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• 10 years - 57 posts - Latest - RSS
• Thread: 64 Goods vs 11 No Goods

1. Economist
   5a0a
   

   Say what you will, the world looks at you differently as an MBA. CEOs and senior management at global multinationals tend to be MBAs and tend to hire and promote other MBAs. What is it about this degree? The academics are pretty basic, undergrad stuff. Doing case writeups probably has some value in terms of writing, time management and presentation skills- but it is far from clear that doing case studies makes you a great manager- especially when technical skills (accounting, finance, computer programming) are not really taught or basically glossed over.

   The only thing I can think of is signalling and supply/demand. There are many people who want to work as brand managers at P&G or do banking at JP Morgan. The MBA is a filtering mechnanism to lower the supply of potential candidates for coveted corporate training programs. Even within the MBA world, there is a lot of rankings hierarchy- H/S/W, M7, top 16, etc. Even top MBA students tend to be surprisingly immature, intellectually shallow and harbor a weird superiority complex.

   10 years ago # QUOTE 20 Volod 3 Vlad !

2. Economist
   b203
   

   The other day there was some business insider article on how "delusional" people are more successful because they "don't understand limits" or something...I think what's going on is this: an MBA is the most technical degree that most people can obtain without "growing up" from all the hard work, and since businesses want people who haven't "grown up" but who are as intelligent is possible given said immaturity constraint, they want MBAs.

   Also, MBA is a signal that you can tolerate the boring shit in business like financial accounting, business law, etc, which is actually a considerable achievement.

   10 years ago # QUOTE 19 Volod 5 Vlad !

3. Economist
   b203
   

   What I guess I'm saying is: Steve Jobs was very emotionally out of control (cried a lot and yelled) and i guess a lot of other business leaders are like that too. Generally more advanced degrees kick that out of you and encourage you to "resign yourself" to some amount of suffering (econ first year). but mba doesnt.

   10 years ago # QUOTE 7 Volod 0 Vlad !

4. Economist
   a073
   

   My take on it: signaling mechanism and a bad equilibrium outcome.

   Signaling mechanism: As the OP mentioned, the MBA has reduced itself to more or less to a filtering device for employers and prospective employees. Why should a firm invest heavily into its HR department to scout out "top talent" when there are hordes of students who are willing to pay money themselves to self select themselves to business schools? And I should be careful about the phrase "top talent". Of course your glossy HR recruitment brochure from each company will tell you that they only look for the best and smartest people. Bullshit. For most of the jobs in corporate America, you don't need to be top. Heck, you don't even need to be that good. Most firms would more than happy take "good enough". And where's a great supply of "good enough" employees? You guessed it!

   Bad equilibrium outcome: Shit rolls downhill. What more can I say? Once this MBA wheel got rolling in corporate America, there's no stopping it. Students are more than willing to pay a crazy amount of money for that worthless piece of toilet paper. Business schools and universities are more than happy to take the money in return for teaching the MBA students essentially concepts that could be understood by a nonretarded high school student. And hiring firms, as in the above, free ride off of a signaling device.

   10 years ago # QUOTE 24 Volod 0 Vlad !

5. Economist
   0270
   

   old boy club?

   10 years ago # QUOTE 2 Volod 1 Vlad !

6. Economist
   9da4
   

   Its an extra stamp on your forehead. At this moment eMBA is the higher quality stamp and when that generalized then everyone will need a eMBA to get anywhere. This will inevitably lead to the creation of another "training" that only the elite take and when time comes that will be standard and some other elite program will arise.

   10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 2 Vlad !

7. Economist
   aacb
   

   bad equilibrium explains it all. At some point some useless wanna-be-alpha did an MBA and, being thick, hardly made it through. Mr then got some job in an HR department and decided he would only hire MBAs because only the very best, as himself, could have possibly achieved such glorious title.

   I think something like this happened. From my experience most countries have some strange educational achievements which are over-valued with respect to their difficulty, MBAs in the US are just more visible

   10 years ago # QUOTE 8 Volod 1 Vlad !

8. Economist
   949e
   

   Its genuinelly confusing; in the UK ibank analysts usually make the step up to associate without any need for a professional degree, its bizarre that in America this isnt possible. And if it wasnt for the banking angle I doubt anyone good would do it; yeah management consultancy firms like it but ultimately consultancy is for people who werent able to get front office bank jobs

   10 years ago # QUOTE 4 Volod 1 Vlad !

9. Economist
   949e
   

   I wonder if its because the admissions practices at top US universities (athletic/legacy admits, affirmative action, campus diversity, exracurriculars, etc) mean that being from a top place at undergrad level isnt necessarily a sign of high intelligence. In the UK, admissions at the best 5 universities (Oxbridge+London) are based entirely on academic ability and nothing else is taken into account (no extracurriculars, sports, etc), therefore any student that gets in is likely to be smart, and so banks/hedge funds/etc will pretty much just restrict hiring to graduates from those places, since there isnt much need to look further. But probably the average student at every US university is far weaker than the average at any of those UK places, since admissions arent meritocratic and take other factors into account than raw academic ability. Therefore US banks need to look at more advanced qualifications than just the undergrad degree, where admissions are more selective.

   10 years ago # QUOTE 11 Volod 7 Vlad !

10. Economist
    0c6d
    

    a) MBA is also poular in the UK, although not as popular as in the US
    b) The UK admission system is not meritocratic. To get into oxbridge, it is not enough to get into the University itself but also into a college. To get into the college you have to convince some admission committee (current professors at the college + alumni) and there are no objective standards who will get into that college or not.

    10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !

11. Economist
    949e
    

    MBA isnt that popular in the UK, some people do it but it isnt necessary in the banking world (which is ultimately all that matters if youre looking at the best non-academic graduates).

    The UK system is meritocratic, Oxbridge admissions work by putting a hard threshold on what you need to get in high school exams to apply (which whittles things down to around 5% of the population) and then interviews those that meet the threshold. While interviews obviously have some subjectivity, the criteria they use are purely those that relate to academic potential, there is no interest in things like extracurriculars, charity work, etc (since the tutors realise that taking these into account gives a huge advantage to students from wealthy backgrounds who's parents were able to expose them to more diverse things)

    10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 1 Vlad !

12. Economist
    e5cf
    

    Oxbridge admissions is definitely NOT 100% meritocratic. Depends on what subject you're reading (i.e. your major). The hard sciences/engineering/maths are more meritocratic than the more fluffy subjects, e.g. PPE (philosophy/politics/economics). Also, different colleges within Oxbridge have diff't admission standards, diff't funding, diff't tutoring/advising resources (e.g. Trinity College at Cambridge is generally regarded as the most prestigious, St. John's also pretty strong....Trinity provides the best individual tutorials for their students & their undergrads generally enter with higher marks/more A-levels than peers from other collleges.....then you get some colleges like New Hall or some other all-women's colleges within Cambridge that are not so strong)....the degree will still say University of Cambridge but student learning & social experiences vary from college to college.

    10 years ago # QUOTE 5 Volod 0 Vlad !

13. Economist
    a465
    

    sorry, so the MBA sends what kind of signal? That you are not that intelligent, interested in doing something intellectually stimulating and very interested in making money?

    10 years ago # QUOTE 2 Volod 0 Vlad !

14. Economist
    d53b
    

    An MBA is as much about learning how to communicate as anything else. You learn just enough of a bunch of business topics/buzz words to be able to communicate in a "meaningful" way.
    Compare that to a PhD talking about biased estimators, pooling equilibrium, etc and an MBA is a breath of fresh air.
    PhDs are trained to be cynics. Corporate America wants forward looking optimists.

    10 years ago # QUOTE 5 Volod 3 Vlad !

15. Economist
    33be
    

    MBA/Business PhD here

    I agree MBA is mostly a signalling and screening mechanism, but not a "bad equilibrium outcome."

    If you are hiring someone to manage a consumer brand, you are not looking for a guy with an A in real analysis. You want someone who:

    -works well in teams
    -communicates well
    -understands customer needs
    -has enough quant skills to understand and use Excel spreadsheets

    An MBA is a good indicator of these qualities.

    10 years ago # QUOTE 11 Volod 2 Vlad !

16. Economist
    5a05
    

    Because people are stupid.

    10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 1 Vlad !

17. Economist
    6dce
    

    MBA or PhD?

    I have both. Suck my cock.

    10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !

18. Economist
    2fff
    

    I wonder if its because the admissions practices at top US universities (athletic/legacy admits, affirmative action, campus diversity, exracurriculars, etc) mean that being from a top place at undergrad level isnt necessarily a sign of high intelligence.

    Non-American here. Admission practices of top US universities have always puzzled me. It is so strange, so inefficient. Giving points based on athletic ability and race is just weird.

    10 years ago # QUOTE 8 Volod 2 Vlad !

19. Economist
    d53b
    

    Apparently it doesn't send that signal to the majority of decision makers...

    sorry, so the MBA sends what kind of signal? That you are not that intelligent, interested in doing something intellectually stimulating and very interested in making money?

    10 years ago # QUOTE 0 Volod 0 Vlad !

20. Economist
    b3a9
    

    The insecurity of some of the PhDs on this board is pathetic.

    10 years ago # QUOTE 2 Volod 3 Vlad !

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