The Application Process

I have been researching many top schools, and what I have gathered is that the average pre-MBA salaries (or mean base salaries forgone) of accepted students range from 50k to 80k per year for top schools. My current salary is a little less than 40k per year.

My question is: does this have any effect whatsoever on my application? In other words, will the admissions for top schools (e.g. Stern, Fuqua, Columbia, Johnson) frown upon this? For example, will they look upon this and think: "Well, judging from his pre-MBA salary, either he will not have the financial ability to pay for our school OR his current salary is not indicative of a solid pre-MBA job".

Any insight on this would be of great help to me.

My sense is no, this should not impact your applications. Schools cannot make decisions about whether to admit or deny you based on their perception of your ability to pay for their programs in cash - with such a hefty price tag, most students take out loans to pay for school. Your salary will be a factor when you apply for financial aid, but a lower salary is not a reason to deny admission.

Remember that different industries have different salary ranges - if you are making an average salary for someone with your qualifications in your industry, then you will be fine. Also, schools assess the quality of your work experience based on what you have accomplished in your roles - not based on the salary.

Good luck!

- Julie

It's not a factor. Not many people can pay for business school out right. I know I don't have $200k sitting in the bank although I do have some friends in banking who do. If anything a lower salaried applicant would make their statistics look better on the back end. Think about it, when people are thinking about attending business school... they're looking at the stats of those who graduated. The pre-mba salary and post-mba salary for someone making 40k looks much better (in most cases) than someone coming from banking who may not yield as much of an increase post-mba. ya know?

I've thought about that too because I'm on the low end, so when people talk about the opportunity cost of attending business school, I write them off because I don't make much relatively. I was talking to a friend one day who is in banking now and she said the opportunity cost for her was like $500k between the b-school expense and forgone salary. And I know for her b-school will be about 200k... so 2 years of forgone salary = $150k/year... I just don't know if I could do that. But to each his or her own right?

Cheers,
RBB

I'm very interested in this as well. I was in finance but was grossly underpaid given my contributions to the firm. I had thought about having my recommender mention that in his letter but decided against it because it would come across as a bit defensive. I'm worried since adcom officers may use compensation as a metric to determine how valuable i was to the firm or how good i really was at my job. But this is totally beyond my control, so i guess i can't do anything about it.