New Study Explores The Role of Grades In MBA Recruiting
New Study Explores the Role of Grades in MBA Recruiting
Grade-nondisclosure (GND) policies have been around since the mid-1990s. The policies refer to how students at some of the nation’s top business schools, including Wharton and Columbia, collectively agree not to tell recruiters what their grades are until after they are hired.
While critics argue that GND policies cause students to spend less time on coursework and hurt employers, proponents say GND policies reduce competitiveness, encourage collaboration, and allow students to pursue a more well-rounded extracurricular activities and courses. A new study, which examines the effects of GND policies at highly ranked business schools, finds both arguments to be true.
LESS TIME IN CLASS, MORE TIME IN EXTRACURRICULARS
According to the report, students who adopted GND policies spent 4.9% less time on courses when compared to peers at the same school who took classes part-time and didn’t adopt GND policies. However, the report also found that because GND students took harder classes, the time they spent on academics overall wasn’t statistically different from their peers. Additionally, GND students were also 7.6% more likely to engage in extracurricular activities.
“Between the extracurriculars and the difficult classes, what we say isn’t all time spent away from academics is lost time,” author Daniel Lee, of the University of Delaware – Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, tells The Wall Street Journal. “But we can’t really comment on the good or bad effects.”
After business school, GND students were 7.7% less likely to stay at their first job for longer than a year, with 12.8% less likely to stay longer than two years.
“Specifically, we study the tenure lengths of students’ first employer matches following graduation,” the authors write. “Reduced information under GND might reduce the effectiveness of employers’ recruiting filters, leading to poor hiring decisions. On the other hand, if GND facilitates students’ self-discovery of their talents and interests, GND might lead to more stable matches by reducing student-employer mismatch. The results suggest that the reduced information effect dominates the self-discovery effect: tenures at first employers following graduation fall by roughly 3.7 months. However, GND might also facilitate broader skill development and networks, which could reduce turnover by increasing employee mobility rather than reducing match quality.”
Read the full study here.
Sources: The Wall Street Journal, MBA Crystal Ball, SMU Cox School of Business Research Paper
Next Page: Questions to ask yourself if you’re considering an MBA.
Top Questions to Ask if You’re Considering an MBA
An MBA can be a life-changing decision for many. It could mean a new career, a next chapter, or a life-long connection. But that decision has a hefty price tag too—an MBA from one of the top 26 B-schools in the U.S. exceeds $200,000.
Patrick Mullane, Executive Director of Harvard Business School Online and Harvard Business School Executive Education, recently highlighted questions that every prospective MBA should ask themselves.
WHY AN MBA?
For many, the answer to “why do you want an MBA,” is “career advancement.”
But Mullane says this isn’t enough reason alone to pursue an MBA.
“…there are many ways to advance without an advanced degree,” he says. “In fact, most people advance in their careers no matter their education. Admittedly, that advancement may be slow and could have a cap on it (you aren’t going from cleaning hospital rooms to becoming a doctor without going to medical school). Nonetheless, advancement happens.”
Looking beyond simple career advancement, Mullane says applicants should take time to think carefully about why they really want an MBA.
“You’re motivated already,” Mullane says. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be considering a graduate degree. Is that motivation enough to get you where you want to go without an MBA? Think this one through. The costs of going are substantial, and the risk of wasting your time and money is great. Clearly understand how your trajectory will be materially different if you get the degree.”
LOOKING FOR A CAREER SWITCH?
An MBA is ideal for those looking to leave their current role and pivot into something new. If you are looking for a career switch, Mullane recommends considering a full-time MBA program.
“A full-time program facilitates this better than other options because it allows a clean break from the past and grants you the time and opportunity to investigate something else,” he says. “More importantly, you’ll be surrounded by a cohort of other young professionals doing the same thing. This creates an energy and synergy that fosters connections that will last a lifetime. You’ll learn from each other. You’ll share leads. You may even develop entrepreneurial ideas and find partners to join you in a startup. These things may be harder to do in part-time or fully online programs.”
DOES THE MATH ADD UP?
An MBA isn’t cheap. And it’ll likely only get more expensive in the years to come. Thus, it’s critical to get a clear picture of your debt and understand what kind of earning power an MBA will provide you.
“Investigate the median salary of graduates by industry and compare that to what you’ll pay earning the degree,” Mullane says. “The overall median may be skewed by higher-paying sectors, so be sure to focus on the industry you’re likely to enter upon graduation. Many people think education at any cost is worth it. It’s not.”
Next Page: Santa Clara lands gift to establish STEM campus.
Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business
Santa Clara University Gets $10 Million Alum Gift for New STEM Campus
“Leave the world a little better place than you found it.”
Those are the words that a Catholic nun told elementary school-aged Stephen A. Finn. Over the years, Finn has tried lived by these words. Since earning an MBA from Santa Clara University (SCU) in 1976, Finn has donated nearly $25 million in gifts to his alma mater. His most recent donation was a $10 million gift to help fund SCU’s new STEM campus, the Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation, which will create classrooms, labs, research, study and office space for the School of Engineering and the College of Arts and Science. Finn recently sat down with SCU to discuss how Silicon Valley is the land of opportunity and why giving back to his community means everything.
“Everywhere you are in Silicon Valley—whether it’s today, 10 years ago, two years ago, next week—you’re at the right place at the right time because what we have here is opportunity,” Finn says. “There’s more opportunity here, I bet, than there is anywhere in the world. And success is the intersection of opportunity and preparation.”
A BAY AREA LOCAL
Raised in an Irish Catholic family, Finn is the eldest of six children. He grew up in Santa Clara and Willow Glen, where he attended San Jose’s Pioneer High School. His father, a successful custom home developer, had taught Finn the importance of money, and hard work. As a summer gig, Finn’s father got him a job as a janitor at Langendorf Bakery in San Jose.
“All janitors, no matter their experience or age, earned the same $3.10 per hour,” Finn recalls.
After graduating college from San Jose State, Finn spent time working at a payroll services company. His true calling, however, was tech sales. Only problem, Finn says, was he didn’t have any MBA.
“You couldn’t sell the high-end, really cool products that paid a lot of commissions unless you had an MBA or an EE,” says Finn. “So I was sitting here in Silicon Valley and there was all this opportunity. Those fish were swimming by, off the front of the dock, but I couldn’t get one because I didn’t have the right hook. I had to get my MBA to be prepared for the opportunity and success,” he says.
So, he pursued an MBA at Santa Clara University, where he spent nights taking classes and working during the day. Finn says he cherished the close friends he made in B-school the most. Some of those friendships have lasted for nearly 46 years.
BUILDING SUCCESS, GIVING BACK
After B-school, Finn joined one of Silicon Valley’s first cloud computing companies, and by 1981, started LCS Investor Services, a data management service provider. In 1988, he purchased Gemisys Corporation, a company that provided back office services to financial institutions. In 1992, he created Trust Company of America, which he sold to E*Trade in 2018.
The profits made from selling his company offered Finn a new freedom to enjoy life and give back to his community. In addition to his donations to SCU, he’s become a major benefactor at Cristo Rey San José Jesuit High School, a college prep for first-generation students from low-income families. It’s just his way of making the world a better place, just as the nun taught him long ago.
“It’s an opportunity to seed young people’s success for their whole life,” says Finn. “And that floats my boat.”
Sources: Santa Clara University, Santa Clara University
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