Chicago Booth part-time MBA

I don’t think you (or most people, for that matter) can ever presume that they “will” get into a top program. As you already know, and as you and I have discussed privately, it’s about much more than just numbers, pedigree, etc. I’m pretty involved with my school’s admissions process and, at least for my school, it is my impression that the candidates that are tend to be most preoccupied with numbers tend to miss other things that matter such as intangibles, quality of presentation, continuity of career story, and an overall “wow” factor that we often look for as a proxy for leadership capabilities. Things like GMAT scores can be cultivated over several weeks of reputation; intangibles take a career or potentially a lifetime to cultivate. In the end, it’s often the the less quantifiable characteristics that separate those that get in from those that don’t.
 
numi wrote:
I don’t think you (or most people, for that matter) can ever presume that they “will” get into a top program. As you already know, and as you and I have discussed privately, it’s about much more than just numbers, pedigree, etc. I’m pretty involved with my school’s admissions process and, at least for my school, it is my impression that the candidates that are tend to be most preoccupied with numbers tend to miss other things that matter such as intangibles, quality of presentation, continuity of career story, and an overall “wow” factor that we often look for as a proxy for leadership capabilities. Things like GMAT scores can be cultivated over several weeks of reputation; intangibles take a career or potentially a lifetime to cultivate. In the end, it’s often the the less quantifiable characteristics that separate those that get in from those that don’t.
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Yes, I’m very aware of the nature of the admissions process. My point was that academically I’m on par with the full-time programs since one of the concerns recruiters have about part-timers is that they aren’t “smart” enough and not as strong analytically.
 
I’m finishing up my part time MBA at Ohio State, which is not in the same tier as Booth, Kellogg or Ivy, it is still pretty respectable (part time is 8th, full time is 27th). I would agree with what everyone has said, that the full timers tend to be, on the median, a bit smarter overall, and much stronger analytically. However, I have noticed that they tend to lack perspective when it comes to application in the real world. In my Valuations class, for example full time students have a hard time understanding basic assumptions that part timers, and people on this forum especially, understand very well. For example, several of them couldn’t quite grasp the idea of using a terminal growth rate that was around that of the general economy, that it is impossible to be substantially higher in perpetuity, or how we can forecast sales for sure (reminded me of that Vicki post) One even asked, “how do we know that in 5 years the company is going to grow at a steady 3% per year, every year?” When these people look down on me for being a part timer, it makes me want to slap the sh!t out of them with my charter!
KSC - I have a few friends that recently graduated from Booth’s PT program and I am pretty sure they used OCR to get jobs.
 
What type of jobs did your friends in Booth PT recruit for? How successful were they in getting jobs?
cfakid wrote:
I’m finishing up my part time MBA at Ohio State, which is not in the same tier as Booth, Kellogg or Ivy, it is still pretty respectable (part time is 8th, full time is 27th). I would agree with what everyone has said, that the full timers tend to be, on the median, a bit smarter overall, and much stronger analytically. However, I have noticed that they tend to lack perspective when it comes to application in the real world. In my Valuations class, for example full time students have a hard time understanding basic assumptions that part timers, and people on this forum especially, understand very well. For example, several of them couldn’t quite grasp the idea of using a terminal growth rate that was around that of the general economy, that it is impossible to be substantially higher in perpetuity, or how we can forecast sales for sure (reminded me of that Vicki post) One even asked, “how do we know that in 5 years the company is going to grow at a steady 3% per year, every year?” When these people look down on me for being a part timer, it makes me want to slap the sh!t out of them with my charter!
KSC - I have a few friends that recently graduated from Booth’s PT program and I am pretty sure they used OCR to get jobs.
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They both got jobs, one was in Accounting and the other got one in digital marketing or something like that.
 
I wouldn’t agree that general FT candidates are smarter than part-timer. The only difference I see and guess is part-timers really juggle with their time. Having a full-time job on the side, most of them just cannot dedicate enough time to do all the required readings, or assignments. That makes all the difference. They are not intellectually inferior to any of the full-timers just choose to do the part-time programme for one reason or another.
I also think they should be respected even more than those full-timers as it is definitely more challenging to work and study at the same time.
 
nicfrancais wrote:
I wouldn’t agree that general FT candidates are smarter than part-timer. The only difference I see and guess is part-timers really juggle with their time. Having a full-time job on the side, most of them just cannot dedicate enough time to do all the required readings, or assignments. That makes all the difference. They are not intellectually inferior to any of the full-timers just choose to do the part-time programme for one reason or another.
I also think they should be respected even more than those full-timers as it is definitely more challenging to work and study at the same time.
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To be fair though, the median GMAT of booth part-time is about 30 points lower than full-time, a HUGE difference. I think the top 10-20% of part-timers is comparable to the full-timers, but there is no doubt that the median part-timer is of lower caliber. I live in Chicago and know tons of people from both programs, so I’m pretty confident about this.
 
It is stupid to argue whether or not PT is as smart/capable as the FT students. This is not objective and can’t be proved. Everyone in this thread is just using anecdotal evidence.
The bottom line is that the FT program draws applicants from the entire country and internationally as Booth is one of the top MBA programs. The PT program is drawing from an applicant pool of people located in and near Chicago. The FT program obviously receives more applicants and therefore can be more selective in its admissions making it more difficult to get admitted.
Employers know this and are going to view PT students as “worse” than FT students on average. Is this fair to everyone? No. There are plenty of very smart people in PT MBA programs because the opportunity cost of giving up 2 years of their salary doesn’t make sense. But at the end of the day it is what it is.
 
ksc1940 wrote:
To be fair though, the median GMAT of booth part-time is about 30 points lower than full-time, a HUGE difference. I think the top 10-20% of part-timers is comparable to the full-timers, but there is no doubt that the median part-timer is of lower caliber.
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Yep. Just like the top 10 in the Forbes 400 are worth an average of $48.6b. #6-10 are worth a piddling $41.5b, which is a HUUUUUUUUGE difference!!!! There’s no doubt that the average 6-10 is of lower caliber.
Of course, when we’re talking about people worth forty billion dollars…does it really matter? Just like…if you scored 720 (as opposed to 750), then you’re still in the 94th percentile.
An employer could do a lot worse than picking one of the smartest 6% of all grads in the US.
 
Don’t take this personally, but this is one of the dumbest posts I’ve read. You seriously just compared the net worth of the 10 wealthiest person in the world to the median GMAT scores of 600+ people b-schools classes. When there is a 30-point difference in median GMAT scores, that is statistically significant, and from the standpoint of selectivity, it’s also a huge difference.
Greenman72 wrote:
ksc1940 wrote:
To be fair though, the median GMAT of booth part-time is about 30 points lower than full-time, a HUGE difference. I think the top 10-20% of part-timers is comparable to the full-timers, but there is no doubt that the median part-timer is of lower caliber.
Click to expand...
Yep. Just like the top 10 in the Forbes 400 are worth an average of $48.6b. #6-10 are worth a piddling $41.5b, which is a HUUUUUUUUGE difference!!!! There’s no doubt that the average 6-10 is of lower caliber.
Of course, when we’re talking about people worth forty billion dollars…does it really matter? Just like…if you scored 720 (as opposed to 750), then you’re still in the 94th percentile.
An employer could do a lot worse than picking one of the smartest 6% of all grads in the US.
Click to expand...
 
I get what Greenie is trying to say, but 7.1B is a huge difference. I would consider hacksawing IRL if someone would give me that money.
 
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