Making My MBA School Choice

I'm going to Wisconsin. I am now 99% sure of this fact.

As an avid BWer, and reader of MBA blogs all over, UW (The real UW - Wisconsin was founded before Washington, it's bigger - barely, and it has better athletic teams - arguably) has very little representation on these boards. It's not a Wharton, or a Harvard (though the football, basketball, and hockey teams could kick these schools' asses). Sometimes I worry that I might not find a job with a UW MBA. But then there are times like last night when I went back to http://www.uwasap.org and reminded myself that this program puts people in great buy-side jobs. Consistently. And the alumni network among the ASAP students is unlike anything I've seen before. Perhaps some of this is simply not known because ASAP was an MS just two short years ago. There are so many buy-siders out there with this degree, but they get left off the major surveys of MBA's...because they don't have an MBA!

It's going to be a good two years there, I know it. I hope they fill the class with the maximum 21 students in ASAP because that will mean I have 20 people who love the same thing as me, and I can learn from 'em. Plus, then we'll have the maximum number of heads for sector research when we run the fund in '06-'07!

As for Kelley - well, it's a great school too. If you look inside the rankings (take with a grain of salt), you'll see that UW and IU are practically the same for finance...IU is 19 and UW is 21 (USN&WP). And, as for IM, well, the ASAP program is probably in the top 5-10 in the country, with Texas, Cornell, UW, and Tulane the only schools that give students the ability to manage the amount of money that they do. The best part about it: Estimated cost for UW when I am done: $45k. When I'm 50 and [hopefully] giving dinero back to the school, I'll realize how good of an opportunity it was/is.