Why do so many people, especially 5th year runners, get useless master’s degrees like an MBA right after college??

Not ready to move onto the real world yet, to put it simply

Stanford GSB isn’t admitting inexperienced 22 year olds. At least not unless it’s a delayed admission.

op's fictional NCAA D1 All-American to BCG consultant pipeline

snowdays wrote:

op's fictional NCAA D1 All-American to BCG consultant pipeline

Actually I think the opposite is likely. I have a negative view of D1 athletics & think being one interferes with doing internships and proper professional development.

It looks useless at a glance but to be honest, a lot of employers will not move you up in your company unless you have one. A masters opens up a lot of opportunities.

MBA is for professionals wrote:

I’m curious. I thought it was common knowledge that an MBA is only useful if you have at least 3 years of post college work experience before entering the program, yet I see people on here writing that they’re going for an MBA at 22 immediately after college. Don’t do that.

Same goes for 5th year runners going for a “masters in management” which is worse.

You are thinking too narrowly. You are only partially correct. You are thinking: Investment analyst with undergrad in business administration, overlooked for promotion to senior investment analyst. Gal or guy obtains master degree, then either is promoted to senior investment analyst or obtains said position with another investment company.

A 23 year old with no work experience leaves school with M.B.A. Said 23 year old has to start off as a salesperson. If that person fails as a salesperson, those with M.B.A. often fail up and get offered a management job.

There is nothing wrong with plowing through in a 3 plus 2 M.B.A. program and leaving college at age 22 or 23 with master degree in business. Logistically it make a lot more sense than working for three years after college, get used to spending $75,000 plus per year, have bills, are you supposed to go back to school and live on Ramen noodles, canned chicken and canned tuna? No!

ligma wrote:

It looks useless at a glance but to be honest, a lot of employers will not move you up in your company unless you have one. A masters opens up a lot of opportunities.

I thought the conventional wisdom nowadays was that a master’s could “overqualify” you & thus put you out of the running for a position if you’re not experienced enough. In my experience, getting at least one internships is way harder than getting high grades in school (no I’m not a shut in),

Well, if you can get into a top 10 school then why not get it out the way. You may not get the promotions for several years but at least you’ll have it. It is often times better to wait as the OP said.

The biggest issue is being overqualified. With an MBA and no work experience it can be challenging to find an employer willing to make you an offer. For instance, an entry level analyst role (which is what you will get with 0 experience or only intern experience) will pay you in the $60k-$75k range. Most employers expect an MBA to reject that offer. So they won’t even give you an interview. Or if they do they’ll make it clear up front in the initial screen interview they are not paying you an MBA salary. And if you’re ok with that it may work out. This does signal another issue though. If you’re willing to work for less, maybe you aren’t that great? This signaling is important.

A related issue is they will be concerned you will jump ship. Essentially just looking for a job for the short term until you find a better one because you have the MBA. So they may be reluctant to offer a job.

A similar situation exists for PhDs. A lot of kids get PhDs straight out of their undergrad and then it’s impossible to get a private sector job because they’d have to take that entry level role and salary with a PhD. Unless they develop incredible coding skills that can translate into a $150k coding position. But only a handful of these exist in the country per year. So most end up teaching. And once you start teaching, unless you focus on practical industry research (e.g. publish in practitioner journals such as the journal of portfolio management) that gets the attention of the private sector, you will be stuck teaching your entire life. And that my friends is why there are so many bad, miserable professors in the world.

The answer is obvious : at most schools an MBA is super easy and they want to run for an extra year or two. An MA or MSc requires more coursework and thesis.

I believe that an MBA right after undergrad is pretty useless unless you're an engineering student who wants to do tech sales or smt like that . Might actually hurt you in a job search as you're a bit overqualified. Otherwise, a master's in engineering/CS is useful in directing your career towards a subfield that interests and potentially making more $, same for an MA but the financial rewards are not always there. It seems like the sweet spot for an MBA is after 2-4 years of experience, when you want to move towards management/switch industries/need to move up in your company.

Elite MBAs that open doors to BCG/McKinsey/Bain, Investment Banking, VC... "Elite Jobs". do not admit people directly from undergrad. - On that front OP is right...

But I don't quite get OP's complaint, as anyone who couldn't have figured that out on their own wasn't:

1. Dreaming of getting into those kinds of careers

2. Getting into one of those programs even if they were

From an athlete's perspective, since OP highlights them:

I rarely think athletes are wasting their academic potential in a significant way. You can have examples like Yared Nuguse (Notre Dame Biochemistry) turning down Dental School, but guys who are majoring in Communications at Oregon are definitely not lost MIT Computer Engineers had they not been athletes.

Hell, you don't even know if they'd be in school at all.

Sincerely,

-D1 Walkon/Washout to FinTech PM