Dreaming of Picasso

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Where are the Vice Presidents and Controllers?

One of the common things that most business schools emphasize is "the network". Recently, I went to a couple of Wharton Information Sessions for the Executive MBA program. The first time was about a month back and although the presentation was slick, I was terribly disappointed with the Alumni/Current Student panel. The reasons for my disappointment are as follows:
  • The panelists were not good communicators- grammatical mistakes apart, they could not clearly articulate the basic questions like "why did you choose Wharton?"
  • Very limited enthusiasm about the program except some generic form of - "this is Wharton and I am happy to be here"

For me, communication abilities and passion are a key component for any leader and to me, the panelists did not exhibit these characteristics. I am positive that the panelists are more than qualified to be in Wharton and perhaps are good leaders in other aspects. But they did not live up to the image of a Wharton MBA. After observing similar traits in other Wharton information sessions- I feel like asking the question - "Where are the Vice Presidents and Controllers?" that the school touts to be part of any Executive MBA class. Moreover, If their networking power is so great then why are they( alumni) are not out there trying to recruit the best candidates?

I am still on the fence for the Wharton application. I know it is a great school, but somehow I am not impressed with current students . I used to read in others blogs about how someone doesn't "feel" a particular school and I need to dig deeper to see if I truly "feel" Wharton for the Executive MBA.

1 Comments:

  • Thanks for the congrats, needless to say I am super excited.

    I totally agree about the alumni enthusiasm. One of the things that HIGHLT impressed me about Columbia was the number of alumns that showed up for the info session. Most schools had 3-5 people come, whereas Columbia's event in SF brought about 25-30 people. I was sold.

    By Blogger Marina, at December 15, 2005 3:43 PM  

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