved on to be a product manager at for health at Google, that kind of a path is definitely showing a little bit more, maybe risk taking, maybe ability to follow your passions.

So I think that. When I see candidates who come to me, for example, and they’re like, not thinking about applying now, but maybe in a year or two, I say, look for an externship, maybe think about pivoting out of one of these places and looking for some operational experience.

And because you see in the data that works.

[00:28:42] Maria Wich-Vila: And they’re doing themselves a service not only in terms of enhancing their admissions chances, but even just in terms of determining, what do I want to do with my career? If I do eventually want to go into industry, what functional role do I want to have?

What industry do I want to work in? So it’s, it actually benefits them in the long term to do that as well, even if they don’t go to business school. I think those secondments and externships and second job, post consulting jobs are extremely valuable. Totally agree with you.

[00:29:06] Caroline Diarte Edwards: And I’m sure they also bring more to the classroom as well.

I would think that’s also why Stanford is selecting some of those candidates, because not only have they worked at McKinsey, but they’ve also led a non profit in Africa or worked in private equity or whatever it is. So they have much more breadth that they can bring to the classroom. And I think that It’s seen as a very valuable contribution

[00:29:29] John Byrne: in Heidi.

Did you see that? The majority of the candidates to examined actually did work in more than one place, right?

[00:29:37] Heidi Hillis: Yes, most of them did. There were very few that, you see working at one place. And I would say that those are people that would have really risen through the ranks.

Someone who’s worked at Walmart and become, started in, I don’t know, in one state, but then to become a regional manager and things like that really are going to onto a global role. The people who have stayed at one place really have shown significant career progression within that.

And then the other people I think you do see a lot of movement. The big. The most typical would be from investment banking to private equity and then you do find in finance, there’s a little bit less kind of movement into other industries. You see a lot of people staying within finance, but within finance.

Yeah. Yeah. The other industries, especially consulting or other, tech, people are really moving into other places and it’s becoming, it is a little bit difficult. We have these categories that we’ve talked about, for example, healthcare, but it’s hard to categorize some of these companies.

Are they healthcare? Are they tech? There’s a lot of overlap. And so everything’s a little bit of tech in something nowadays. So whether it’s finance and fintech or education and ed tech or health care and health tech, these are all merging and combining. It’s hard to categorize them.

[00:30:53] John Byrne: So looking at the data here I wonder if you’ve seen your old classmates in the sense that these new people are very much like the people you went to school with at Stanford. I

[00:31:05] Heidi Hillis: put this out and it’s really interesting to a lot of my classmates downloaded the report and read it. And a lot of them came back and said, oh, boy, I would never get in now.

It’s these people are super impressive. I think that you see a lot of. It’s just become more and more competitive. And I think that with more information and more people every year applying, it is becoming really difficult. I think that you do see a lot of, I am encouraged by the diversity part of it that you see still Stanford.

I feel like they do take risks on some really interesting profiles and candidates that maybe some other schools are less likely to do. And so that’s what does give me. A lot of hope when I get some kind of really nontraditional candidate who wants to, their dream school is Stanford. I feel like, I say all the time, there’s a 6 percent chance.

You’re going to get in, but there’s 100 percent chance. You won’t get in if you don’t apply. So you’ve got to, you got to give it a go. And that’s, the attitude that we take to it.

[00:32:04] John Byrne: Indeed. So for all of you out there read Heidi’s article on our site, it’s called who gets in and why exclusive research.

Into Stanford GSB and I’ll tell you one conclusion I have about this is that, man, if you really want to get into Stanford, you need a Sherpa, and and Heidi would be a great Sherpa for you because the, just the profiles of these folks, where they’ve been, what they’ve done, what they’ve accomplished in their early lives is so remarkable that To compete against, in this pool for a spot in the class you need every possible advantage you can get.

And and having an expert guide you through this trip probably would be a really big advantage. So Heidi, thank you for sharing your insights with us and the research, the very cool research.

[00:33:01] Heidi Hillis: Thank you

[00:33:03] John Byrne: and for all of you out there. Good luck. And if you want to go to Stanford, you got to check out this report.

Okay. It will inspire you to up your game, even if you are from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, or wherever McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman, Google, you want to look at this report and you want to really think about. What it will really take to get in. I think it will inspire you, motivate you to really put your best foot forward.

Thanks for listening. This is John Byrne with Poets& Quants.

Maria

New around here? I’m an HBS graduate and a proud member (and former Board Member) of AIGAC. I considered opening a high-end boutique admissions consulting firm, but I wanted to make high-quality admissions advice accessible to all, so I “scaled myself” by creating ApplicantLab. ApplicantLab provides the SAME advice as high-end consultants at a much more affordable price. Read our rave reviews on GMATClub, and check out our free trial (no credit card required) today!