Researching Schools? Begin with the End in Mind

At this is the time of year we speak with a lot of applicants who are just starting their school research process. How do many of them start? By cracking open the U.S. New rankings or BusinessWeek rankings and going down the list. Sound familiar? The fact of the matter is that how many of us do it, right or wrong!

This isn't necessarily a bad place to start. One has to start somewhere, and no one has yet come up with a better way to size up all of the schools in one neat, tidy place. (Many will argue that there's no reason why all of the top schools should be sorted along one dimension,. While we're actually pretty sympathetic to this argument, human nature isn't changing any time soon.)

One big problem is that many applicants never look deeper to consider what their immediate job opportunities will be when they graduate. Of course, when you walk out of a top-ranked school with an MBA, the world is your oyster, and your job opportunities aren't limited just to the schools that recruit on campus. But, every year we talk to many students and recent grads who are disappointed that job opportunities in their industry/function of choice weren't more readily available through traditional on-campus recruiting.

How can you avoid this problem? It's up to you to know your target schools, including what companies recruit that each school and how many grads go into each industry. Fortunately, this isn't hard information to obtain: Just a simple online search can help you find Harvard's and Wharton's job placement data. While grads at these schools are less often disappointed, even a Harvard MBA sometimes says, "I wish I knew that many of the best private equity firms don't just set up interview slots on campus like other companies do."

And, at lower-ranked schools, you sometimes need to be even more careful. There are dozens of terrific regional programs, but if you attend one and end up disappointed that it didn't help you land a Wall Street banking job, then you may have no one to blame but yourself. As we told the Financial Times a few months ago, you need to begin with the end in mind.

One of the best ways to start researching top MBA programs is to download our Veritas Prep Annual Reports, 15 completely free guides to the world's top business schools. And, be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow us on Twitter!

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GMAC Says New MBAs Growing More Confident About the Economy

Despite an employment environment that remains stubborn, new MBA grads are growing more confident about the economy, according to a new survey released by GMAC this week. Somewhat surprisingly, this increase in optimism actually comes despite a drop in the percentage of grads who have jobs compared to last year.

According to the latest GMAC Graduate Management Education Graduate Survey, the percentage of full-time two-year MBA program grads who had an offer of employment prior to finishing school dropped to 40% this year, down from 50% in 2009. The numbers are even worse for part-time MBAs: 22% of part-time grads had a job offer before graduation, down from 38% in 2009.

Despite these gloomy numbers, about one-third of grads who said they felt the global economy is stable or strong, up from just 9% a year ago. So, what gives? How could optimism bounce back while the job picture actually gets worse by some measures?

GMAC's news release was mostly mum on this matter, although it may simply be a matter of "bad news fatigue," and our tendency to doubt that things can stay this bad for that long. Hardly any MBA grads (other than perhaps a handful of older part-time MBAs) are old enough to remember the last time the U.S. or global economy last went through an extended rough patch, in the late 1970s. So, for most of these grads, two years into a recession, one can't help but ask, "This thing has to be over soon, doesn't it?"

That's just one theory. It could also be that they're going on more than just faith. They may notice that more companies are returning to campuses to interact with students, even if the job offers aren't yet flowing more yet. GMAC echoed this idea in its announcement, mentioning that the increased optimism among graduates mirrors the trend highlighted in the GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey, which found that employers are finally shifting their attention back to expanding their businesses.

Thinking of applying to business school this year? Give us a call at (800) 925-7737 and speak with one of our business school admissions experts today. And, as always, be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow us on Twitter!

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How Much Does The MBA Program You Attend Affect Your Lifetime Earnings?

Bloomberg BusinessWeek has just published the results of its second annual study of the lifetime earnings of graduates from the world's top MBA programs, in partnership with PayScale. While the data are interesting, the headline's not necessarily earth-shattering.

The key takeaway? Graduates of HBS, Wharton, and other ultra-elite business schools earn more money over the span of their careers than grads from any other MBA program. HBS grads earn the most, comfortably ahead of second-place Wharton. While these numbers are certainly interesting, there were a few other numbers in the article that piqued our interest more.

What Does It All Mean?
I'm not going to tear the study apart; I think it's a really fascinating subject, one that gets right at the heart of what we do here at Veritas Prep. But, as the article states, the study does have its shortcomings. First, the study excludes harder-to-measure compensation items such as stock options, meaning that it might look at the Stanford GSB grad who joined Google back in 1999 as a relative pauper.

(As an aside, check out the guy in the picture in the new BusinessWeek article. Looks like he's driving a car that can float in water, some sort of high-end amphibious convertible. We want one!)

Also, as far as I can tell, the survey doesn't compare apples to apples as far as carer paths go. Of course the MBA who builds a fast-track career on Wall Street is going to make more money than the grad who joins a leadership development program at a medium-sized manufacturing company. Does that mean that the former grad necessarily got more bang for his buck from his MBA program? (Or, is an MBA "not worth it" unless you're going to embark on one of those seven-figure career paths?)

What We Really Want to Know
The real question that we'd like to answer -- and, again, this study deserves credit for getting closer to the answer than most others ever have -- is how much more a business school grad makes over the course of his career because he attended a given MBA program. Undoubtedly, a large part of the appeal of a top business school is that it opens the doors to those seven-figure banking careers (and attractive management consulting gigs, terrific leadership development programs, challenging brand management opportunities, etc.). But, what numbers the study uncovers will be heavily impacted by what careers a given school's graduates pursue. A school that sends a high percentage of its grads to investment banks will certainly show higher lifetime earnings than a school that sends a large number of grads into the non-profit sector.

One way to at least partly solve this problem would be for the study to break out graduates by job or industry. That may prove challenging because graduates switch jobs a lot, and in some cases breaking down the numbers may make a certain school's numbers too small to be statistically reliable, but it would be an interesting exercise.

Intriguing Stats Regarding Salary Increases
Beyond that, we were intrigued by the measure of how much certain business school grads' compensation increases over 20 years. Interestingly, the average increase for graduates of the top 45 MBA programs was 75%, which mirrors the average increase that the general U.S. population sees. Of course, MBA graduates' salaries start out much higher than most typical U.S. workers' so you're talking about a larger dollar gain over those 20 years, but this was still interesting to us. If a business school prepares a young professional to lead, wouldn't you expect top business school grads' salaries to increase faster than that of the typical American? It's an interesting question.

And, some top MBA programs -- such as Ross, Yale, Sloan, and Tuck -- have graduates whose salaries increase significantly less than the average American's. That's not a list a school would want to be on! But, again, there are so many factors in play (including, as one MIT Sloan representative pointed out, the fact that many grads may go into entrepreneurship, which may produce an artificially low salary number for some grads). So, again, very interesting numbers, but be sure to take them all with a grain of salt.

Let's Do Some Research!
Finally, getting back to the question I raised earlier -- how to know how much a business school is responsible for a graduate's lifetime earnings -- probably the only way to truly answer the question would be to conduct a controlled study from start to finish. Find a population of promising young professionals who are considering a variety of career paths, randomly assign them to each of the country's top business schools, and then watch their earnings over the next 20 years. Now that would be an interesting study.

Anyone interested in being randomly assigned to Harvard?

If you're planning on applying to business school this year, give us a call at (800) 925-7737 and speak with one of our business school admissions experts today. And, as always, be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow us on Twitter!

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MBA Job Market Still Gloomy, But Improving

Last week the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) announced the results of a new employer survey that suggests that while the job market for MBA grads is still rough, we may finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. The reason for the optimism? The percentage of employers planning to hire MBA is up this year compared with 2009, although the number of new hires per company is expected to decline slightly.

After a sharp drop in stated hiring intentions last year (down to 50%), in this year's survey about 55% of employers who participated in the GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey said they planned to hire new MBA grads this year. What may be even more promising for the job market is that employers also indicated they may finally be shifting away from cost-cutting in favor of trying to grow their businesses again.

In a statement that accompanied the release of the survey results, GMAC President Dave Wilson said:

"Employers have spoken clearly. The intrinsic value they place on the skills people develop in business school does not rise and fall just because the economy does. Management talent is always critical to the well-being of any organization, and as conditions improve, employers will find ways to acquire more of that talent."

So, if you're in business school now or plan to apply to an MBA program this year, you may actually land a good job when you graduate, after all. However, it may take a while for MBA grads' salaries to start growing again. A separate GMAC survey found that only 40% of full-time, two-year MBA program graduates had at least one job offer before finishing school, down from 50% in 2009. And, the number of job offers reported by the grads who participated in this study declined by about 13% from the previous year. (By the way, our 100% free Annual Reports provide job placement info and much more, for 15 of the world's top MBA programs.)

So, although companies are saying the right things, there still remains a large number of new and and recent grads looking for MBA-level work. As long as that glut of talent is out there, salaries for new MBA grads probably won't grow much. But, "Will I get a job??" is still the primary question on most business school students' minds, and for the first time in a while, the answer to this question looks to be turning toward the affirmative.

If you're starting to plan your MBA candidacy, call us at (800) 925-7737 and speak with one of our MBA admissions today. And, be sure to subscribe to this blog and follow us on Twitter!

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Business Schools Pound the Pavement for MBA Job Seekers

Recently the Yale Daily News ran an article about how the Yale SOM alumni network has matured to the point where current students benefit from the wide variety of Yale alumni across industries. This is notable since the school has only been around since 1976 -- making it a spring chicken compared to most top MBA programs.

However, as good as that news is for Yale students, what we found even more impressive is how the school's own administration -- all the way up to Dean Sharon Oster -- hasn't hesitated to make personal appeals to the school's alumni and supporters, in the name of helping students find jobs in a tough economy.

According to the Yale Daily News:

In an e-mail to all SOM alumni, Oster called on the school's graduates to step up and help current students, recent graduates and even other alumni seeking jobs and internships.

"Although the economy seems to be showing signs of improvement, most of my faculty colleagues agree that we're not out of the woods yet," Oster wrote in the e-mail. "The strength of the SOM community is most visible in times of adversity, and so I am writing to you now to tap into some of that strength."

Within a few hours, Oster had received hundreds of responses.

We love this kind of commitment to helping Yale students find jobs. After all, as important as a student's two years in the classroom are, at least as important are the professional opportunities that an MBA opens up for that student. Some schools were a little slow to remember this (in our opinion) as the economy started to sink in 2008, but it's great to see that this is not the case in 2010.

Of course, when Yale SOM makes news, our co-founders (both Yale SOM '02) are always happy to weigh in! Veritas Prep co-founder Chad Troutwine was quoted in the article, and he cheered Oster's actions:

Chad Troutwine SOM '02, the co-founder and owner of test operations and admissions consulting company Veritas Prep, said he was glad to receive Oster's message.

"I'm always impressed with a dean who rolls up her sleeves and dives in to perform what is perhaps her most important function —- and that is doing everything in her power to help graduates or first-year students to land jobs," he said.

For more advice on your own candidacy for Yale SOM or any other top business school, call the business school admissions experts at Veritas Prep at (800) 925-7737, and we'll gladly give you an initial assessment of your candidacy!

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Signs of Green Shoots in the MBA Job Market?

In a recent Reuters article, MIT Sloan students had a rather optimistic outlook on the job market, considering how gloomy it has been for the past couple of years. As they returned from their annual "Tech Treck" job trips, in which they visit employers all over the United States, students expressed that they think the worst of the bad job market is behind us.

It sounds as though companies -- especially the more tech-oriented ones that Sloan students visit -- could finally start hiring again this year. While it will likely be a while before companies again start hiring at the levels that MIT Sloan and other top business schools have grown accustomed to, it sounds like the trend is clearly positive.

According to the article:

"Our MBAs are unbowed, and they came back with a lot of gusto," said Sloan adviser Paul Denning, who has made the trek to California for several years. "The general consensus is that things are better, particularly in Silicon Valley."

Last year, Denning said, even tech giant Google, "was really not hiring. Everything had contracted after the financial market collapse." Now, green shoots are popping up.

Like those of other top business schools, MIT Sloan graduates find themselves choosing among multiple six-figure job offers, but that changed last year, when even healthy and growing companies such as Google significantly cut back on the number of Sloan grads that it hired. Now, as companies expect demand to warm up and some spot opportunities that they will need managerial talent to go after, grads at Sloan and other top business schools can expect the job offers to start flowing again, at least more than they did last year.

For MBA students who will graduate this year, many of whom still hope to land jobs before they graduate this spring, the news that some companies are ready to hire again is obviously a very welcome sign. It's even better news for the Class of 2011, though -- assuming they can find some sort of meaningful internship work this coming summer, they still have at least a year's more time for the economy to warm up again before they they need to find full-time work. And, the job market for today's applicants (the Class of 2012) looks even rosier, assuming that a steady thaw continues.

For more advice on your own candidacy for MIT Sloan or any other top business school, call the MBA admissions experts at Veritas Prep at (800) 925-7737, and we'll gladly give you an initial assessment of your candidacy!

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Is Grad School the Last Resort for Generation Y?

In an article on Forbes.com yesterday, Deb Weinstein reports that jobless grads are increasingly turning to grad school as a backup option in the face of dismal job prospects, even though some of their possible post-school job prospects are also disappearing.

As we've reported here before, both of the GRE and the GMAT have seen growth in the number of tests taken in the U.S. over the past year -- 13% and 4.9%, respectively. (Some of that GRE growth may have come from more business schools increasingly accepting the GRE.) Even more impressively, the LSAT saw a 20% jump in the number of tests taken in 2009 vs. 2008. This comes while some big law firms are actually paying their new hires to take a year off.

But the growth doesn't stop there. Even journalism schools have seen record numbers of applications this past year, even as the publishing industry has shed 90,000 jobs and more than 100 newspapers have shut down. Why would these people all rush back to school now?

The obvious answer is that, although their job prospects may not be especially bright when they graduate, these young grads would rather take their chances in the job market in two or three years, rather than now. Even if the job market isn't significantly better in 2012, then at least these folks will come out of school armed with additional skills, certifications, and contacts, making their reentry into the job market a little easier (at least in theory).

Also, human nature steers us toward a "I'll worry about it later" mentality -- even if they don't end up being any better off in a couple of years, at least getting into grad school will give these young people the luxury of being able to hide out on campus and not quite yet have to face the real world. Sometimes, especially when the economy is rough, this can be grad school's biggest appeal (especially when Mom and Dad pay for it!).

If you're thinking about graduate school and want more help in getting into business school, law school, or medical school, call us at (800) 925-7737 and speak with a Veritas Prep admissions expert today!

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In a Rough Job Market, Some Business Schools Fare Better than Others

Last week BusinessWeek ran an article titled "MBAs Confront a Savage Job Market," which painted a pretty rough picture for many grads of top MBA programs. At some top business schools, as many as 20% of grads were still unemployed three months after graduation. Furthermore, according to BusinessWeek, 16.5% of job-seeking students from the top 30 MBA programs did not get even one offer within three months of graduation (compared to 5% for the Class of 2008).

Salary numbers also suggested that the job market for MBAs isn't great: Starting pay was down from about $98,000 in 2008 to $96,500 this year. For many of the top-30 business schools, this is the first time since the the dot-com crash that salaries haven't increased, adding to the evidence that this is truly a once-in-a-generation (or once-in-a-decade?) downturn.

Fortunately for some grads, though, the world of top-30 business schools is not universally gloomy. Some schools' career offices have been able to direct their students into more stable industries, such as government, health care, energy, and the non-profit sector. While becoming a mid-level government bureaucrat may not quite hold the same appeal as being a six-figure-making banker, many grads have opened their eyes and realized that these sectors are where the jobs are right now, and are taking these jobs when they can.

In other cases, hiring did happen, although it happened later than it normally does. The Kellogg School of Management, for instance, reported that 85% of of its grads received at least one offer, although many students received offers late in the spring -- months later than they normally would. (To learn more about the Kellogg School of Management, download our free Veritas Prep Kellogg Annual Report.)

Other top schools have also been able to weather the storm pretty well. BusinessWeek ranked the schools in terms of how well they've held up job-wise in the recession, with Yale, Washington University, HBS, Stanford, and MIT Sloan coming out on top. At Yale, for example, only 8% of grads were without any job offers three months after graduation, just two percentage points higher than a year ago. While not all of these placed grads ended up in the careers they envisioned when they first applied to business school, you can be sure that they're glad to have jobs at all.

If you're just now starting to research business schools, download our 15 free Veritas Prep Annual Reports. If you're ready to craft your own winning application, call us at 800-925-7737 and speak with an MBA admissions expert today!

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Corporate Recruiters Using the GMAT to Select Candidates

Yesterday BusinessWeek ran an article about corporate recruiters using business school students' GMAT scores as a way to select candidates for job interviews. While this is nothing new, the article included some interesting quotes from business school career office administrators who have advised some students to retake the GMAT to improve their chances of landing job interviews with top-tier consulting firms and investment banks.

In this tough job climate, especially, no MBA student wants to give recruiters any reason to drop his resume into the discard pile. While they may have ignored the advice to retake the GMAT a few years ago, now they're much more willing to listen when someone suggests they should retake the GMAT, particularly when it comes from the career services office. And some schools, particularly those that may struggle to keep top-tier firms coming back to campus in this economy, have even offered their students school-run GMAT courses to help their students boost their scores.

Balancing out the seemingly increased importance of the GMAT in the hiring process, the article quotes a director of recruiting at Bain & Co. (a company for which Veritas Prep runs corporate GMAT courses), who explains that most candidates that the company would consider tend to have high GMAT scores, anyway, so the test itself doesn't end up being a big differentiating factor in the hiring process. He even went on to say that Bain's own research shows that there's virtually no correlation between a new hire's GMAT score and that person's success on the job at Bain.

Interestingly, schools' own pass-fail systems and grade non-disclosure policies may contribute to companies' tendency to rely more on the GMAT. These policies are in place to discourage cut-throat competition and to encourage students to focus on learning, but they also take away what is an important hiring criterion for some companies. As a result, these companies grab for the next best data they can find, which are a student's GMAT score and undergraduate GPA. In this way, schools have shifted some of the competitiveness from the classroom to things that students must do before they even set foot in a classroom.

What does this mean for you? Honestly, if you're going to a top-ten business school, hiring companies are more likely to assume you "have what it takes," and will rely less on your GMAT score (although they will still ask for it) in deciding whether or not to interview you. If you're at a lower-ranked school where top-tier firms only hire a handful of students each year, you're more likely to need every advantage you can get to stand out vs. your peers. In this case, if your score isn't high enough, you may want to consider retaking the GMAT. (How high is high enough? There's no hard cutoff, although ideally you will have scored in at least the 80th percentile on both the quant and verbal sections.)

If you're considering retaking the GMAT, take a look at the GMAT prep classes that Veritas Prep offers. And, as always, be sure to follow us on Twitter!

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Stanford GSB Job Statistics for the Class of 2008

Recently Stanford GSB published its final job placement statistics for the Class of 2008.

Not surprisingly, consulting was the most popular single industry, with 27% of the class opting for a median starting salary of $1250,000 and a median signing bonus of $20,000. Private equity came next, at 14% of the class, with the median starting salary being $150,000 and the median signing bonus clocking in at $32,500.

Slicing it by function, consulting was still the most popular, at 29% of the class, with private equity (16%) and investment management (8%) coming next.

The most popular careers for the Stanford GSB Class of 2008 were:

Industry	Percentage of Class	Median Base Salary	Median Signing Bonus
Consulting	27	$125,000	$20,000
Private Equity/LBO	14	$150,000	$32,500
Hedge Funds	8	$150,000	$25,000
Internet Services/E-Commerce	6	$115,000	$22,500
Investment Banking/Brokerage	5	$ 95,500	$40,000
Nonprofit	5	$ 80,000	n/a
Venture Capital	5	$155,000	n/a
Investment Management	4	$127,500	$19,125
Real Estate	4	$112,500	$15,000
Consumer Products	3	$100,000	$20,000
Pharma/Biotech/Healthcare	3	$103,750	$20,000

Source: Stanford GSB Blog

Interesting to see that the non-profit sector accounted for 5% of Stanford GSB grads' post-MBA career plans. While this is consistent with other top schools' statistics, we wonder if this number will increase this year and next as the rough economy encourages more grads to pursue non-profit and social enterprise careers in place of high-paying consulting and banking jobs, which may not be plentiful in the near term.

To get a feel for your chances of gaining admission to Stanford, try Veritas Prep's Business School Selector.

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HBS Class of 2009 Employment Update

Last week Harvard Business School's Dee Leopold posted an update on HBS second-year students' job prospects for this year. This update is especially interesting to anyone who is preparing to leave a steady job this year to enter a full-time MBA program.

According to Leopold, 77% of the HBS Class of 2009's job seekers (this excludes anyone who will continue academic work or who will return to a previous employer) have found full-time jobs. She went on to write:

I don't have any more details to offer at this point, but we are proud of both our students and our Career Services team who have helped many of our students discover and pursue their dreams and find new opportunities in the midst of great uncertainty in the market. It is still months from graduation and companies and organizations continue to be a big presence on campus - spring will be lively here at HBS. We will provide updates as the season progresses.

Hopefully for those HBS students -- and for students at all business schools this year -- spring will indeed prove to be a lively season for recruiting.

For more information on HBS, visit the Veritas Prep Harvard Business School information page.

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Job Prospects for Business School Graduates Grow Dimmer

Adding to the steady drumbeat of news about the worsening economy in the U.S., this week the Wall Street Journal ran a story about how business schools have seen a record drop-off in recruitment for internships and for full-time jobs.

According to a survey that the Journal conducted in January, 56% of career services offices said that on-campus recruiting was down more than 10% this winter. While that's not necessarily surprising, the trend seems to be accelerating: last fall only 12% estimated that recruiting was down vs. year ago. And activity on the schools' jobs boards is sluggish, with 50% of career offices reporting that activity was down more than 10%, and 20% saying that job-posting activity was down more than 20%.

Compared to surveys conducted in the fall, this report suggests that the economic slowdown caught all but the most pessimistic business school students and career-services officers off their guard. While all schools were bracing for bad news and rough job prospects in the financial sector, the economic downdraft caused by that industry's troubles has affected every sector where MBA grads typically find jobs.

If you're applying to business school now, or are getting ready to apply soon, the obvious question is: What does this mean for you? As we always tell our admissions consulting clients at Veritas Prep, going back to the school (or NOT going back to school) just because of the economy doesn't make sense. And, if you have a good job right now, the thought of leaving it for an uncertain future can be intimidating. However, know that these downturns typically last no more than 2-3 years, meaning that, by the time you would graduate in 2011 or 2012, the odds are pretty good that the job market will once again return to form.

I personally have walked in these shoes. I applied to business school in 2001/2002, right as the coming recession was compounded by the shock of 9/11 to create headlines about worsening job prospects and rescinded job offers for MBAs. By the time I graduated from Kellogg in 2004, the job market was again humming along nicely, and we battle-hardened second-year students regaled jaded first-years with tales about how rough we had it back in the day. Fast-forward three years, and the Kellogg Management Center again had to enforce rules to keep recruiters from not overdoing it on campus.

My point? These things are always cyclical. While this is a particularly rough cycle, especially for someone who will graduate this spring, the job market will bounce back. It always does.

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GMAC's New MBA Alumni Survey Results

According to the results of a new survey published by the Graduate Management Admission Council, most business school grads agree that an MBA is well worth the investment.

In the 2008 MBA Alumni Perspectives Survey, nine out of 10 grads from the Class of 2008 reports that their graduate business education met or exceeded their expectations. Additionally, 80% of MBA grads in the workforce believe that they couldn't have obtained their first job without their degree.

Even more encouraging are the numbers regarding job satisfaction. According to the survey, two out of three alumni reported that their first job was the one they wanted, which actually represented a rise in job satisfaction vs. previous years.

Another point of interest was the average number of job offers that each Class of 2008 grad received -- 2.7 job offers per person. Unfortunately, this number will likely trend down as the economy suffers, but the survey overall confirms the value of an MBA, regardless of whether a grad receives one, two, or ten job offers.

If you're applying to business school this year, be sure to check out the Veritas Prep MBA admissions resources page.

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This Year's Job Prospects for MBAs

A recent article in Time described the worsening job prospects for business school students in light of the economic downturn. At schools that just a year ago were begging their students to honor their job interview commitments, some second-year students are now worried if they'll receive any job offers by the time they graduate next spring.

Heads of career services offices at many top schools all describe the same attitude among employers: "Wait and see." Many companies have instituted headcount freezes, and even at ones that haven't, hiring managers are being given fewer offers to make. Today they're much more afraid of hiring too many MBA grads than hiring too few -- they know that they'll always be able to go back to campus in early 2009 and pick up a few more new hires if they need to.

What can business school students do? Proactive job seekers are looking beyond the on-campus recruiting process to find opportunities on their own. And they're also widening their job search to consider careers outside of banking ans consulting. Joining a smaller firm may come back into fashion as some companies that normally couldn't make much impact at a top school find that many grads now eagerly attend their information sessions.

The worst time to be in school is right when the economy takes a turn for the worse -- there's nothing like having a job offer rescinded. For people who apply to business school this year, though, the question is: What will the economy look like in two or three years? That's anyone's guess, but here's hoping that the worst of the unpleasant surprises are behind us.

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MBA Grads Face Wall Street Uncertainty

Even Harvard Business School grads are feeling the pain in Wall Street's current troubles. A recent article in the Boston Globe uncovered what HBS is doing to help its own students and recent graduates who are affected by the turmoil.

According to the article:

In the school's first intervention on behalf of newly minted graduates, seven Harvard career coaches flew to New York to huddle with 18 members of the Class of 2008 who had taken jobs at troubled firms like Lehman Brothers Holding Co. and Merrill Lynch. All were still working, but didn't know what the next day would bring. Harvard's delegation promised to set up interviews with other employers.

Much like with the ethics cases of recent years, many b-school professors see this as an opportunity to teach important lessons in the moment. And students are hungry for those lessons -- a Wharton panel discussion on Wall Street's troubles recently drew more than 1,000 students.

Even the firms that are on good footing, such as Goldman Sachs, have delayed making job offers this year. And students who thought they were headed to Wall Street are now considering alternative career paths, either in corporate finance roles, management consulting, or even in financial regulatory roles. With a new regulatory framework potentially emerging, the federal government could ironically end up being a big source of jobs for these displaced finance-minded MBAs.

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Recruiter Demand for MBA Grads Remains Strong

This month the Graduate Management Admission Council released a report showing that demand for business school graduate remains strong even as the economy shows signs of weakness.

The report, produced by GMAC in partnership with the MBA Career Services Council and European Foundation for Management Development, shows 6% growth in the percentage of employers making offers to MBA grads, and an 11% increase in the average number of hires by each hiring company.

The results for compensation growth also looked encouraging. Three-quarters of employers reported that they expect to increase the annual base salary of 2008 grads vs. last year's hiring class. The projected starting base salary for all business school graduates is $89,621, about 4% more than last year. Not surprisingly, consulting (over $111,000) and finance (over $110,000) offer the highest average total compensation.

What does this mean for you? Most of all, it suggests you should stay the course. No radical changes to the hiring outlook suggest that you, if you've been planning to apply for business school, don't stop now. If you haven't been planning on doing so, then these numbers probably won't change your mind.

It will be interesting to see what next year's numbers look like, and what impact the overall economy has to the number of people applying to business school in 2008-2009.

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