What are you doing with your MBA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top 5 (Ivy League) business school. Hugely worth it for me coming out of a liberal arts undergrad with 2 years of work experience. Have been in consulting my whole career, now on my own. Have been earning in the mid 6 figures the last decade. Currently work less than full time, have tons of flexbility, and still in that earnings range. Some/many of my classmates have done way better of course - but most ended up in NY post graduation and that wasn't a path I wanted to take. I don't regret the MBA for even a minute, and I paid for the degree myself.

Mid 6 as in 500,000? That's solid...

Yes - it's been between $400-600 the last few years, dropped to $300 in 2009 at the depth of the recession because we got no bonuses.

Got no bonuses working for yourself? Or are you now on your own due to he recession (which was actually pretty hard on consultants)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top 5 (Ivy League) business school. Hugely worth it for me coming out of a liberal arts undergrad with 2 years of work experience. Have been in consulting my whole career, now on my own. Have been earning in the mid 6 figures the last decade. Currently work less than full time, have tons of flexbility, and still in that earnings range. Some/many of my classmates have done way better of course - but most ended up in NY post graduation and that wasn't a path I wanted to take. I don't regret the MBA for even a minute, and I paid for the degree myself.

Mid 6 as in 500,000? That's solid...

I would love to know what kind of consulting pays that much. A lot of finance and accounting consultants are lucky yo make $150k.

Right, and anyone who's ever been in consulting knows its an "up or out" business where 95% are just passing through... $300+ means partner - and not everybody is a partner

[Anonymous]

I went to a middling local school (GW) and it was totally worth it. I was recruited by a big 4 consulting firm and literally tripled my salary between pre and post MBA. Now on a partner track at a large consulting firm - love what I do. One thing to look at is what kind of companies recruit at your school. Some companies will focus on certain schools and programs. If working at McKinsey is your dream, then going to GW or even Georgetown isn't going to cut it (think Harvard or Wharton). At the same time, a lot of great companies I wanted to work for recruit locally, so GW was a good fit for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a top 5 (Ivy League) business school. Hugely worth it for me coming out of a liberal arts undergrad with 2 years of work experience. Have been in consulting my whole career, now on my own. Have been earning in the mid 6 figures the last decade. Currently work less than full time, have tons of flexbility, and still in that earnings range. Some/many of my classmates have done way better of course - but most ended up in NY post graduation and that wasn't a path I wanted to take. I don't regret the MBA for even a minute, and I paid for the degree myself.

Mid 6 as in 500,000? That's solid...

Yes - it's been between $400-600 the last few years, dropped to $300 in 2009 at the depth of the recession because we got no bonuses.

Got no bonuses working for yourself? Or are you now on your own due to he recession (which was actually pretty hard on consultants)

In 2009 I was still with a company. We did get bonuses again in 2010. In our business bonuses were about 40% of total comp. I do have a few partners now so am not solo.

We left for a lot of reasons, some of which were the direction the business was taking post recession. We have much more pricing flexibility now which allows us to work with the clients we want to work with. We don't need to support a legion of hungry associates or feed money to the corporate entity. Our overhead is low, although we try not to be too cheap. But it's amazing how little infrastructure you need these days for a consulting business. Lots of admin services are available a la carte.