Perspectives are like snow flakes: you can group them by common traits (powder, sleet, hail, etc.) but no two are ever exactly alike. In this, the week that will see us hardily entering November, and the week when my iPhone first included the negative symbol before the Celsius temperature in the Hanover weather forecast on my iPhone, I thought I would come back in from the blogging cold (oh, the puns are plentiful today!) by sharing a range of perspectives on Tuck I’ve encountered on my recent travels. Names have been changed, partially to protect the sources, and largely because it is fun to create pseudonyms. Here goes:
JEAN-PIERRE, a T’11 now working as an investor in Silicon Valley
“Tuck felt like living life in parentheses. The whole experience was not real. I went back there last weekend and arriving in Lebanon Airport and seeing all the sights… it was like being in a dream. I loved it.”
PERCY, another Tuckie, now working at one of the hottest tech companies in SF
“I use material from classes in my job every day. For example, Neslin’s database marketing class: the combination of analytics and intuition that guy taught is incredibly powerful and really allows me to stand out against my peers.”
ESMERALDA, a second year at another top-tier business school
“My two biggest frustrations are the weakness of our career development office (they bring a narrow set of companies to campus and you have to plan appointments to meet with CDO team members well in advance) and the fact that we have to take electives in the evening because the Executive and Part-time MBA students are in the same classes.”
GOLIATH, another T’11 in the Bay Area
“We all read the Business Week rankings back in Spring and scoffed at how useless rankings were – and now everyone is getting excited about The Economist.”
BOB, a prospective Tuckie, now an Associate at a PE firm
“I’ve heard that Tuck is the place you go when you want a top tier business education and you actually care whether you enjoy the experience of getting it.”
Now, please allow me to reflect further on Esmeralda’s and Goliath’s comments (these are great names, huh?) then finish with a perspective of my own.
Re: Esmeralda. This was an epiphany for me – sometimes it’s difficult to appreciate how good something is until you realize how bad it could be. We Tuckies take the CDO for granted, but there’s a reason Tuck places more students into jobs within three months of graduation than any other school in the world – and that Tuck graduates’ average earnings are amongst the highest around. The CDO works incredibly hard and brings a vast array of top companies across pretty much every industry to campus – they serve great opportunities to students on a warm plate. They are also remarkably available – both because there’s a reasonably big team relative to the size of the student body, and because they really care about their jobs and about Tuck students.
Secondly, when Dean Danos talks about the special commitment Tuck has to a single degree – no PhD students to distract professors from MBAs, no part-time or EMBAs to mess up with the schedule nor cheapen the qualification – I failed to appreciate how big a deal that really is. My advice to prospective applicants to any top business school would be to ask current students about their experience in relation to both of Esmeralda’s concerns.
Re: Hercules. He has a point. As pleasing as it is to be recognized as the best MBA program in the world by The Economist, it makes sense for prospective students to look at all rankings in aggregate, then to pay little attention to them beyond knowing that a group of schools are consistently ranked in the top 10 or thereabouts. Once you know the school is top tier, the decision becomes a personal one based on fit, geography, etc. I would recommend reading the application materials then visiting at least five campuses (including a mix of city “commuter” schools, and campus-centric schools like Tuck – they have VERY different feels).
FINALLY – my own perspective on Tuck so far. I recorded a video at the end of first year that is now on the Tuck admissions site here. I have found that the MBA has removed much of the mystique of business for me. Never again will I sit in a meeting feeling like the finance guy, afraid to ask a question for fear of lacking knowledge of the basics in other disciplines, such as strategy, operations, marketing. The experience has reduced my arrogance (because I’m consistently humbled by the superior intelligence of my classmates) and concurrently increased my confidence (because I have a broader knowledge base and understand myself better). That is a pretty powerful combination.
Read the full article: Snowflakes