Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The Class the Dollars Fell On
Things are really starting to ramp-up around here. I’m knee deep in career teams, 1st years are all over the place doing orientation activities, I got my hepatitis B vaccination, and I picked up my course packets for the first two weeks of class.
The way the start of term works the second year is that you get to trial classes for the first two weeks and then try to add/drop into what you want, if you aren’t already in it. My fall schedule is pretty much set, but I have a few changes that I want to try and make to my spring schedule. Anyway, one of course packets I requested is for a course called The Coming of Managerial Capitalism, and it had an interesting first case comparing the class of 1949 (widely considered THE class of HBS) and the class of 2005. Here are some interesting tidbits:
The way the start of term works the second year is that you get to trial classes for the first two weeks and then try to add/drop into what you want, if you aren’t already in it. My fall schedule is pretty much set, but I have a few changes that I want to try and make to my spring schedule. Anyway, one of course packets I requested is for a course called The Coming of Managerial Capitalism, and it had an interesting first case comparing the class of 1949 (widely considered THE class of HBS) and the class of 2005. Here are some interesting tidbits:
- The Class of 1949 was 100% white and male, and of that only 6% were international.
- HBS peaked at over 10,000 applicants in 2002 or so, but had less than 6,000 as recently as the early 90’s. I imagine other schools display a similar trend, and thus it’s probably a tad early to declare the current application slump the death of the two year MBA.
- Manufacturing jobs dominated in 1949, with over 40% of the class going into the space straight out of school.
- The average starting salary of an HBS grad in ’49 was only 20% greater than the U.S. average salary. By comparison, recent HBS classes have roughly tripled the national average.
- There are about more MBA’s graduated each year than advanced degrees in law and medicine combined. And I thought there were too many lawyers in the world…
