Revolution

Ok. If that's your career goals, SAIS could work. I still think any top 15 MBA will deliver more value than a policy program because an MBA is more fungible, flexible, and well-regarded, even in many areas of the public sphere. You're right about MBB. Darden is good, but fuqua has done very well with MBB lately. If i'm not mistaken mckinsey hired around 20 from duke fuqua last year. I'm also anxiously awaiting from a few east coast schools as well as a certain school in Chicago that is the mecca of finance. My short-term goal ideally is macro investment research at a major bank, hopefully in hong kong or singapore. Long-term i'm interested in becoming a portfolio manager at an asian sovereign wealth fund or a macro hedge fund such as brevan howard, soros, moore, tudor, caxton, etc.

I know i'm bumping an old thread, but this really interested me, especially the second to last paragraph. Is SAIS's economics focus relaly not sufficient for getting one a job in finance? Is it actually overrated in that aspect? I would love to hear from current SAIS students or alums on this.

Congrats on darden! Actually SAIS does have a joint degree with darden, along with tuck, insead, wharton, and stanford. HKS has joint degrees with hbs, mit, tuck, wharton, kellogg, and stanford. You could also do ad hoc with schools not on this list, but it will be more difficult and may take 3.5 years rather than 3. What are your career goals? Darden is strong in consulting but weak in east coast finance. Their students do pretty well with MBB consulting. If you could only do one program, and your goals are in the private sector, go with darden. I know it sucks to not get funding from a b-school, but darden without funding will get you to where you need to be if your career goals are in consulting, banking, general management, Fortune 500.

Oops. Sorry for the double post.

I will be talking to sidney jackson, the admissions director, tomorrow to discuss my questions and concerns. He called me today and left a voicemail, but I was unavailable at the time.

1. People leave very high paying jobs to go to top b-schools; it's quite common. And with megafund private equity firms such as blackstone, kkr, bain capital, carlyle, tpg, etc., they basically kick you out after 2-3 years and send you to hbs/stanford/wharton. This is because PE people see enormous value in a top MBA. 2. It would be more than $160K. But that's not the point. Depending on one's goals and objectives, as well as the school in question, turning down a high paying job could make sense in the LONG run.

I'm very curious to know what the 80% range is for SAIS salary coming out. So half the people going into the private sector make more than $65k/year base salary, but i wonder if the upper half is clustered in the 65-80K or we see a decent mix of $100K-120K folks, mostly those who have prior finance or consulting experience.

Do you have to take out loans through gradplus to pay for whatever is not covered by fellowship or financial aid? I heard that sallie mae offers loans for students at a much lower interest rate but not sure if that's just for MBAs or open to other grad programs as well.

Some people (myself included obviously) would turn down a high paying job to go to an elite b-school for various reasons. I've discussed some of them here. I mean i know people at hbs/stanford/wharton who were working in private equity and making $300K+ including bonus at age 26-27 but LEFT those jobs to go back to school. From a purely economic sense it may not seem prudent since their opportunity cost is enormous. But they believe that the long-term benefits of going to those schools will outweigh whatever amount they lost during the 2-year time period. Moreover, there are also the social and personal benefits that simply cannot be ignored. Just one example: i was at an alumni event and met a guy who went to one of those top 3 b-schools. He worked at a major private equity firm in boston before school and he talked about how much he enjoyed b-school and how he met his fiancee there. When these alums talk about their mba experience, you can clearly tell that it was the best time of their lives and it's something that you can't simply quantify. I for one would turn down a $500K/year job easily for admission to HBS and would take out a $200K loan with a smile on my face.

This was what I gathered as well based on my research and talking to people. A guy i know interviewed with a group at treasury where the common exit opp was macro hedge funds and top b-schools.

Fair enough. When I looked at HKS MPA2, there was a huge gap in % going into the private sector between joint MBA students and MPA2 alone. That's to be expected however.

No one (certainly not me) is saying that by just going to a top b-school you can get any job you want by going down the alumni list. I mean, come on. That is a silly extreme argument to make. I agree that b-schools tend to inflate the network aspect a bit too much, and I suppose that's all part of any school's marketing. But from talking to countless students and alums of top b-schools, they all thought it was worth it on every level, even though they may not have gotten their ideal job and they took out tons in loans. Going to grad school is both a short and long-term bet. On the short end, you're betting that you can get a job you want coming out. On the long end, you're hoping that the name brand, education, network, etc., can help you move up the ladder, to transition to a different field, and/or do something really awesome that you may not have imagined when you were in school. To use a trading analogy, it's both an at-the-money call option (hedging career volatility) and an out of the money call option (capitalizing immensely on the small chance that your school and network will lead to huge gains). With top b-schools, I'm 100% confident that it will do the former since my "worst" case scenario is making $100K+ at a mediocre bank or consulting firm. With SAIS, the downside could be huge, and I'm not yet sure what the upside is. I have a general feeling of what type of jobs I might be able to get, but I just don't know for sure.

If anything, it would seem that SAIS is better for the private sector than HKS. About 47% go into the private sector and the curriculum is much more well-suited for that area than HKS, which is heavily focused on public service and domestic policy. What makes you think that SAIS is a lot worse than HKS for private sector jobs?

It looks like the NY Federal Reserve visits SAIS and does on-campus interviews, along with sipa, columbia business, nyu stern, booth, and harvard grad school. Interesting. Too bad that PIMCO does not recruit at SAIS; given SAIS's strength in macroeconomics and international finance, that's disappointing. http://www.newyorkfed.org/careers/gradcalendar_tab1.html

I share your concerns as well. When I was applying i was a bit surprised at how low the average age at SAIS was. I am also a very strong believer in learning more from your peers than even your professors; it is a crucial part of intellectual and social life at any grad program. Again, I am NOT saying that i won't learn from classmates at SAIS or that there are no incredible people there. I'm asserting that at a broad level, as an older person with years of finance experience as well as having worked in other areas, I am skeptical about the total package that SAIS offers. Business schools have actually gone younger as well, especially HBS and Stanford. And this is one thing that bothers me about mba admissions, but overall the caliber of students at top b-schools is still quite high. I know for a fact that at a top b-school I will be in awe of my classmates' accomplishments, life stories, intellect, and personality. For me, it would be a 2-year intellectual and social buffett of epic proportions.

I'm starting to wonder whether the whole "rigorous economic curriculum" that SAIS is boasts is a marketing technique used to lure people over, similar to HKS' constant use of the harvard name brand to justify exorbitant tuition and no funding. I recently talked to a second-year MBA at Chicago Booth who entered SAIS around 2005 or 2006. After a year, he found a job as an analyst at a bulge bracket bank and worked there for 3 years before finishing up his SAIS degree. He then started Booth and will be working at a major buyside firm doing credit research. He loved the coursework at SAIS and said he learned a ton there, so the curriculum is certainly challenging. However, he said that career services had much to be desired, and getting a good private sector job coming out was difficult.

Any idea which political risk or econ consulting firms hire SAIS students? I'm guessing the usual suspects such as eurasia and roubini? Any others that I'm missing?

Have you seen your sipa classmates apply to columbia business during their first year? Were any of them successful? From what i've gathered, being at a policy program does not help one bit when applying to top b-schools precisely because they are so much less selective. I talked to a sipa student who wants to work at an emerging markets hedge fund, and he said the coursework and faculty are excellent, but career services and job placement are a total mess.

Law school does give one a professional credential that is required to practice in the field, unlike an MBA. After all, you don't need an MBA to be in business or to become wealthy. I disagree though that the skills you gain in law school are more substantive or valuable than the skills you pick up in b-school. In addition, your jury example is a bit ridiculous. Vast majority of students from law schools, especially the top ones, end up in private practice. Let's not pretend that most lawyers are doing "noble" work that is somehow more meaningful than MBA grads.

I agree. I asked this question to sais. If you look at the employment report, you will see MBB consulting and major banks listed on there. My guess is that almost all those jobs went to joint mba-ma students.

Haha. I was on the law track a while back and a bunch of my good college friends ended up going to law school. I guess i like people who are both smart and have relevant real-world work experience. Generally speaking, I find law students to be sort of one-dimensional and risk-averse. So when i look at people i know at harvard law and harvard business, the former are definitely smarter but the latter are more fun to hang out with. Hard to explain but given my personality, outlook, and experiences, I think I will mesh the best socially at a top b-school. This does NOT mean that i won't enjoy SAIS or some other grad program.

Thanks.

I already called them. They said that they're swamped with e-mails and calls and will get back to me later.

My questions were straight forward and written in a respectful cordial manner. They evaded my questions several times and kept pointing me to the link even though i told them that i already saw it and had more specific questions. I basically said that given the committment of doing a grad degree, it would be helpful to get more clarity on this before making a final decision in the coming weeks.

Yes, I saw this as well. So for the 2012 report, on the private sector page, it does a nice breakdown of the % of people going to the various fields. Next to the pie chart you see a list of private sector employers. Are these firms that hired at least one SAIS student in that year? Or are they a list of firms that posted jobs in the sais career database? Also, do any of these firms do on-campus company presentations and meet with students? Finally, it would be interesting to know whether the jobs at mbb consulting and major banks are only going to the joint mba-ma students since the sais report does not separate that group from the regular ma students.