Dear all, This thread aims to solve interesting and slightly different problems than our other Expert threads (Accepted/MBAMission) on essay/application writing. Our friend Corey Pierson, who runs a service called Appmentor.com , will …
Dear all,
This thread aims to solve interesting and slightly different problems than our other Expert threads (Accepted/MBAMission) on essay/application writing.
Our friend Corey Pierson, who runs a service called Appmentor.com , will take your questions on specific schools here and get them solved by students who are currently studying in those schools. You can ask questions such as - How is work/life balance possible in New York City at Columbia Business School? What facilities do spouses of married students have at Darden? What courses can I take for entrepreneurship at Wharton?
For the ease of Corey and everybody else who's scanning this thread, please use the following format for posting your questions.
School Name
Question
For example:
Tuck School of Business
Who are the best strategy professors at Tuck?
Haas-Berkeley
What are the average living expenses for the two years at Haas for an international student?
...you get the drift. Corey will take your questions, contact his network of b-school students studying at Haas/Tuck and post the answers here. So here's kicking the thread open for questions. All the best to you and to Corey!
PS: Please use this thread only to ask school specific questions. Those trying to stray away from the original purpose of the thread will be deemed annoying and be sent away with a warning.
Thank you So Much for this great opportunity.
WHARTON AND LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL
I want you to please throw some light on the positive and negative aspect of entreprenuers and how can they exploit their entreprenuership experience for getting in a good business school. How do Wharton and LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL deal with entreprenuers ? does an entreprenuer has to have to Million dollar business to be considered?
Thanks !
Thanks Apurv,
I look forward to answering questions here on the PaGaLGuY forums.
A little background on myself - I'm heading into my 2nd year in Wharton's MBA program, and I majored in Computer Science Engineering as an undergrad before going on to work for a couple of software startups. At Wharton, I've been involved with a variety of clubs including the Entrepreneurship Club, the Technology Club, the Venture Initiation Program, and more.
I'll do my best to respond to all questions in a timely manner by reaching out for answers from students at top programs in our network on AppMentor. Of course, the thoughts and opinions I share are from the students themselves at these schools and are not official statements from universities or admissions offices. We hope that connecting with current students will help provide insight on schools to help in your research and application writing process.
If there's a slight delay in response, it will simply be due to turnaround time of our friends at different programs to get back to me with helpful information.
I look forward to your questions!
Hi Aliz,
I can speak to my experience at Wharton, and I'll reach out to find an answer from the LBS perspective.
In general, I believe that MBA aspirants hoping to pursue careers in entrepreneurship have to pay special attention towards having a very focused, compelling reason as to how the MBA is the best next step to help with their entrepreneurial careers. There are many successful entrepreneurs who have MBAs, but also many who don't - so it's imperative to explain how the degree is the best move for you, personally, to reach your goals.
At Wharton, I have some friends who were involved with entrepreneurship before coming to school and others who are switching out of careers in other industries. Their applications were obviously quite different.
For example, I have a close friend who had a very successful career as a banker, but who decided the banking lifestyle was not for him. He did not have a thought-out million-dollar business plan or business idea as part of his application, but rather he described how the MBA at Wharton would help him make this transition. I have another friend, on the other hand, who previously started a business, found some success, but ultimately lost the business due to a variety of reasons. For him, the MBA was an opportunity to strengthen his areas of weakness. He had an idea of the direction he wanted to take a new venture, but felt the MBA would provide him with the tools and network to get there.
At Wharton, I believe there are pros and cons to being an entrepreneurial-minded student. On the positive side, the entrepreneurship classes are very popular and well received and there are various opportunities to get involved depending on your desired level of involvement. The Business Plan Competition is a great way to truly research and think through your business idea, and the Venture Initiation Program is a wonderful incubator if you're ready to start your business while at school. On the negative side, some aspects such as recruiting are a bit more difficult for entrepreneurs. The summer internship is a great opportunity in a 2-year MBA program, but finding relevant opportunities and securing a position requires more effort for entrepreneurs. To this end, Wharton has launched some programs to help link students up with startup companies for summer internships. That said, recruiting still takes more initiative by the student - there are no formal on-campus interviews as you would find with consulting and banking.
I'll revert back to you on any specific info about entrepreneurs at LBS when I hear back from our LBS friends. Please let me know if you have further questions about entrepreneurship at Wharton.
Hey Apurv and Corey -
Thanks for starting this thread and taking the time to respond.
London Business School
Corey, can you elaborate a little on what the first year study groups at LBS are about? The website seems to mention this a few times, but doesn't give too many details. How are the groups set up and organized? What sort of things do the first year groups work on? What did you like (or not like) about the first year groups?
Thanks.
Hi Puys,
Thanks for this initiative. Great to hear responses from the respective school students.
Babson Olin
What makes its entrepreneurial program standout in comparison to the higher ranked schools? How well are its graduates able to move into VC/PE careers based on the quality of the program? Who are the standout professors?
Berkeley-Haas
Outside of school, what are the experiences that make a Haas MBA so valuable and enjoyable for the students?
I hope to get back to the LBS questions and the Haas question within the next day.
Meanwhile, regarding Babson... We don't actually have a Babson mentor in our network at AppMentor, but I was able to connect with one of our mentors who has a good friend at Babson. He relayed the following information to me, I hope you find it helpful:
Babson is unique in a few ways. First, obviously, it's famous for its focus in entrepreneurship - there are more opportunities both in and out of the classroom to get involved with entrepreneurship. In the classroom, I'm not sure if there is any program out there with more choices - classes taught by professors who usually have loads of experience in their subjects. Whether or you're interested in running a family business, acquiring a small business, social entrepreneurship, etc. - there's a class to help you learn from cases and think through various challenges related to your specific area of interest. There are various opportunities to get involved consulting for startups and working with start-ups. Career services also does a great job in helping place you at summer internships at startups in their network.
Another appealing aspect of the school is the flexibility to reach entrepreneurs at different stages in their lives. Between the one-year program, the two-year program, and the exec program, they make a lot of efforts towards having a flexible curriculum to match your needs.
The Babson alumni network is quite strong and helpful - in large part due to the fact that Babson has a fairly small class size compared with other programs. While it's large enough to have enough alumni to have created a nice outreach - it's small enough that people truly are accessible and give back to the community. This is true outside of pure entrepreneurship opportunities as well. Being well connected in the entrepreneurship world, there are obviously many connections to VC shops and Angel Investors. There are plenty of students who recruit for these jobs - not sure how it compares with other schools in the area such as HBS, but it's definitely done at Babson as well! The small class size also makes it possible for career services to really spend a good bit of time with each and every student - a big help for internship and full-time recruiting.
Babson also has a nice reputation outside of the startup setting - everyone embraces the innovative entrepreneurship spirit, but that has helped the school develop a good reputation in fields such as Product Management in the northeast - if you browse the list of places where students are placed, you'll probably be surprised! Some people make the mistake of thinking that Babson is only for entrepreneurs, but it definitely has more to offer.
Leanord Green and Elizabeth Rile are a couple names that were dropped my way when I asked about strong professors. Though I'm not sure of their availability on a semester-by-semester basis.
It's hard to speak about how Babson is better or worse than programs such as Stanford, HBS, etc in absolute terms - each school has its pros and cons so it's a really a matter of personal choice. But he absolutely loves what Babson has to offer.
Hi Corey,
School/s: Wharton, CBS, Chicago
Question:
Who are the best strategy professors at these schools? And which courses are an absolute must take if someone is looking at getting into consulting post MBA?
Hi Aliz,
If I understand you correctly, you want to understand how the admission team will see your entrepreneurial experience, how they will evaluate it with comparison to other achievements you and those you compete with have and how do they define who to consider to be an entrepreneur. Well.. if so.. that's a tough one buddy 
. But let me try to answer that, and please fill free to tackle me here with more questions.
London Business School, as far as I understand, puts more weight on the person you are, rather than the final results. Of course they are important, but if you were such a successful businessman, you won't be pursuing an MBA, right? So what they want to see is how you define your goals, whatever they are, and how do you act to reach them. Do you give up? Do you properly use your network? Do you acknowledge the importance of a network? What goes in your mind when you set these goals? Do you look for pure financial profit or trying to make a social impact? How are your soft skills? If you failed - are you able to assess what went wrong and address that aspect?
A person is so much more than the bottom number with how much money he did in his start-up. I had an unsuccessful start-up myself when I was younger 
, and I elaborated on that in my essays.
Be proud of your experience, both the good ones and the bad ones. As long as you used them to learn and leverage your skills-set. 
Good luck mate (or is it 'gal)! 
Thank you So Much for this great opportunity.
WHARTON AND LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL
I want you to please throw some light on the positive and negative aspect of entreprenuers and how can they exploit their entreprenuership experience for getting in a good business school. How do Wharton and LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL deal with entreprenuers ? does an entreprenuer has to have to Million dollar business to be considered?
Thanks !
Hi mate,
First of all good luck with your MBA journey! Hold tight, it's a rough ride. 
As for study-groups... On our first day of orientation week we got our stream specification (the classes we're in - about 80 people in a class), and the name of the study group we belong to. There are about 6-7 people in a study group. Your study group is your new family at LBS. You are going to spend the whole 1st year together, and many time will be assessed as a team (team projects, team assignments etc.). You cannot 'diverse' from your study group. The way a stream is divided to study groups depends solely on the MBA program management. The rule-of-thumb is that a group should be as diverse as possible (diversity is pretty much the way of life here). So there's usually people from different ages, sexes, experiences, origins, languages etc. Most of the groups form and sign a contract made of guidelines - like being on time, who leads every assignment, how is an assignment be divided, what happens when there's a disagreement etc.
But a study group is usually more than the studies. It's a bunch of people who eat together, go out, help each other with the personal assignments, remind each other to bring a binder for tomorrows workshop etc.
Did I answer your question?
Alex
Hey Apurv and Corey -
Thanks for starting this thread and taking the time to respond.
London Business School
Corey, can you elaborate a little on what the first year study groups at LBS are about? The website seems to mention this a few times, but doesn't give too many details. How are the groups set up and organized? What sort of things do the first year groups work on? What did you like (or not like) about the first year groups?
Thanks.
First,
Thanks to Alex, one of our LBS mentors, for answering the LBS questions.
Moving right along...
Hi Corey,
School/s: Wharton, CBS, Chicago
Question:
Who are the best strategy professors at these schools? And which courses are an absolute must take if someone is looking at getting into consulting post MBA?
I can handle the Wharton angle right away, of course :).
At Wharton, a couple teachers have great reputations. One is Professor Siggelkow. He was recently on sabbatical but is now teaching his strategy course again - it is a very highly sought after class. Another I really enjoyed in my first year was Professor Rawley - he's a younger professor but I felt he did an excellent job facilitating case discussions.
To your second question - everyone at Wharton takes a couple of strategy courses as part of the Core curriculum, and I'd venture to say most consulting students also follow that up with some electives. However, not everyone takes Siggelkow's class. First, there are limited spots - Wharton has an auction system for class assignments, so you have to be willing to spend quite a bit to make it into his class. Second, some students have conflicts between his class and other important, interesting classes.
So for the job's sake, it's more important that you take strategy classes in general and get involved in some consulting activities on campus (Small business consulting as part of the SBDC, for example) than it is to take classes with a specific professor.
More to come on Haas and Booth a bit later.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the response. Interesting thoughts there. Are you currently at LBS or an alum?
I have to say its a school thats up there on my "list" - its clearly a rough ride though. Anyway, by the sounds of it, there's potential for some serious disagreements in your study group. Care to share one instance, and what the outcome was? It'll be an interesting insight into the group dynamics.
Thx.
Sorry - didn't see Corey's post before I posted. Anyway, you can disregard the first question, my bad.
Thanks again for the response!
School: Wharton
Are there any numbers on how many people run with their own companies post an entrepreneurship major from Wharton? How many in the internet industry and which regions (Capitol belt, Bay Area etc) ? Does the Wharton brand help a lot when it comes to opening VC/Angel investor doors? Are students in general happy with the entrepreneurship offerings at Wharton?
Are there any numbers on how many people run with their own companies post an entrepreneurship major from Wharton? How many in the internet industry and which regions (Capitol belt, Bay Area etc) ? Does the Wharton brand help a lot when it comes to opening VC/Angel investor doors? Are students in general happy with the entrepreneurship offerings at Wharton?
Hi Puys,
Thanks for this initiative. Great to hear responses from the respective school students.
Berkeley-Haas
Outside of school, what are the experiences that make a Haas MBA so valuable and enjoyable for the students?
As for what's cool about Haas outside the classroom, I think the MBA program (contrary to the undergrad program) is very collaborative and collegial (particularly since it's a small class size). Being a part of the Berkeley system is a plus as well in terms of other academic offerings. Berkeley is a really cool college downpretty lively social scene and 25 minutes to SF. And the weather can't be beat. 70s spring through summer.
All in all this leads to an exciting environment - entrepreneurial in spirit, collaborative, social yet hard-working, and in an awesome town with a great setting!
School: Wharton
Are there any numbers on how many people run with their own companies post an entrepreneurship major from Wharton? How many in the internet industry and which regions (Capitol belt, Bay Area etc) ? Does the Wharton brand help a lot when it comes to opening VC/Angel investor doors? Are students in general happy with the entrepreneurship offerings at Wharton?
Hey,
I'm not sure on exact numbers, but quite a few students from Wharton launch their own ventures. This is partially due to the fact that the class size is rather large (roughly 800 per class) and also partially due to the fact that entrepreneurship is fairly popular at the school. Especially given the state of the economy - entrepreneurship tends to spike when the job market is more difficult to navigate.
I think most startups, even tech startups, stay in the Philly and NY region - and the 2nd most popular place to go is out west to CA.
You can get a good feel for some of the types of companies that Wharton students are launching over at the Venture Initiation Program (VIP) website.
Being in the entrepreneurship circle at Wharton definitely opens doors to Angels and VCs. I don't mean to imply that one needs these connections to be a successful entrepreneur, of course - but the connections can only help. VIP has quite a few networking events where many local angels and VCs come to hear student pitches. Furthermore, Wharton's Entrepreneurship program recently started an effort to help students get internships at startups - they did so by contacting VCs with Wharton connections and asking the VCs if they could use a summer intern. Working for these companies opens doors to network not only with the startup firms, but also with the VCs that support them.
I tend to think that VCs don't necessarily think that a Wharton MBA (or any MBA for that manner) automatically means an idea is worth investing in. VCs likely value previous entrepreneurship success above all else. But the brand and the Wharton connections can certainly help make initial introductions.
School: Wharton
Are there any numbers on how many people run with their own companies post an entrepreneurship major from Wharton? How many in the internet industry and which regions (Capitol belt, Bay Area etc) ? Does the Wharton brand help a lot when it comes to opening VC/Angel investor doors? Are students in general happy with the entrepreneurship offerings at Wharton?
I'm sorry, I overlooked an important aspect of your question - are students happy with the offerings at Wharton?
Personally, I have been happy with the entrepreneurship offerings. I really enjoyed the core curriculum in my first year - as someone with software engineering experience before coming to school, the core forced me to look at all aspects of business and shed light on subjects such as accounting, operations, and finance. Wharton Entrepreneurship Program (WEP) was super-helpful in finding me an interesting summer internship where I got to learn from a great group of people in a startup in Manhattan... and I plan on taking more advantage of programs such as VIP this year. I also really enjoy the speakers that WEP brings in on a fairly regular basis.
I have another friend who has been pleased - but at times frustrated, too. He's in the process of starting his own venture but was unable to secure a spot in VIP. I think for him, he wishes there was a bit more support even if the idea is in its very early stages.
Of course, it varies on a student by student basis. But from my vintage point, it looks like the majority of students involved with entrepreneurship are pleased with the general package of offers - and even those who sometimes are frustrated are still happy with their decision to be here.
Hope that helps!
Hey,
I also head from trump, another one of our LBS mentors. His comments on the LBS questions are as follows:
Regarding entrepreneurship:
About 20% of the class has some prior entrepreneurial experience before joining the school. Entrepreneurship at LBS has been gaining real importance in the last 5-10 years with the 2 clubs - Entrepreneurship Club and Alumni Entrepreneurship Community has been increasing base. This year is a special one for entrepreneurship in general because the economic conditions have given an unprecedented number of people the impetus to start their own business. Both the clubs, encourage ideas and support new start ups.
Also, the school along with the club organises speaker series where a no. of entrepreneurs are invited to discuss the key factors behind their success and failures and it also provides a platform for you to network with people in the same ecosystem to help you decide whether this is a career for you or not.
Likes - small class size as compared to other top schools, very diverse and global class - people are from 58 countries speaking 45 different languages and from a variety of background, very collaborative culture. Dislikes - the campus is not all that big, but till now it hasn't effected any of us as far as the facilities are concerned; London weather!!!
Regarding small groups:
Study groups are basically 5-7 people who are regularly given assignments or group projects. At LBS, study groups are carefully chosen making sure that not more than one country is represented per group and each member has a different background. As a student, you do not have a say. My study group covered the entire continent and had a CPA, a lawyer, a banker, an engineer and an economist. So it was definitely very diverse. In the first year, you end up spending a lot of your time with your study group. Your grade for each course depends upon your final examination, class participation, individual assignments and group projects. So it is very important to work well with the group. Study groups need to work together on cases, assignments etc
Corey and team at App Mentor, thanks for your help in answering queries. The insights have been very useful in deciding on schools and getting a feel of the actual scenario vis a vis the perceptions.
I have a few more questions... so here goes!
School: Wharton
Who, according to you, are the 3 best professors in strategy, marketing and finance courses in your core? Which elective courses are you looking forward to in your second year?
(This might be a difficult and subjective qn to answer, so pls feel free to pass) Amongst your interactions with Indians in the Wharton program, what are the qualities that have impressed you the most?