Underrated MBA Programs and the Importance of School Selection

In this conversation, Harold Simansky and Gavriella Semaya discuss the topic of school selection for MBA programs. They emphasize the importance of considering both professional goals and cultural fit when choosing a school. They also highlight the value of talking to current students and recent alumni to get a better understanding of the school's environment. The conversation mentions several underrated schools, including University of Washington Foster, UCLA, Cornell, and Haas. Overall, the conversation provides insights into the factors to consider when selecting an MBA program.

Takeaways

• Consider whether a school will help you achieve your professional goals and has a strong track record in your desired field.
• Evaluate the cultural fit of a school and determine if you will thrive in its environment.
• Talk to current students and recent alumni to gain insights into the school's culture and opportunities.
• Explore underrated schools that may offer unique programs and opportunities.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to the mbaMission podcast
• 0:35 Where should I apply to business school?
• 2:00 Things to consider when choosing an MBA program
• 7:04 Underrated business schools - UW Foster
• 8:34 Underrated business schools - strengths in finance
• 8:59 Underrated business schools: UCLA Anderson
• 9:42 Underrated business schools: Cornell Johnson/Cornell Tech
• 12:19 Underrated business schools: CMU Tepper
• 13:42 Underrated business schools: UC Berkeley Haas

Transcript

Harold Simansky (00:10)
Hi, this is Harold Simansky here with the mbaMission Podcast. I'm a Senior Admissions Consultant and I'm here today with Gavriela Semaya one of my colleagues. Hi, Gavi. So Gavi, it's great for you to be here and I have, today's topic is about something that people frequently start conversations with when they speak to us. School selection, where should I apply? And as I'm sure you know, the first, the second sentence is, I want to go to Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton.

Gavriella Semaya (00:20)
Hi Harold, nice to be here.

Right.

Harold Simansky (00:40)
And at that point I say that's wonderful. I love the idea. We support you wherever you want to go is where you apply to. That said, these are very hard schools to get into. So on that note, when people ask you, where else should I apply to or how should I think about applying to different places? How do you think about this?

Gavriella Semaya (00:50)
Mm -hmm.

Well, taking a step back to begin with, when clients tell me that they want to go to those three schools, right, it's Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, or bust. I'll ask them quite honestly, do you genuinely want to go to these schools or are they on your list because of the brand name? And sometimes it's a bit of both and there's nothing wrong with wanting to pursue it for the brand name, but I want to understand where the person is coming from to begin with. And as you said, if that's where you want to apply, that's what it will do. But I also know that the - -

Harold Simansky (01:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Gavriella Semaya (01:28)
Those schools are very different and people lump them in as if they're monolithic. It's kind of the same way people always say, I want to go into PE or VC. Those are not the same things. So I ask people, well, HBS is very, very academic. It's really all about the case study. It's really all about the classroom. It's intense. And I've had clients or consults say to me, you know what? I don't know that that's what I want to sign up for for two years. And it's not the only way to get where you want to go.

And that's kind of the starting point for what are the other schools that you might want to consider. I look at it two primary ways, right? One to me is, the first question is, is it going to get you where you want to go? If you're going to spend six figures and two years of your life on this for it not to get you where you want to go in your career, well then it's probably not the right investment. And so that's kind of the first criteria. If you're really interested in technology, don't go to school that doesn't have a pipeline into technology.

that doesn't have a track record there, that doesn't have courses in that area, that doesn't have recruiting to those kinds of companies, right? It might be the most fun school. It might be UCLA happens to be good for technology. I'm more thinking of like beautiful West Coast weather, but you know what, if that's not interesting, it's not gonna get you where you wanna go, you can have another, there are other ways to live in California. The second question for me is the culture fit piece. yeah.

Harold Simansky (02:40)
Yes, right. Right, right, right, right. Gabi, I'll just sort it.

I'm just picking up on one thing that you said and somewhat parenthetical here. Obviously, being an entrepreneur myself, I talk to a lot of potential clients who they themselves want to be entrepreneurs. I will frequently say to them, let me understand this. You want to spend $250 ,000 in two years of your life at school rather than taking $250 ,000 in two years of your life and throwing it into that dream star.

Gavriella Semaya (02:58)
Mm -hmm.

Yes.

Mm -hmm.

into the company.

Harold Simansky (03:14)
Yeah, exactly right. And there's a lot of reasons why entrepreneurs should go to business school, but this should go to business school to start a company really is not one. I don't think it's one. More importantly, the admissions committee doesn't think it's one. yeah.

Gavriella Semaya (03:19)
Mm -hmm.

Yes, 100 % agree. And I often tell clients who are aspiring founders that, to your point, is this the path that you need to take to get there? And it may be that it is, right? I mean, there's no doubt that business school will give you entrepreneurial skills, but there's nothing, there's no substitute in the end for doing it when it comes to being an entrepreneur and founding a company. And so there's, you can simulate that in business school, right? But.

From an admissions perspective, that's usually why I advise founders to first say their short -term goal is to work for a startup. Get a feel for what it's like to try to build something from scratch. If you're interested in a particular field or vertical, go work for an ed tech startup. See what the real challenges are on the ground. And then once you've got some lessons, some insights, then you can strike out on your own. And I think from an admissions perspective too, it's just more security in terms of they're probable.

Harold Simansky (03:58)
Yes.

Gavriella Semaya (04:20)
successful employment upon graduation.

Harold Simansky (04:20)
100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. It was once explained to me, this notion here of don't say you want to do your own startup when you graduate business school, because the reason is most of those startups fail. At the end of the day, yeah, exactly. They may have a alumni of theirs who six months a year later is nowhere. And that's something that certainly the admissions committee is worried about. But going back, I interrupted you. So it was notion of school.

Gavriella Semaya (04:34)
90 something percent, right?

Yeah. No, that's okay. I was on that note. I was actually going to say the other thing that I've heard from one of our colleagues, Katie, she told me this early on was that the schools don't want you to treat them as incubators. They want you to be engaged in the community when you're there. And so I think oftentimes people think of it as, I'm going to tap into the VC network, you know, Silicon Valley by being at Stanford. And it's not to say that you can't do that. And, you know, even if you say your short -term goal is to work for a startup, it doesn't mean that you can't explore founding one on your own.

Harold Simansky (04:49)
school selection.

Yes.

Gavriella Semaya (05:16)
But I think, again, from the admissions committee's perspective, you know, they're not looking to be accelerators. That's not their role. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Harold Simansky (05:22)
Yeah, or a Rolodex for that matter. I've also told people, save yourself some money, go to LinkedIn, take out to lunch, everybody, 50 people. That's going to be a lot of nice conversations, a lot of lunches, and a lot cheaper. So, when Nelson does. But I think now I've interrupted you twice or three times.

Gavriella Semaya (05:31)
haha

Mm -hmm.

Yes.

No, that's okay. That's all right. So the last, the second point that I was going to say, the first was, you know, when I'm thinking about school selection is, will it get you where you want to go professionally? The second is sort of the cultural piece, which is, you know, think about whether you're going to thrive in this environment. Are you someone who does really well in large groups, you know, in such that you'll be, you know, at home in a Wharton or Columbia or, you know, these schools that have, you know, hundreds upon hundreds, or are you, you know,

more comfortable in smaller groups where their socialization is kind of built in. Those are things that I think are important to ask because if you're going to get lost in the shuffle or you're not going to speak up because you feel like you're in this massive crowd, then you're not going to get as much out of it. And I also tell clients that it's perfectly OK not to go to a school if they don't want to spend two years of their life in a city or in the middle of nowhere if you're at Tuck. Those are valid reasons to demote certain schools from your list.

And the last thing is always just talk to other students. Talk to students, talk to recent alums. They will give you the real kind of unvarnished perspective on what it's like to be there. Better than I can tell you if I haven't been to that school. I know the school inside and out, but I haven't been through the experience. And so I think there's no substitute for talking to students.

Harold Simansky (06:44)
Yes.

I know that makes sense. So now we'll do sort of a round robin here. Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. Everybody knows them. No frequent come with them. But just throw it at me some other schools that you really like. And sometimes why, or sometimes just vibe. What are some other schools? And I can also share some other schools. In fact, I'll start. OK. School lower down the list for most people is University of Washington Foster.

Gavriella Semaya (07:09)
Mm -hmm.

Go for it.

Mm -hmm.

Harold Simansky (07:28)
And the reason I like Foster a lot, in fact, I love University of Washington Foster for a few reasons. First of all, location is fantastic in Seattle, but not right in the city on a great sort of college campus. You can have that big university experience. Their career services are amazing. I think something like the number of careers service providers, number of advisors versus students like ratio is just huge.

Gavriella Semaya (07:50)
Right, the ratio is really high.

Harold Simansky (07:53)
as well as they get great jobs in the top tech firms, whether it's Amazon, whether it's Microsoft, some of those other interesting places, other companies in the Pacific Northwest, that small program, very collegial, I like Foster a lot. So that's my suggestion.

Gavriella Semaya (07:58)
Mm -hmm.

I like Foster a lot too, but you have to be interested in those fields. It's such a small cohort that I just think you're not going to get as much out of it if you're - I wouldn't put a high on my list if you want to go into finance, but I would put it on high on my list if you are targeting the companies in that area or in those fields. But I do agree with you. It's definitely one that's overlooked. I think about it in terms of kind of -

Harold Simansky (08:14)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Gavriella Semaya (08:37)
end goal first, right? So let's go with this finance kind of example. Obviously, Booth is really strong in finance. Going further down the list, you have Duke and Darden that are really strong in the area. Tuck is really strong in that area. And so I think which schools are strong in that area, and from that, which is a good cultural fit. That's kind of how I look at it. I mean, schools that I love that are -

Harold Simansky (09:00)
All right, that makes sense.

Gavriella Semaya (09:05)
underrated, I think UCLA is a really good school. I think people dismiss it. They sort of think, okay, it's California. It's not serious or something like that. But they've really invested in building out their program. And we were speaking about entrepreneurs and they're really cultivating that tech and entrepreneurial, you know, kind of focus.

Harold Simansky (09:07)
Yeah, I agree.

right right right.

That's right. They have a great great program for your second year to actually either in a startup start a startup yourself Have a lot of resources right there. Well, it's Los Angeles is getting to be actually a pretty big tech hub when all done Really? Yeah, that's right. That's right And I'm gonna throw it another school here, which is Cornell

Gavriella Semaya (09:28)
Mm -hmm.

It is, it is, yeah, it's not just Hollywood.

Mm -hmm.

Harold Simansky (09:47)
Cornell, which has become a very interesting place for a lot of reasons. First of all, they have this wonderful immersion program for investment banking. So it's so, if someone says to me, I want to be an investment banker and for whatever reason, or maybe they're applying to some of the top schools, I also say to them and push them to apply to Cornell because you will get where you want to be. You will have a great investment in the future when you leave Cornell. So I think that's one reason. And this is a segue into the two. Yeah.

Gavriella Semaya (09:55)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And people love it. People love the program. It's not just, you know, a headline. People really do find it valuable and it really does prepare them for that transition, more so than a class, right? And so I think if that's your path, I agree totally that that's a great school.

Harold Simansky (10:28)
And then another reason I like Cornell is because now they have the Cornell Tech campus that I want to ask you more about. But I think now it's just this really dynamic place where you go to Johnson, you spend some time in Ithaca, you spend some time in Manhattan. And I was just actually at the Cornell Tech campus maybe a month ago. It's beautiful. It's unbelievable sort of 22nd century with that in mind. Cornell Tech. And Gavi I'm going to do a whole podcast where she talks about Cornell Tech. But why don't you just give us a taste of it.

Gavriella Semaya (10:32)
Yes.

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Harold Simansky (10:58)
right now.

Gavriella Semaya (10:59)
So Cornell Tech is distinct in a number of ways. First being it's a one -year program. It's one of the few one -year programs that is not necessarily designed for people who are farther along in their careers. So if you want to take less time out of your career, that's one advantage. The tech piece is really important to them, but I think it's nontraditional in general. Yes, it's people who want to be involved in the digital economy in some way. You don't necessarily have to be an engineer.

I'm certainly not an engineer by any stretch. But that non -traditional mindset, it's this entrepreneurial mindset that I think defines everything they do. It's how can we do this differently? Let's think outside of the box. And that permeates the courses, it permeates the structure that they have. We'll get into this elsewhere, but big studio and all of those different things that they have.

Harold Simansky (11:49)
Yep. And now, if you go to the full two -year program at Ithaca, you have a lot of opportunity to spend some time at Cornell Tech.

Gavriella Semaya (11:59)
Well, now they even have the one plus one program that they just launched this year, which I think I'm surprised they didn't do it earlier because it was always, you know, the Cornell Tech students wanted to get more of the traditional MBA, you know, experience and vice versa. And so they finally launched a program that allows students to do just that. It's one year in Ithaca and one year in Manhattan on Roosevelt Island.

Harold Simansky (12:09)
Thanks.

which is really cool. Very, very cool. Okay. Let's think about one more school. Let's talk tech again. And another school that I really love for a lot of different reasons is Tepper Carnegie Mellon Tepper. And first of all, Pittsburgh is a great city. Nobody believes me when I say that. Pittsburgh is a great city. It's a beautiful city. And Tepper again, it is a pathway to really all of the top tech companies. It's amazing who has offices in Pittsburgh.

Gavriella Semaya (12:28)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Harold Simansky (12:47)
It seems like everybody in tech now has an office in Pittsburgh.

Gavriella Semaya (12:49)
Well, yeah, and when you look at who else you're plugged into or the community you're plugged into when you're there, there's so much interaction with the engineering school and researchers and things like that, which is why they've produced businesses like Duolingo and CAPTCHA, right, which is the thing that we all love to hate, but that came out of Tepper, you know? So my four -year -old, my seven -year -old does Duolingo. I mean, it's a great product, but...

Harold Simansky (13:07)
Yeah, I love it. Hey, yeah.

Gavriella Semaya (13:15)
those are the kinds of companies that are coming out of there. And so you can go both traditional, as you said, there's a lot of corporate headquarters there, but there's also a lot of creativity because there's so much engineering innovation happening.

Harold Simansky (13:26)
Right, right, right. Definitely, definitely. Great then. So okay, Gabi, one more and then we'll wrap this one. Yeah, one more school that you just really like.

Gavriella Semaya (13:33)
Yeah.

One more underrated school.

The school that I really like, I'm trying to think of ones that we haven't necessarily discussed. I mean, Haas is super competitive, but I do think that for clients who are very values driven, it's a really great environment to be in. They really do put that first and foremost, and I think it's embedded into their culture. So it's not right for everyone.

But I wind up working with a lot of clients who target Haas because of its culture as much as the resources that they have as being part of the whole UC system and all of that.

Harold Simansky (14:21)
No, that makes sense. And just a little bit of commercial on behalf of mbaMission And that commercial is what we do as consultants. We spend a long time with our clients, better understanding what they're looking for in a business school and then matching them up with schools that we love. We think are great choices for them. We're really going to get them where they want to be when all is said and done. Perfect. Yeah.

Gavriella Semaya (14:25)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I'll throw in one last thing is it extends to when you have those multiple offers. That's my favorite part, you know, of this is that debating you've got, you know, a good problem to have and you have multiple offers from different schools and choosing which, you know, to ultimately attend. That's the fun part.

Harold Simansky (14:47)
Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely, absolutely. And actually we are there just about now in the sense of I finally have my final clients get accepted. A couple got accepted on Wednesday and just this past week, even though it's June. And at this point, they have real dilemmas. Exactly. They have real dilemmas having spent money some other places. But on that note, thank you, everyone. First of all, Gavi thank you very much for being my guest here today and look forward to having you on a few more podcasts.

Gavriella Semaya (15:07)
That's right. That's right.

Down to the wire.

Mm -hmm.

Thank you for having me.

love to.

Harold Simansky (15:29)
everyone.