I have a cousin who is currently a DBA student at HBS, and suggested that in light of my rejection from HBS a few years ago, perhaps I should try the DBA program instead. Not only would I get to work closely with professors and get more of an education in the 4-5 year program, but DBA students pay no tuition and are actually paid to be students, earning $35K per year, and get other perks as well. And since my cousin was also rejected from the MBA program at HBS, he thought maybe my previous rejection wasn’t necessarily a sign that I would also be rejected from the DBA program.
At first I was tempted, I have to admit. No tuition, plus pay? The chance to work directly with Clayton Christensen, perhaps? How much better could this get? But three things prevent me from taking the opportunity seriously:
1. The first line of the DBA overview states “Harvard Business School doctoral programs train young scholars to become faculty at the top business schools in the world.” Well, right there that kind of zaps my enthusiasm. I don’t plan on being a full-time faculty member–ever. Maybe part-time in 30 years. Maybe I’ll teach one class here and there somewhere. But I doubt I’ll ever teach full-time anywhere because it’s nowhere in my plan. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy being faculty. I love teaching and would love to teach full time. I’d also like to be a full-time artist, author, journalist, small business entrepreneur, movie producer, and on and on and on. There are a lot of things I would love to do in life, but one has to choose, and I know what I’m going to do, and it doesn’t involve teaching full-time, nor doing any of those other things I mentioned full-time either.
2. I can’t help but apply at least one more time to the MBA program. In the three years since I applied, I’ve gone through some major life changes, and there’s more in the works. I applied at a low point in my life, and I see now that my application was largely junk. Perhaps I face almost insurmountable hurdles to being accepted into HBS (my age being one challenge that isn’t getting easier to overcome with time), but if the only time I apply is at the worst possible time, with the worst possible application I can submit, how do I know whether some minor tweaks might have made the difference?
3. The MBA still feels right. The DBA is very interesting, but I don’t think it’s what I’m looking for in terms of education, nor brand. It just doesn’t feel like a fit to me. Perhaps I’ll apply to the MBA program again and get rejected again, maybe I’ll be in an accident and end up paralyzed from the waist down, or maybe I’ll have some other traumatic life event happen that will change what I think and how I feel, but for the foreseeable future I’m still gunning for the MBA, even if I do end up being “the old guy” in the classroom.
being the old guy in the back of the room ain’t bad if you are at the top of your class.
Why on earth would you want to get your MBA in the first place? Let me be blunt; in business MBA types are worthless. Learn PPC, get some landing pages, sell products, get into CPA marketing, and make six figures in less than a year. A year later make 500k . Then start your own company and laugh when the MBA’s are begging you for a job. Successful people don’t climb ladders, they put ladders below them and make others climb them. Don’t fall into the illusion that colleges perpetuate. End rant. Best of luck.
Mike, if “MBA types” were worthless in business, then nobody would get an MBA. But comparisons of pre vs. post-MBA salaries prove they are worth something, at least in purely financial terms. If nobody made more money or saw any other tangible benefit from getting an MBA, I don’t think those who charge $200K for an MBA would be in business very long.
Of course that’s speaking generally. For me, specifically, I don’t need an MBA so that I can be successful in business. I already own a company and do well enough financially with it. I’ve had plenty of MBA’s apply for jobs at my company. My motivation for getting an MBA has virtually nothing to do with financial reasons, that is, if the only benefit of getting an MBA were that I’d make more money, I wouldn’t bother getting it. I can already make more money on my own, as you point out. But there are non-monetary reasons to get a Harvard MBA, and those are the compelling reasons that cause me to seek it.
It’s about risk more than anything. People go into professional graduate programs to minimize their downside. Sure, if you want to make millions, you have to take risk. However, if you fail in the entrepreneurial effort (and the likelihood of failure is very large), your downside is pretty severe. B-school gives you a floor of a decent salary and an upside of 6 figure bonuses every year at an investment bank (until last year) if you are into the money thing. That’s not to mention the non-financial considerations that Josh alludes to. No offense, Mike, but I’ve heard your shtick a million times. And yet, 90% of the entrepreneurs I have seen either barely scrape by or face financial ruin. Of course the big wins that you hear about exemplify your pitch, but working for yourself ain’t all you make it out to be in the belly of the curve.
@Mike. Getting an MBA is absolutely worth it. Making 500k a year is nothing really. Sure some entrepreneurs make real money but an MBA opens networking doors that are closed to people playing click arbitrage with landing pages. Here in hedge fund land, MBA’s can make millions with a single conversation over lunch. No MBA, no need to apply. Simple as that.