Closure

Here it is, four years later, and the story I told in this blog seems like a lifetime ago. I never expected to post again, but I was recruiting at Fuqua last year, and a student there told me about this blog he'd read where some guy had a decision to make between Sloan and Fuqua. I was amazed that anyone still read this blog after I left it, and he was amazed that I was "Nick."

So where am I now? Honestly, I'm exactly where I wanted to end up when I wrote this blog. I work in global marketing for a top pharmaceutical company, preparing to launch a new oncology drug. I've completely changed careers from Wall Street to pharmaceutical marketing (and my timing was good there!). I am happy with my job, with where I live, and what I do. I am challenged every day, and after a couple of years in my role, I truly feel like a marketer.

My Duke experience was tremendous as an education, as a chance to make connections with some lifelong friends, and as a two-year break from the ordinary. And that daughter who was about to be born in my then-final post -- I just registered her for kindergarten yesterday!

Do I have any regrets? Not really. I made the right choice for my career goals. I'm sure I would be in a different place had I gone to MIT's BEP, and in all likelihood, as satisfied with the outcome. It was hard to go wrong there, but you have to pick your path in the woods.

That broader brand equity of a school is no small matter. Duke and MIT have very different brands, and for me they represented different paths. When faced with a lack of detailed knowledge about a school's strength in a particular area, people will fall back on the broader knowledge of the school. This is the essence of a brand, and it's what we strive to achieve as marketers every day. But a brand alone should never steer a person into a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt and a completely different career path.

As an aside, Cornell called me later to offer a full scholarship. When I answered the phone, I was in Durham, moving into my new house. It was a bit late, and by that point, I already knew I'd made the right decision.

A few words of advice from having been through the process, and even now that I'm on the other side of the interview table:

• The talented people I've seen were talented before business school. They did well in school, then they continued to be talented people in their future careers. No one is turned into top talent by two years of B-school. Every school has a pool of terrifically talented people, as well as some people that you might not want on your team. In general, the better schools have a better ratio though.
• Rankings and such matter only in the sense that they drive the best people toward a set of schools in the "top" tier. Rankings are valid as a self-fulfilling prophecy, for better or worse. But they are certainly nothing to obsess over. They are incredibly inaccurate, and they mainly represent the biases of their designers.
  
• You need to pick the school that is right for you. Ask yourself two questions. 1) At what schools do the companies I want to work for recruit? 2) At what schools will I be surrounded by a critical mass of people who have similar goals to me?
• When picking a company to work for, consider that it is generally much easier to move from a large company to a small one. You see people move from big pharma to biotechs all the time. The skills you learn in a big corporation are invaluable, and the resume impact of a "name brand" is huge. Going the other direction is swimming upstream. Excluding people pre-business school experience, I can think of only one person I know of who has transitioned from a small biotech to a big pharma company. And it took him about six years. Don't get me wrong you can learn a lot working in a small company where you have broad responsibilities. I know I certainly did. But when it comes to getting a job, the big company experience is a known quantity.
  

So there you have it. For a while there, choosing and getting into the right B-school was my focus. Then once I was in school, choosing and getting an offer from the right company was the focus. Now (and probably for the next thirty or so years), executing on business goals, learning new skills, and growing my career are the focus. This is the main goal, the reason we go to business school. It's been a long time since I sat down with B-school brochures and dreamed of where I would end up someday, and now that I'm here, I have to say that it really did live up to my expectations.

Some sane conversation about the MBA!

I was heartened to drop by the BusinessWeek forums for the first time in a while to find a great discussion/reflection on the B-school experience from "IWannaGetln" (link).

After all the forum hype about essays and GMATs, the fretting about rankings, and the complaining about "my subgroup is being oppressed," it's great to read about one person's real journey and what an MBA did and didn't do for him. Alex's comments about how banking and consulting firms churn MBAs are especially enlightening, too.

IWannaGetln's recommendations about grades not mattering are very true, but it's going to be hard for me to heed them. Grades are such great little meritocratic rewards. Since the third grade, I've been a sucker for getting a gold star. But the advice about maximizing your on-campus interview opportunities and not taking the first offer are also worth heeding.

There are so many piddly things to do to prepare for school. Aside from packing, moving, and having a baby (that was my wife's job!), I've had to stay on top of getting my vaccination records together, getting a parking pass, setting up my Fuqua email, etc. Fun, fun, fun. It's so much more real now. All the concerns I had a year ago (which school would be absolutely PERFECT for me?) seem petty. I am more concerned with making the most of my two years and beginning the transition to a new field (pharma).

Perspective is sometimes hard to gain, but now that I'm committed, it is a lot easier. And any time I might lose it, I've got an infant daughter to remind me of what's important.

What have I learned from this whole process?

After all the soul-searching that comes with applying to school, deciding, committing, etc, I have to ask myself if I've learned anything about myself from the whole process. The short answer: nothing Earth-shattering, but a few things.

One thing is that I don't have much (enough?) respect for the MBA as a degree. It's a practical, useful, professional degree, and it's going to be a great way for me to change career, but I still understand that it's something of a superfluous degree. To paraphrase Henry Mintzberg in Managers, Not MBAs, you can't be a doctor without going to medical school, or a lawyer without law school, but anyone can run a business without business school. In fact, most of the best businesses are run by non-MBAs!

I started an MBA years ago at Emory (long story), and I'll never forget the moment in economics class when the professor tried to use a very simple derivative to explain something. You would have thought she had poked the class with a stick. "We were told there was no calculus in this class!" all the marketing majors whined. In any other master's program, the (proper) student response would be: "Crap, I'd better go learn some basic calculus." In B-school it's: "I'm the customer here, and don't you forget it!" Granted, you can make your experience as rigorous as you'd like, but I still feel that the MBA doesn't earn you as much credibility as it does connections! I guess that's a decent tradeoff.

Another thing I've learned is that there's a great group of people in the blogosphere who can be very helpful and supportive (most of the time!). It's great that technology can bring people together like that, and it's added a lot to the experience. Much appreciation to Hella for running his site.

It's interesting to compare how I felt at the beginning of the process with how it feels at the end. Last October, I was at the MBA expo in Manhattan, listening to the presentations. I was excited by the idea that I could go back to school for a while and change to the healthcare industry from Wall Street. By December, I was convinced that Cornell was the perfect program for me, but thought that I might retain the option to just stay at my job. By January, I was blown away by MIT's Biomedical Enterprise Program. After interviewing at Cornell, MIT, and Duke in February, I was confused. Fortunately in March, I was accepted everywhere, and even got scholarship money! I first eliminated my original top choice of Cornell, because they don't have a dedicated healthcare program. Then I had the tough choice between Duke and MIT. In the end, Boston killed MIT's chances, despite the ridiculously great prestige in the MIT name. Boston just doesn't compare to Raleigh-Durham in terms of quality of life, weather, and cost. I just wasn't willing to be unhappy with my environment for three years.

Since making that decision, I've bought a house in Durham (mine and my wife's first!), and we are eagerly awaiting the imminent birth of our daughter (also our first!) in a couple of weeks. This has put the whole B-school thing in perspective. It's going to be great, and I'm going to make as much of it as I possibly can, but it is ultimately a means to an end: a way for me to help provide security, and maybe a little prosperity, for myself and my family.

Why I'm choosing Duke over MIT

I know a lot of people are trying to decide between schools and offers right now, so maybe you'll find one man's internal dialogue interesting. Mine is a classic case of putting the rankings aside and finding the program with the best overall fit. It's also a case where a lot of intangibles add up to something very tangible.

I am fortunate enough to have been accepted at both Fuqua and Sloan. After B-school, I intend to pursue a career in the healthcare industry. Fuqua has an amazing Health Sector Management program that I'm excited about. I was doubly fortunate to be also accepted to MIT's Biomedical Enterprise Program. This small 3 year program involves a Sloan MBA + a Master's from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences Technology division. (Just writing "Harvard-MIT" makes me want to pause and reconsider this whole decision.) Three months ago, Sloan's BEP was my first choice. Heck, after I interviewed there, I said "If accepted, how could I not go?!" But after weeks of meditation on the subject, it's become a very close call. Here are my reasons why:

1) Boston vs. Durham. My wife and I are expecting our first child in a couple of months. Boston is great and all, but it's not the ideal place to be a poor student raising a baby. Durham on the other hand, offers plenty of new, spacious housing with super low rents. Even better, no lead paint! If I were 26, Boston would be the most exciting place in the world; however, I'm 30, I lived in Manhattan for five years, and my wife and I just escaped to the suburbs -- I'm not exactly going to get excited about Boston's wide selection of bars at this point.

We know no one in Boston, and moving back into a city has no appeal for us now that we've experienced the convenience of car ownership and big box stores. Plus, the Raleigh-Durham area has a huge number of pharma companies. It's not as concentrated as Boston, but there are plenty of opportunities.

2) Cost. I know, I know... don't let the money be a factor. But would anyone go to HBS if it cost $1,000,000? At some point, the money has to become a factor. My number is somewhere around $155,000. Believe it or not, that's the post-tax net difference in cost between the programs for me. That includes the extra year of lost wages due to the BEP's third year, the dramatically higher cost of housing in Boston, and the scholarship money Duke is offering me. (It also factors in the 3rd year fellowship money from the BEP and the value of a second internship there.)

"That's peanuts in the long run," you say. Well, not really. Consider that $155,000 as an annuity -- just put it away in the bank and never touch it. It would pay me $8000+ a year, every year, for the rest of my life, working or not. Granted, I might earn substantially more out of MIT, or maybe I wouldn't. But $155,000 is enough money to make a difference in one's finances for the long term.

3) The Intangibles. Well, they're quite tangible, actually. Little factors, like North Carolina's amazing weather, make a big difference on your overall quality of life. Also, my family is within driving distance of Durham, so my child might actually know her grandparents. Plus, Fuqua has amazing facilities and the most supportive partners program at any top B-school.

They say "Don't make your decision based on the facilities... Or the weather... Or the housing... Or the location." Sage advice indeed, but at what point do all of those things add up to one very important factor? Duke just seems to have them all.

What may have sealed the deal was seeing that Fuqua is ranked in the top 10 in every field by Business Week and several of the fields that WSJ polled recruiters on. Sloan is tops for things like operations, supply-chain, and technology. But Fuqua is in the top ten in just about everything: marketing, international business, technology, healthcare, etc. That sort of broad capability appeals to me.

I know, I know... boohoo for me, having to decide between two top programs must be terrible. But it's a huge commitment of time and money, and you only get to do this once. It really has been a difficult decision because it's such a close call. But I think I'll feel a huge weight off my shoulders tomorrow if I overnight my deposit to Fuqua.

The 6 Stages of Rankings Understanding

Since this is the time of year that prospective B-School applicants might start looking for resources on the web, I thought I'd try to save them some time in understanding business school rankings:

Stage 1. You're a new applicant, just starting to research schools. You discover that there are several sets of rankings available to help. You also discover the BusinessWeek forums. Harnassing the power of Excel, you create hybrid rankings, averaging the FT, BW, USNews, and WSJ rankings. "It's genius!" you think. Debate ensues on the forums.

Stage 2. You realize that the WSJ and FT rankings are based on bizarre, single-factor criteria. Better to stick to the more reasonable Business Week and US News rankings.

Stage 3. Further reading of forums convinces you that "H/S/W" and "the M7" are the immutable hierarchy of the business school world, given from upon high.

Stage 4. At some point, you begin to realize that the forums and websites are mostly populated by overseas applicants and obsessive-compulsive types. You begin to doubt the wisdom of 24 year olds who have never actually seen the inside of a B-school.

Stage 5. You actually visit some schools and realize that there is so much more to their personality than rankings. Further, you realize that there are material differences that would make certain schools a better fit for you and your goals, despite their lower rankings.

Stage 6. You happily accept an offer from your school of choice. After attending for a while, you can't even remember what the school's rankings are. You meet with prospective students, and marvel at their obsession with rankings. One of them shows you his spreadsheet with weighted averages of different published rankings. You knowingly pat him on the back, then head off to a job interview.

Am I missing any stages?

MIT Sloan Visit and Interview

Some observations from my recent visit to MIT Sloan:

The Culture
MIT Sloan is a unique MBA program. Not so much because of their curriculum, but because of the attitude and feel of the school. MIT feels different, and I had to think about it for a couple of days before I was able to put my finger on what it is that's so unique. Once I'd thought about it, there were two main things that set Sloan apart. One, they seem to work harder than most B-school students. Sloanies are serious about getting a lot done. Two, they are really smart. I'm not easily impressed by smarts, but there are some super-intelligent people at Sloan. And not in the narrow, nerdy sense, but in a very well-rounded way.

Another surprise was the "make a difference" attitude among students and faculty. There are a lot of projects involving the third world in some sort of big-thinking way. (This is true of MIT as a whole, as demonstrated by their new $100 laptop for the third world.) This has a lot to do with the fact that MIT is so strongly entrepreneurship-oriented, but the desire to make a difference is a strong part of the school's personality.

The faculty at Sloan is also incredible. While most other schools talk about the one star professor they have in each department, MIT has nothing but superstar profs. It's taken for granted at Sloan.

The facilities were not as bad as I'd been led to believe. They just seemed like average classrooms to me. It seems there is a lack of space for students to gather, though.

The Interview
The interview was not as special as I'd expected, either. MIT sends you a 2 page guide to their "Behavioral Event-based Interview" (BEI) before you visit. The key difference is that they do NOT ask you "Why an MBA? Why now? and Why here?" They simply take your resume and application and ask two or three main questions, each with several follow up questions. It is not a blind interview.

It's not as unique as some people claim. It is odd, however, to have an interviewer ask you "...and how did that make you feel?" You feel a bit like you're on a psychiatrist's couch then. The interviewer is also studiously poker-faced. It's not confrontational, but it's also not as warm and congenial as other schools. I tried to make my interviewer laugh, but he just smiled patiently. I agree with others who have observed that they are also trying to get a sense of how strong your committment to attending Sloan is.

Soft Sell
In all my interactions with Sloan, I've noticed that they aren't as interested in "selling" the school to you as much as other programs. Their bright green brochure is typographically bold, but seems to have less content than most. The admissions office personnel are more stoic than any I've seen. Sloan is not a Smiley Gladhands kind of place. They are what they are, and they want you to evaluate whether you'd fit in.

If they're not careful, this can come across as arrogance. Sloan doesn't seem to "need" its prospective students. They have a line of people around the block who would kill to pay $40+k a year to be there, and they know it.

If you're applying, it's definitely a school you have to visit and evaluate for yourself -- I found the reality of the school to be different from what I'd expected, and certainly different from other schools I've visited.

Summary
If accepted, I would have a hard time turning Sloan down. Walking around and talking to people, I could feel the opportunities in the air. It seems that Sloanies have enormous access to companies, professors, and ideas. It was truly unique, and still a bit hard to describe. I also got the impression that most of the students were already successes before they came to B-school. Everyone was of a very high calibre.

The downside: the first time I looked at craigslist to see how much apartments go for in Cambridge! Ugh.

Duke Fuqua Interview and Impressions

Continuing my series of hopefully candid evaluations of B-schools I've recently visited, I'd like to talk about Fuqua ("few-kwuh").

Arriving
First off, if you visit Fuqua, know that there is a parking lot across the street from the main entrance on Science Drive. Upon checking in at the admissions desk, you'll get a parking decal that will get you free parking for the rest of the day. I made the mistake of parking in one lot, paying $4, then finding out that there is a lot specifically for Fuqua visitors, then paying $4 there, only to get the free parking pass. Don't be stupid like me -- save yourself $8!

Anyway, Fuqua's facilities rock. Everything is new and sleek and modern. As a prospective student, it's hard not to be swayed by this. The admissions office is on your left when you walk in, behind the glass wall. It's a huge office with a waiting area out front. They'll have a folder with your itinerary and some promotional materials. Then you can sit in the waiting area, where there are several very comfy chairs, and even half a dozen computers available so you can check your email. Nice.

Fuqua students volunteer to man the waiting area. There was always at least one student there doing the meet and greet with any prospectives, chatting with them, and answering questions. There were a lot of prospective students there, but it was a nice environment, with the chairs arranged so they face each other.

Durham itself was great, and very affordable. I've spent some time here before, and it's a very comfortable place to live, especially the area surrounding Duke.

Class Visit
My class visit was excellent. I went to a decision modelling class when they were doing Monte Carlo simulations. I was told that I was not in the class with the better professor for that class, but nonetheless, the "lesser" professor was prety good. More importantly, the class was very engaged. Fuqua has a no-laptops-in-class policy, so no one can sit there and surf or check email during class. I have to say that it works. I have been to other schools where this was a small problem - not rampant, but even a few students doing this can be irritating.

Classes are 2.5 hours at Fuqua with a short break halfway through (remember, they do 2, six week terms per semester). The prospectives attend the first half of a class. We were introduced to the professor, and then we introduced ourselves to the class. We were asked to dance or sing, but politely declined. Then the class applauded us anyway in welcome. The classroom, like everything else at Fuqua, was nice and modern. The professor was projecting spreadsheets onto a screen using an integrated projector and computer at the front. Technology is not a problem here. Oh, and the chairs were comfortable, too, which is important if your classes are 2.5 hours long!


Tour
We toured the facilities, which I had already explored on my own that morning. Everyone has lockers in the main hall, and all the organizations advertise upcoming events, etc on the walls of the hallway. They have flags from the country of every current student hanging as well.

The Fox Center is the main student hang out, where there's also a nice cafeteria with stations for salads, grilled items, hot foods, burritos, etc. They have a weird system where you fill out a form describing your choices, then hand it over to the preparers. (Note that admissions does not pick up the tab for lunch at Fuqua, but prices aren't unreasonable.) This scheme seemed like something that an Operations Management class might come up with. It was also a pretty silly way to do things, and it didn't improve accuracy: they still forgot my fries.

Interview
The interviews at Fuqua are done by second year students who volunteer for the task. Mine was very professional, but I still don't feel that I'm being taken as seriously as I would be if I were interviewing with an adcom. I got the impression that the interview isn't a very important part of your application at Duke, and this is confirmed by the fact that they are technically optional. I think it's mainly to show that you're interested, and to get a basic sense of your interviewing capability.

As a side note, I don't understand how any school can make interviewing optional. Your main goal in B-school is to get a job. Recruiters are on campus almost as soon as you get there. Your ability to handle yourself in an interview is crucial to getting a job. Getting a job is crucial to the school's reputation and ranking. But what do I know?

Anyway, the interview is a strict 40 minutes, with 30 for the interview, then 10 for your questions. It was very relaxed, and I had an affable second year conducting, but it was also pretty rushed. She had a long list of questions to get through in 30 minutes, and I'm almost surprised she covered them all. It was very rapid-fire. Unlike the Cornell interview, it wasn't terribly conversational because of the limited time. I wasn't even sure if my answers mattered so much as my ability to handle myself in the interview.

There were the usual questions: Why MBA? Why now? Why at Fuqua? Then a long list of other questions, including:

• What the 2 best and worst things about you?
• Name the 3 biggest risks you've taken in your life.
• Give an example of your performance on a team.
• Tell me about a time when your team failed.
• What do you do about a team member who won't cooperate?
• What is your role on a team?
• What do you like least about working in teams?
• How would you explain your job to a 6 year old?

As you can see, they are very team-oriented a Fuqua. My interviewer said it was a big part of the culture, but not to think it was everything at Duke. She said people's impressions of the school before they attend probably overstate the teamwork aspect, and there are still plenty of things you have to do on your own.

Summary
Overall, I really loved Fuqua. The students were busy when I was there, and there was an enthusiasm in the classes that I liked a lot. Everyone I met seemed smart and capable. The facilities are very nice, and very large, spanning two buildings (though most of the Daytime MBA students stay in one). I liked the skylights that kept the place sunny. And the weather never gets too cold in Durham.

Fuqua is a great school, especially if you're interested in healthcare. 20% of the students participate in the Health Sector Management program, which is important not only because of its coursework (only a few required electives and a speaker series are required to get the certification), but also because of the number of industry recruiters that it draws to campus. I found this to be particularly enticing as someone who is interested in that sector.

It was a great visit, and Fuqua made a strong impression on me. I just wish they hadn't forgotten my fries at the cafeteria.