part-time MBA in NY - Fordham vs Pace vs Baruch?

[Nick Dolgov]

As it turned out to be surprisingly difficult to google meaningful ratings or comparisons of those 2nd-tier b-schools I wonder if anybody could comment on the issue. Anything from a relevant link to personal experience will be appreciated. Just in case - I am mostly interested in Finance.

From what I see, they have the same rate of accepted applicants, roughly the same average GMAT score and similar enrollment numbers. The only noticeable difference seems to be the lowest cost of the CUNY program. Currently, I am under the impression that Baruch College is the preferable of the three but I cannot corroborate this evaluation.

Thanks

[Tessa]

В Pace шикарнейший кооп. Классные компании приходят на кампус и берут много людей, в среднем у студента 2-3 хороших офера.

Те баруховцы, с которыми сталкивалась, на работу устраивались через свой нетворкинг, колледж особо не помогает.

[makay855]

disagree. We are not talking about entry-level accounting here.
Baruch is a good program (esp. at the graduate level), and it is cheap also.
Never heard such a thing that either Pace or Fordham were particularly good.
I would just look at the price tag.

[Primavera]

What do you want from your MBA? If you don't have MBA from NYU or Colombia it is very difficult to get a job from any of those. If you already have a job and just want to have an MBA may be skip the CUNY. Every situation is unique but I heard the comments that some companies don't want to hire from city colleges, informal verbal instruction. Generally people from Baruch don't get job easily, if even the accounting majors with plenty of jobs don't have one before the graudation it is much worse for finance majors.

Looking at Pace and Fordham, some say that Fordham is better, some say they are the same. I know finance majors from Pace, they got jobs at Moodies, MBNA, Thompson, and other big companies but it is very hard. Those who got that had a very high GPA, participated in school events, did their own networking and the school job placement was the last thing they relied on.
My personal opinion that NYU part time MBA would be better for finance major.

[Nick Dolgov]

What do you want from your MBA? ... NYU part time MBA would be better for finance major.

Thank you for the responses. I reckon I'd better clarify my situation to avoid confusion. I am a software engineer going to NY this autumn on H1B. I believe that an American degree is necessary to obtain local credentials and improve my long-term employability, preferably in non-coding roles. In addition, after 7+ years in software I am pretty bored of pure development and would like to diversify my skills with something really intellectual and challenging.

As I understand, NYC and the vicinity are highly Finance-oriented. Dice.com clearly indicates that people with software development background and knowledge of Finance command better compensation and intriguing job opportunities, including migration from development to quantitative analysis. In my opinion, MBA in Finance or MS in Financial Engineering (Baruch or Polytechnic?) could provide me with both in-depth knowledge of the field and distinct competitive advantage over mere programmers. In addition, MBA would be convenient in the long run for work in managerial positions in software development even out of Finance.

I do agree that NYU is clearly superior to all the institutions I mentioned before. I am afraid it is way too much competitive and expensive while likely being overkill in my situation - I am not betting on a dramatic career change, I just want to augment my engineering background.

[Кусака]

I am a software engineer going to NY this autumn on H1B. I believe that an American degree is necessary to obtain local credentials and improve my long-term employability, preferably in non-coding roles. In addition, after 7+ years in software I am pretty bored of pure development and would like to diversify my skills with something really intellectual and challenging.

Оооооооооо, узнаю брата Колю!! (с)
Вы сначала приедьте, осмотритесь. Вы откуда едете кстати, из Штатов или извне? Потом будете решать. MBA не приведет вас к позиции кванта о которой вы пишете. Они там PhD хотят, ну в крайнем случае MSFI. От обчного девелопера никто не ждет глубоких знаний финансов (на уровне аналитика). Нужно понимать финансовый жаргон и знать предметную область. На это натаскают на работе (если попадете) и образование для этого не нужно. Более того, с MBA на девелоперскую позицию вы будете overqualified. Да, и вообще - network is the key. Само по себе образование, а тем более из второразрядного колледжа ничего не даст. Кстати, как вы собираетесь учиться на H1 - менять на F1? Это как мне кажется может быть довольно сложно само по себе, особенно если уже подались на GC

[Scrooge McDuck]

I am a software engineer going to NY this autumn on H1B. I believe that an American degree is necessary to obtain local credentials and improve my long-term employability, preferably in non-coding roles. In addition, after 7+ years in software I am pretty bored of pure development and would like to diversify my skills with something really intellectual and challenging.

Оооооооооо, узнаю брата Колю!! (с)
Вы сначала приедьте, осмотритесь. Вы откуда едете кстати, из Штатов или извне?

Кусака, Ника не обижать. Это НАШ человек, а я за своих горло перегрызу. Едет он из Москвы по Н1, и появится как я понял в Ваших краях этой осенью. В целом у него за плечами хорошая ФМШ и универ из где-то топ-30 в России. Посему прошу любить и жаловать.

[Кусака]

I am a software engineer going to NY this autumn on H1B. I believe that an American degree is necessary to obtain local credentials and improve my long-term employability, preferably in non-coding roles. In addition, after 7+ years in software I am pretty bored of pure development and would like to diversify my skills with something really intellectual and challenging.

Оооооооооо, узнаю брата Колю!! (с)
Вы сначала приедьте, осмотритесь. Вы откуда едете кстати, из Штатов или извне?

Кусака, Ника не обижать. Это НАШ человек, а я за своих горло перегрызу. Едет он из Москвы по Н1, и появится как я понял в Ваших краях этой осенью. В целом у него за плечами хорошая ФМШ и универ из где-то топ-30 в России. Посему прошу любить и жаловать.

А я чтоли его обижаю? Я ему дело говорю

[Nick Dolgov]

Вы сначала приедьте, осмотритесь. Потом будете решать.

It sounds slightly rude. Most of due diligence can be made while I am still here, after all I have both Inet and a direct NY phone number. There are at least two vital circumstances here - any education-related decision will influence my job hunting strategy (and probably the exact location) and missing a couple of months could mean waiting a year more just to apply.

MBA не приведет вас к позиции кванта о которой вы пишете. От обчного девелопера никто не ждет глубоких знаний финансов (на уровне аналитика).

Well, probably I do not even want to/can be a quant. I am not that much into math, I am an engineer. On the other hand, I do want to be employed in a business domain where competition is less based on low-level coding. My interests are occasionally beyond the horizon of many colleagues I have known so I am not planning to be an "average developer". Self-education is fine but a real diploma is more convincing + saves a lot of time.

Нужно понимать финансовый жаргон и знать предметную область. На это натаскают на работе (если попадете) и образование для этого не нужно. Более того, с MBA на девелоперскую позицию вы будете overqualified. Да, и вообще - network is the key.

Every one in this thread is perfectly aware of those facts. Still, I am too old to start completely from scratch and education is likely to be the most effective way to position myself properly.

Само по себе образование, а тем более из второразрядного колледжа ничего не даст. Кстати, как вы собираетесь учиться на H1 - менять на F1?

I guess any Soviet educational institution is worse than even a 2nd-tier college in NY. Still, people somehow manage to get H1B, complete EBGC and achieve success. The question is which education is most optimal from the range of available options. In ten or twenty years my education will still be valid in contrast to 80% of IT garbage I will have to deal with (especially while I am still on H1B)

Why F1? I am going to enroll into a _part-time_ program. The whole point of this adventure is EBGC so full-time studies are out of question.

[Кусака]

It sounds slightly rude.

Nick, it wasn't my intention to sound rude. My point is that some details do not become obvious until you actually arrive, start working and making connections. Right now you might think that you want such-and-such career, but you can change your mind after getting here. Think about it.

Well, probably I do not even want to/can be a quant. I am not that much into math, I am an engineer. On the other hand, I do want to be employed in a business domain where competition is less based on low-level coding. My interests are occasionally beyond the horizon of many colleagues I have known so I am not planning to be an "average developer". Self-education is fine but a real diploma is more convincing + saves a lot of time.

You know, I'm a little bit confused. So what is it exactly what you want to do (1) upon arrival on H1 (2) in 5 years from now?
Do you plan to break into the "business domain" right now, or get an engineering job first and make a transition later?

[Toto]

In terms of rankings I would rely on the ranking of their undergrad business programs. Sounds like you don't really know why you need this MBA, so just go with the best reputation. Which, according to the latest Business Week, is Fordham (it's not stellar, but the only school from your list of three that made it into Top 50). The other thing to look at is career placement statistics - what companies people actually go to work for, and in what functions.

Overall, I would say that the suggestion to wait and look around after you arrive is a very good one. I would try to actually find the person with the job you want in 5 years and find out how they got there. You might very well find that getting a second-tier MBA is not the way to do it.

[Primavera]

I agree with Toto and Kusaka that you don't know if you really need an MBA, may be MS would be enough. MBA gives you a managerial perspective, when you become a manager and have to take business decision. At this poin you are not working on your field, generally this is the case. It si difficult to say what do you need before you get here, understand how the things work. Only after some time working here you can take a decision what do you need and why do you need that. May be you would not like or want managing locals, because of all local "details". May be you will find more opportunities in your field that you didn't know before. BTW I don't see anything rude in Kusaka's post.

All the ratings are general at most if it is not top 10, becuase every school has something like specialization. Only people from your industry can reasonably evaluate a school. I don't know your career or what are the opportunities in your field. As for me, I was looking at the program, inquiring about job placement which was very improtant for me because I didn't have good job. I asked several managers, VP's, what school sounds best to them or if they had a choice what graudate they would hire. Looking to all factors I picked a school and I achieved everything I wanted.

Russian education for local employers without local education and local experience is not attractive. When you had local experience that validates your education and employer is focusing on what you know and can do, not about school curriculum.

[Nick Dolgov]

Thanks for the continued discussion. Although it is already dangerously close to falling into ramblings it is important to me. As far as I see education is seldom an interesting question for people going to the US presumably because of their sufficiently mature career. I do not expect to meet many such people among my future colleagues so probably this forum will still be a leading resource.

I agree with Toto and Kusaka that you don't know if you really need an MBA, may be MS would be enough.

This whole discussion implies a search for lateral ideas and new pieces of information. Personally, I have always wanted to obtain an American degree. I also know what happens to people in their fifties if they stay for too long in purely technical positions. Thus, education for me is a means towards new horizons which hardly can be predicted in advance.

For sure it dissimilar to the classical tracks from a top-5 into IB/MC/etc - I do not know exactly where I want to get to, currently I am just thinking about diversification of skills and adventures of discovering something new. In a sense it is like relocation to the US - something I have always been yearning and afraid of. When I was younger I used to think I would not be able to speak languages, work in exciting companies, immigrate or study in the US. Well, nowadays I think that stretching myself is exciting and a degree might be just one more surmounted challenge I will not regret.

Apparently, participants of this thread seem to be sceptical of anything behind top-10 so I wonder whether I am really missing anything (what about all those people in part-time programs popular even in the former Evil Empire?) or I am just orders of magnitude below you in my present career and feeble aspirations

BTW I don't see anything rude in Kusaka's post.

My apologies if it was I who showed his disrespect.

All the ratings are general at most if it is not top 10, becuase every school has something like specialization. Only people from your industry can reasonably evaluate a school. I don't know your career or what are the opportunities in your field.

I admit it is difficult for me to immediately agree with this statement. I am pretty much sure I am well aware of educational institutions in MSK so I guess a NYC resident is likely to have a sufficiently good idea about universities in the US. And again, as a software engineer I do not have a real field. I worked extensively in Telco, I am thinking about Finance but in both cases I wasn't /won't be chained to it.

[Кусака]

Nick,
you might want to check this out (if you haven't already )
http://www.vault.com
This is a great career resource. It has many discussion boards separated by industry, insider's guides and the amazing collection of "a day at work" surveys. I found it extremely useful when evaluated various career paths.
BTW, your English is very good.

[Toto]

Nick,
your MBA will become useless very soon after you get it unless you use it immediately to jump into a different function, whatever. All that folks on this thread are saying is that you need a plan - this is particularly important in the case of a second-tier school, part-time program where your job search will most likely be self-managed, with no IB/MC recruiters chasing you. When you say you are interested in Finance - that's very broad. If you narrowed it down, people on this board could probably tell you how realistic it is to make a move from IT.

As far as your question regarding who goes to these schools: I know a few people who did get just such part-time, 2nd tier MBAs. They roughly fall into the following groups:
1) Have a business job, company pays for all or part of MBA, MBA helpful for advancement, or shifting fields a little: e.g. accounting controller wants to be CFO, former telecom equity researcher wants to get an industry job, etc.
2) Have a crappy undergrad degree / poorly paid job / no professional experience at all. These folks will get a job similar to what someone with a decent (Top-50) undergrad degree gets, i.e. $40K to start. Examples: Indian programmer's wife with an engineering undegrad degree - with her MBA from a local Tier3 school she got an analyst job at a credit card company I worked at. Someone with biology undergrad who worked at a shopping mall - got her Tier2 MBA and started in sales for a biotech company.

Of course if you just want to learn for fun, you can. It's just that most of us here look at business education as an investment, hence the attitude of assessing risks and rewards.

[Nick Dolgov]

you might want to check this out http://www.vault.com

Thank you for the reminder. Unfortunately, despite all its analysis and examples literature similar to Vault's Career Guides lacks the very feature I am talking about here. First-hand experience of people with a Soviet background and knowledge of, in this particular case, of the aforementioned b-schools cannot be substituted with a general overview aimed at the target audience of real Americans.

BTW, your English is very good.

They say one's English can be regarded as truly fluent as soon as native speakers cease to complement on it. Thus, your remark might be construed in a way a trifle different from the one you intended

your MBA will become useless very soon after you get it unless you use it immediately

Any chance you could elaborate on this statement? Somehow I am used to the idea that education is rarely in vain. Especially in the country of the best higher education in the world. Moreover, it looks like in this century a lot of middle class people embark upon a second, part-time degree in their late twenties. I dabbled with business books on a few general topics (e.g. corporate strategy, accounting/finance 101, OB) and I believe this is a whole new world for people from R&D. Consecuently, I am surprised to hear that business education has such a depreciation rate.

Of course if you just want to learn for fun, you can. It's just that most of us here look at business education as an investment

I am strongly inclined to look at ROI of my efforts as well. But honestly, I do not have a precise idea of what I want. The lame excuse I can cite is that the US market is supposed to be drastically different from this godforsaken place and as a result I can be mistaken in my estimations. Probably the sceptical responses in this thread are an indication of my ignorance in this respect.

BTW Toto, thanks for the real life cases, exactly the stuff I hoped to hear about.

[Komissar]

С таким written English Нику надо в law-school, a не МБА.

[Primavera]

Nick, there is no lateral ideas. I will make my point as clearly and short as possible.
I can't tell you exactly what path you should take, because I am neither IT nor finance professional. I don't know all opportunities and specifics, which are more important than general rules.

I don't say that second tier school are useless, I graduate from Pace and I am happy with that. (going today to the ceremony ). I have friends who are finance/IT majors and I know that it is very difficult for them to find a job. They have to work very hard networking, participating in some contests to get noticed. Everybody tells that employers take people from NYU, Colombia and don't want to look at second/third tier.
Another case is when people already have a position in a good company (UBS, Moodies, etc.) and get second tier MBA, this is not your case.

It is true that you have to use your MBA soon or it looses its value. Business strategies, the reauirements for management change every two years, after four years you will have to know other things and something you studied is not relevant anymore.

Examples from the real life:;
1 person from IT background in senior position in good company wants to be promoted to higher position, he needs a managerial education. He get's an MBA paid by the company in Pace/Fordham.
2 people from russian bachelors who don't have local experience/education, accounting major, at the end have a job with the salary range 45-60K for start.
3 people with student visa going to finance, trying hard, GPA 3.7-4.0 participating in all financial contests, competitions and winning get good job. (5% of graduates) the rest doesn't have a job yet.

If you need sponsorship it is more difficult to get a job.

[makay855]

Nick,
I see pretty much 2 options:
1) if you choose to go to an expensive program, go to Stern. At least, this program has a brand name recognition in Finance.
2) if you can't, at least you can go to an inexpensive one (Baruch).

Fordham and Pace are both ok, but they cannot compete with Baruch on price, and they are no competition to Stern in terms of reputation. Those programs are on the map for the sole reason that they are in NYC. Noone heard of them outside of NYC. And look at the location of both schools - Pace caters to Brooklyn/Staten Island/Downtown crowd. Fordham caters to people from Westchester/CT. Either than location, I don't see what the competitive advantage of either school is.

[Кусака]

Nick,
I see pretty much 2 options:
1) if you choose to go to an expensive program, go to Stern. At least, this program has a brand name recognition in Finance.

This can be a smart move. Stert is the only school among top-15 (?) that has a part-time MBA program. If you want a real life story - here it is. One of my co-workers (Russian software developer) has just graduated from Stern part-time MBA program and got an offer from Lehman Brothers. Of course, he had a lot of connections there. We develop financial software and LB was one of our clients. Go figure.

[makay855]

Nick,
I see pretty much 2 options:
1) if you choose to go to an expensive program, go to Stern. At least, this program has a brand name recognition in Finance.

This can be a smart move. Stert is the only school among top-15 (?) that has a part-time MBA program.

Actually, some other top schools have very strong PMBA programs (Kellogg, Chicago, Wharton). Stern has one of the largest PMBA programs in the country. Obviously, it is overpriced, but it has the name recognition + an expansive network (due to the program size). I believe, Columbia may have a PMBA program, so he can look into that also. If not those two, Baruch offers a much cheaper version, with the support of NYC taxpayers.

[Слоняра]

Stern part-time MBA is ranked as #1 .. (see other topics regarding MBA and law).
But, that is expensive. Nick, where your tuition will came from?

[makay855]

Stern part-time MBA is ranked as #1 .. (see other topics regarding MBA and law).
But, that is expensive. Nick, where your tuition will came from?

Stern is expensive, but Fordham and Pace are not cheap also. And they are not that good. So, if it is not Stern, my vote is for Baruch.

[Кусака]

not only that, Stern has one of the largest PMBAs programs in the country. Obviously, it is overpriced, but it has the name recognition + an expansive network (due to the program size). I believe, Columbia may have a PMBA program, so he can look into that also.

No, Columbia doesn't have one.

[makay855]

not only that, Stern has one of the largest PMBAs programs in the country. Obviously, it is overpriced, but it has the name recognition + an expansive network (due to the program size). I believe, Columbia may have a PMBA program, so he can look into that also.

No, Columbia doesn't have one.

ok. Columbia has some other options (MS, etc). Besides, it definitely has this strange hybrid part-time (weekend) program, called Executive MBA. I knew a couple of people who did it, and they were not at an executive level by any means.