MBA vs JD Forum

[crazycanuck]

Does anyone know of a site like this for mba applicants who can answer questions? I asked a few admissions officers at my undergrad, (has a top mba program), which job would be better between a small business and a finance job, and they all gave answers saying "we have no preference...etc". Do they really not have a preference or if you don't know can you refer me to a site where people would know?

http://gmatclub.com/

[reasonabledoubt]

The question you should all be asking yourselves is the following: "What is the next bubble going to be and how do I position myself accordingly to make money during the uptick period?"

It was dot.com, then real estate/lending/credit, and there will invariably be another bubble forming soon that'll probably last 6-8 years or so. I personally believe it could be health care related in the context of new services within the industry as well as biotech/nanotech, etc. Then again, energy is still a contender, especially as we've essentially taken control of the oil-producing region post 911. That Billion dollar embassy in Iraq wasn't recently built there for the weather.

Energy. Law. That's probably where I'll end up.

Word of advice - as I've seen it first hand with dozens and dozens of JD's who became realtors during the real-estate bubble: Use your degree to make as much money as possible, but just keep in mind that it might not last forever so you'll probably want to try saving some of that easy money for when you might need to find a real job. I can't tell you how many JD realtors I knew making 200k+ who bought range rovers, pricey condos, vacays, etc, only to be caught with their pants down w/no savings when the bubble burst.

[Black-Blue]

#1. top MBA is all fluff. you don't really develop your intellect, or really gain any meaningful skills. With law school you sharpen your analytical sense so there is more personal development.

I'm pretty sure that not all elite MBAs courses are fluff. While some topics like management tend to be fluff, if you're interested in the quantitative side, it becomes much less fluff. Many top B-Schools like Haas, MIT, and Wharton have departments or courses in financial engineering, statistics, operations research, and actuarial science.

Now, is JD fluff? One thing that's interesting about law academia is that lots of law professors don't have JDs or LLBs. If you look at Yale's faculty, there are lots of professors with just PhDs in Econ (example: A. K. Klevorick), or even MDs. Law professors with only Econ PhD or History PhDs are in fact very common at all schools. But you'd be surprised that there are those with even more remote degrees, such as well-known law and econ professor David Friedman who's a law professor with a PhD in Physics. So while a JD is more substantive than an MBA, law isn't rocket science that you can't learn on your own.

Third, fluff can be good in that it's not as stressful. Law school is generally not only stressful, but creates an overly competitive environment among students that's rather toxic.

I'm en route for a JD, but if I had a lot of work experience and could get into a Top MBA, I think I would've taken the MBA route.

[englawyer]

while some courses can certainly be rigorous in an MBA (particularly at some schools), it doesn't change the reality that grades just don't matter in the end. a 3.6 is not going to have different career options than a 3.3 in an mba program, unlike law. that fact alone changes the academic environment completely. for better or worse depends on your perspective and goals.

i personally find comfort in the fact that a 3.6 has more opportunities in law than a 3.3, because i feel less of a chance of getting "screwed by the system". if i work hard in class and get good grades, i would like to win out for some great opportunities. it would be frustrating to earn a 3.7 and hear about someone at the bottom of the class who got the job you wanted.

[englawyer]

What is the MBA hiring market like?

I suspect I-banking hiring has been bad? What about consulting?

I'm socially awkward so I think I'd only do an MBA to get a quant job, but I'd have to wait a couple years to get work experience, and I hear MBA programs are always skeptical of engineers applying.

Either way I think I'd rather be a patent attorney than a quant.

I would bet it is easier on average to get BigLaw out of a top 3 law school than a top IBank/PE/VC/Consulting job out of a top 3 business school.

Anecdotally what a friend with a recent top MBA told me is that finance (IB,PE etc) hiring is very bad and that it is almost impossible to get hired without significant pre-MBA finance work experience. As a result, a lot of wannabe bankers are adding to the number of people going after the scarce consulting jobs. The consulting market sounds like it is doing only slightly better than BigLaw (unsuprising considering all the similarities) with unusually high retention and over hiring in the boom combined with less business to produce tight hiring conditions and deferrals of start dates.

i agree with this. i also think that there is over-optimism for MBA hiring and over-pessimism for JD hiring. i think this is mostly due to the student bodies of each degree....JDs are natural skeptics.

for example, MIT sloan has the following percent breakdown last yr (http://mitsloan.mit.edu/pdf/fullreport08_09.pdf):

Consulting 24.2
Investment Banking 16.9
VC/PE/Hedge Fund 8.0
Investment Management 4.0

that means around 55% of the class got a premier consulting/banking/vc job. the other 45% for the most part are headed to "normal" jobs that will still be pretty good, but are probably not fast-track. some of that could also be self-selection though so it is hard to really know the chance of scoring one of the great jobs.

[Joga Bonito]

What does this mean for you? In general, if you have no business background but a great LSAT, go to law school. If you have a great business background, why waste it by getting a JD when you can get a top MBA?

well i could see a number of reasons.

#1. top MBA is all fluff. you don't really develop your intellect, or really gain any meaningful skills. With law school you sharpen your analytical sense so there is more personal development.

#2. top MBA jobs are accessible from top JD programs (at least to some degree). Some would rather take a shot at McKinsey from HLS, and perhaps view biglaw as a backup instead of taking a shot at McKinsey from an MBA program and having "general management" as a backup. The type of people interested in these degrees are shooting for high-prestige service sector jobs: biglaw, banking, and consulting. Law school has a better chance at getting one of those jobs.

#3. respect in society. a law grad is generally more respected than a MBA grad. Many smart people actually despise MBA grads, and point to George Bush as the typical product of those degrees.

of course there are a number of reasons to favor the MBA over the JD as well. it is a difficult trade-off.

I've met too many top mba students/grads who are extremely unimpressive intellectually (sometimes worse than unimpressive), but I have yet to meet any stupid top law school students. Bush got into HBS but rejected a UT Law; I think there is something to this.

[englawyer]

THIS.

Individuals who gain admission to the top MBA programs have already demonstrated that they can succeed in real life situations. While people who get into top JD programs have obviously demonstrated that they are capable individuals, they have, for the most part, not had years of successful work experience.

Another point is that, in some ways, they are similar. Big banking has, what I would assume to be, a similar burn out rate. Top bankers, and especially new bankers, get pushed hard and often don't last long.

IMO, it really depends on what you want to do. As far as the $ goes, I would guess that there is more money for a top MBA graduate who goes into banking. But for me that would suck, because I have no desire to do that.

At the lower level, I would guess that both are a relative waste of time.

you are giving too much credit to mba programs and graduates here. most of the students got in simply because they "punched their card" in a feeder industry: banking or consulting. sure, it was hard enough to get one of those jobs after undergrad, but once they got past that phase their path to a top mba was almost guaranteed. the median morgan-stanley banking analyst will surely be heading to a top mba if they want to go. in fact, the true superstars of these industries forego the mba.

while biglaw and big-banking (i like that term) are similar in suckiness for the first few years, the big difference is where you can go after you get that experience. ex-bankers have literally any industry they want open to them, and can get a nice management job after their stint. biglaw veterans for the most part have to move down the legal food-chain into either an in-house position or a smaller law firm.

[Clever_User_Name]

THIS.

Individuals who gain admission to the top MBA programs have already demonstrated that they can succeed in real life situations. While people who get into top JD programs have obviously demonstrated that they are capable individuals, they have, for the most part, not had years of successful work experience.

Another point is that, in some ways, they are similar. Big banking has, what I would assume to be, a similar burn out rate. Top bankers, and especially new bankers, get pushed hard and often don't last long.

IMO, it really depends on what you want to do. As far as the $ goes, I would guess that there is more money for a top MBA graduate who goes into banking. But for me that would suck, because I have no desire to do that.

At the lower level, I would guess that both are a relative waste of time.

you are giving too much credit to mba programs and graduates here. most of the students got in simply because they "punched their card" in a feeder industry: banking or consulting. sure, it was hard enough to get one of those jobs after undergrad, but once they got past that phase their path to a top mba was almost guaranteed. the median morgan-stanley banking analyst will surely be heading to a top mba if they want to go. in fact, the true superstars of these industries forego the mba.

while biglaw and big-banking (i like that term) are similar in suckiness for the first few years, the big difference is where you can go after you get that experience. ex-bankers have literally any industry they want open to them, and can get a nice management job after their stint. biglaw veterans for the most part have to move down the legal food-chain into either an in-house position or a smaller law firm.

Well here is the entering class to Harvard. Roughly half of them were in some sort of banking. With the amount of apps they get for their MBA program I'm sure they have their pick of the litter. I doubt they pick people who have not shown significant success, and potential for A) More success, so they can B) Donate $.

Now if we are talking about lower ranked programs, then yes, I would agree, but we're not.

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/profiles/classprofile.html

[englawyer]

those statistics actually prove my point. when you consider the vast array of businesses and industry types out there, its rather suspicious that the "most promising business people" all come from two tiny service industries.

w/ banking at 50% of HBS and consulting at another 25%, that leaves 25% for the proles that work at normal companies that actually build products that drive our economy.

they have their pick of the litter, and they still choose the majority of their applicants from those two specific industries. the people that work for those companies also know how to "play the game", and setup their young analysts with excellent LOR, essay advice, work assignments, etc.

[SOCRATiC]

In comparing MBAs with JDs, you should also remember that a tremendous amount of experience and real business skills are required to get into Harvard Business School. On the other hand, a fresh college graduate with a really high GPA and a good LSAT score - a test that measures nothing more than your ability to take law exams under time pressures*. A HLS graduate can get employed at any big firm, regardless of previous experience, based on their ability to take law exams which have no relationship to your professional competence. Business employers, on the other hand look, again, for real skills and experience as augmented by your MBA. An administrative assistant with a 4.0/178 could get into HLS but stand no chance at an MBA; a super-star consultant or i-banker could score a 155 on the LSAT and have zero chances at a good business school.

What does this mean for you? In general, if you have no business background but a great LSAT, go to law school. If you have a great business background, why waste it by getting a JD when you can get a top MBA?






* i.e. if there are no time pressures, the LSAT correlation vanishes for law exams.

My Korean friend who graduated undergrad from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University (3.9 GPA), gained admissioned to HBS. The only work experience he had was an internship at Goldman Sachs during his junior year. He even scanned his acceptance letter and tagged it on Facebook.

[MichelFoucault]

.

[reasonabledoubt]

I love this debate. keep it going please!

i think that while HBS > YLS in terms of dollar outcomes, I suspect YLS opportunities might be more satisfying. I would rather be a SCOTUS clerk than crank out some $$ in a greenwich hedge fund personally.

i could see either perspective though, which is why i tied HBS/GSB/YLS for #1.

A lot has changed in Hedge Funds post collapse and I'd say a high functioning legal-type thinker would be better than an MBA at cranking out some $$$ in things like HF's, trading, etc. Also, Post madoff-era, I think a JD is going to serve everyone well who intends to land in securities/investments/trading/etc.

You speculate way too much, you're obviously a 0l with probably less than a year of actual work experience. Try to imagine looking at your comments from the point of view of someone older and actually accomplished, do you think your comments come off naive?

To be fair I am also a 0l and probably will end up in a JD program. Hopefully I won't allow myself as much confidence in things I obviously don't have substantive experience in.

LOL - I almost feel bad, but get ready people, for this is an instance where even the preface of epic wouldn't adequately frame the subsequent fail above. The poster above obviously used the term "obviously" to express his obvious understanding of what he thought was obvious. Unfortunately, you failed to consider that generality is sometimes used by a person in a position of elevated expertise in order to prevent alienating people through the use of detailed esoterica. Part of my 7+ years of financial services/investment experience involved working for an investment firm; we had roughly 100 million under management. Heard of triple-leveraged ETF's? (one of my favorite instruments at the time that I did exceedingly well with) In any case, I just had to point out that your experience radar is retardedly off - perhaps in the future you should consider the possibility that not all others are as green as you are at life. Cheers.

[echoi]

I love this debate. keep it going please!

i think that while HBS > YLS in terms of dollar outcomes, I suspect YLS opportunities might be more satisfying. I would rather be a SCOTUS clerk than crank out some $$ in a greenwich hedge fund personally.

i could see either perspective though, which is why i tied HBS/GSB/YLS for #1.

A lot has changed in Hedge Funds post collapse and I'd say a high functioning legal-type thinker would be better than an MBA at cranking out some $$$ in things like HF's, trading, etc. Also, Post madoff-era, I think a JD is going to serve everyone well who intends to land in securities/investments/trading/etc.

You speculate way too much, you're obviously a 0l with probably less than a year of actual work experience. Try to imagine looking at your comments from the point of view of someone older and actually accomplished, do you think your comments come off naive?

To be fair I am also a 0l and probably will end up in a JD program. Hopefully I won't allow myself as much confidence in things I obviously don't have substantive experience in.

LOL - I almost feel bad, but get ready people, for this is an instance where even the preface of epic wouldn't adequately frame the subsequent fail above. The poster above obviously used the term "obviously" to express his obvious understanding of what he thought was obvious. Unfortunately, you failed to consider that generality is sometimes used by a person in a position of elevated expertise in order to prevent alienating people through the use of detailed esoterica. Part of my 7+ years of financial services/investment experience involved working for an investment firm; we had roughly 100 million under management. Heard of triple-leveraged ETF's? (one of my favorite instruments at the time that I did exceedingly well with) In any case, I just had to point out that your experience radar is retardedly off - perhaps in the future you should consider the possibility that not all others are as green as you are at life. Cheers.

what a douchey sentence

[ughOSU]

while biglaw and big-banking (i like that term) are similar in suckiness for the first few years, the big difference is where you can go after you get that experience. ex-bankers have literally any industry they want open to them, and can get a nice management job after their stint. biglaw veterans for the most part have to move down the legal food-chain into either an in-house position or a smaller law firm.

This is an interesting debate. I would add that although exit options from "big-banking" would certainly be easier for an MBA, biglaw has exit options other than a significant downgrade. For example, transitioning to a botique hedge fund law firm would probably not be a downgrade in terms of pay or hours (probably about the same hours). However, those jobs are obviously pretty hard to get. In the end I think if you're resourceful, have reasonable business acumen, and are in a legal field that is not litigation you should be able to transition to an industry you like. Like you said though, probably not as easily as a banker.

The question you should all be asking yourselves is the following: "What is the next bubble going to be and how do I position myself accordingly to make money during the uptick period?"

this a thousand times. My field of choice would be green energy, something that will both help the world progress away from fossil fuels, and where there will be a massive amount of money to be made when oil hits $200/barrel. There was an article in the Economist about electric cars and the possibility of a "Netscape Moment"* for green energy in the US and worldwide.

*For those who don't know, "Netscape Moment" was used in the article to imply a massive influx of capital to a new industry, such as what happened with internet companies in the 90s (btw, another nice bubble where people made and lost a lot of money).

[reasonabledoubt]

A lot has changed in Hedge Funds post collapse and I'd say a high functioning legal-type thinker would be better than an MBA at cranking out some $$$ in things like HF's, trading, etc. Also, Post madoff-era, I think a JD is going to serve everyone well who intends to land in securities/investments/trading/etc.

You speculate way too much, you're obviously a 0l with probably less than a year of actual work experience. Try to imagine looking at your comments from the point of view of someone older and actually accomplished, do you think your comments come off naive?

To be fair I am also a 0l and probably will end up in a JD program. Hopefully I won't allow myself as much confidence in things I obviously don't have substantive experience in.

LOL - I almost feel bad, but get ready people, for this is an instance where even the preface of epic wouldn't adequately frame the subsequent fail above. The poster above obviously used the term "obviously" to express his obvious understanding of what he thought was obvious. Unfortunately, you failed to consider that generality is sometimes used by a person in a position of elevated expertise in order to prevent alienating people through the use of detailed esoterica. Part of my 7+ years of financial services/investment experience involved working for an investment firm; we had roughly 100 million under management. Heard of triple-leveraged ETF's? (one of my favorite instruments at the time that I did exceedingly well with) In any case, I just had to point out that your experience radar is retardedly off - perhaps in the future you should consider the possibility that not all others are as green as you are at life. Cheers.

what a douchey sentence

It may have been a bit self-indulgent, but I wouldn't go so far as douchey. You have responded with douchey posts as well - here's on in particular:

Touche?

[Sogui]

We had a guest speaker who was an international hedge fund manager who got an MBA and JD from Columbia.

He said the JD was a far more enriching experience for him, he got more out of it, and he also described it as "easily the toughest thing I've ever done".

[panther2k]

Does being enrolled in a business school typically give you a slight edge with regard to law school admissions (specifically Harvard/Stanford)? I'll be starting at a large i-bank (MS/GS) this summer and will probably do two years of PE afterwards before going to b-school, so it's unlikely that I'd want to sacrifice an extra two years but I'd like to at least know my options. Stats are ~>3.7 (so a little weak for those schools) but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile. Would the timing of my application make a difference? (ie. before enrolling in the b-school or after year 1)

[ughOSU]

but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile.

I don't want to be a dick, but are you assuming you'll get a 176+ LSAT? That's quite an assumption. As a rule, I never believe anyone will do that well until they actually do, but whatever.

Are you asking about a JD/MBA (4 years), or doing an MBA and applying to another JD program (5 years). If it's the former, you'll probably have a slight boost if you're already in the MBA program. If the latter, it will probably be treated as a soft.

[Bosque]

but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile.

I don't want to be a dick, but are you assuming you'll get a 176+ LSAT? That's quite an assumption. As a rule, I never believe anyone will do that well until they actually do, but whatever.

Are you asking about a JD/MBA (4 years), or doing an MBA and applying to another JD program (5 years). If it's the former, you'll probably have a slight boost if you're already in the MBA program. If the latter, it will probably be treated as a soft.

Woah, woah, woah... since when has a 176 been 75th percentile?

Check yah facts again buddy. 75th is around a 158. While of course nothing is certain, I think that a 160 is probably a fair score assumption for him to make.

[englawyer]

Does being enrolled in a business school typically give you a slight edge with regard to law school admissions (specifically Harvard/Stanford)? I'll be starting at a large i-bank (MS/GS) this summer and will probably do two years of PE afterwards before going to b-school, so it's unlikely that I'd want to sacrifice an extra two years but I'd like to at least know my options. Stats are ~>3.7 (so a little weak for those schools) but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile. Would the timing of my application make a difference? (ie. before enrolling in the b-school or after year 1)

getting an admit to the mba would be a great soft for the law school in my opinion. 3.7 is pretty low, but if you really do end up with a 177 or higher i think you would be fine for the law schools.

if you want to apply to both in one year, and plan on leveraging the mba admit, i would apply R1 to the MBA schools and wait til december to submit LS apps. then you can write a brief letter/addendum about how you got into the corresponding business school.

you can also wait until your first year of business school, but i am highly skeptical you will actually follow through with a JD/MBA if you start in the business school. if you manage to score a great summer internship in the fall, will you realistically do the JD? haha at least that is my current thinking.

[danquayle]

but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile.

I don't want to be a dick, but are you assuming you'll get a 176+ LSAT? That's quite an assumption. As a rule, I never believe anyone will do that well until they actually do, but whatever.

Are you asking about a JD/MBA (4 years), or doing an MBA and applying to another JD program (5 years). If it's the former, you'll probably have a slight boost if you're already in the MBA program. If the latter, it will probably be treated as a soft.

Woah, woah, woah... since when has a 176 been 75th percentile?

Check yah facts again buddy. 75th is around a 158. While of course nothing is certain, I think that a 160 is probably a fair score assumption for him to make.

He said 75th percentile in the context of Harvard caliber schools. So he is saying around 176.

[ughOSU]

but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile.

I don't want to be a dick, but are you assuming you'll get a 176+ LSAT? That's quite an assumption. As a rule, I never believe anyone will do that well until they actually do, but whatever.

Are you asking about a JD/MBA (4 years), or doing an MBA and applying to another JD program (5 years). If it's the former, you'll probably have a slight boost if you're already in the MBA program. If the latter, it will probably be treated as a soft.

Woah, woah, woah... since when has a 176 been 75th percentile?

Check yah facts again buddy. 75th is around a 158. While of course nothing is certain, I think that a 160 is probably a fair score assumption for him to make.

He said 75th percentile in the context of Harvard caliber schools. So he is saying around 176.

yea I suppose I should have included the full context, but yea this is how I interpreted what he was saying.

e: this also sounds about right to me:

you can also wait until your first year of business school, but i am highly skeptical you will actually follow through with a JD/MBA if you start in the business school. if you manage to score a great summer internship in the fall, will you realistically do the JD? haha at least that is my current thinking.

[panther2k]

but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile.

I don't want to be a dick, but are you assuming you'll get a 176+ LSAT? That's quite an assumption. As a rule, I never believe anyone will do that well until they actually do, but whatever.

Are you asking about a JD/MBA (4 years), or doing an MBA and applying to another JD program (5 years). If it's the former, you'll probably have a slight boost if you're already in the MBA program. If the latter, it will probably be treated as a soft.

Well, I'm fairly confident because my cold diagnostic wasn't that far off all my mistakes came in the logic games section which was completely new to me. Since that section is the easiest to learn, I don't think it would be that difficult to jump a few points, heck I think just knowing what to expect would give me a little bit of a boost as well. But you're right, there's no guarantee that I score that well.

I would be doing the JD/MBA at the same time.

[09042014]

but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile.

I don't want to be a dick, but are you assuming you'll get a 176+ LSAT? That's quite an assumption. As a rule, I never believe anyone will do that well until they actually do, but whatever.

Are you asking about a JD/MBA (4 years), or doing an MBA and applying to another JD program (5 years). If it's the former, you'll probably have a slight boost if you're already in the MBA program. If the latter, it will probably be treated as a soft.

Well, I'm fairly confident because my cold diagnostic wasn't that far off all my mistakes came in the logic games section which was completely new to me. Since that section is the easiest to learn, I don't think it would be that difficult to jump a few points, heck I think just knowing what to expect would give me a little bit of a boost as well. But you're right, there's no guarantee that I score that well.

I would be doing the JD/MBA at the same time.

Study your ass off anyway. If you dropped near 176 cold, 180 should be your target. And 180 is great for someone with a 3.7

[panther2k]

Does being enrolled in a business school typically give you a slight edge with regard to law school admissions (specifically Harvard/Stanford)? I'll be starting at a large i-bank (MS/GS) this summer and will probably do two years of PE afterwards before going to b-school, so it's unlikely that I'd want to sacrifice an extra two years but I'd like to at least know my options. Stats are ~>3.7 (so a little weak for those schools) but my LSAT would be above the 75th percentile. Would the timing of my application make a difference? (ie. before enrolling in the b-school or after year 1)

you can also wait until your first year of business school, but i am highly skeptical you will actually follow through with a JD/MBA if you start in the business school. if you manage to score a great summer internship in the fall, will you realistically do the JD? haha at least that is my current thinking.

Good point, even as it is I'd say it's very unlikely that I would go for a JD but it never hurts to keep you options open.