Accepted at UCLA, Darden & Georgetown ($25k).

Am thinking of getting into private wealth management. Can any of these schools get me there considering my relatively low GMAT 690 (73 percentile quant) which I think may restrict from even getting an interview.

My background is in sales as a business development manager for Eastern Canada at Eastman Kodak. I am both a US & French citizen who has lived in Cali, Paris & Canada. Am leaning towards UCLA for a career in private banking in California.

Private banking is not terribly hard to break into from what I can tell. I think UCLA would be your best bet-- academics are on par with Darden (and better in finance) with the advantage of the LA location.

Goldman, Lehman, JP Morgan and some others all recruit on campus at UCLA for private banking. That area of finance is mostly about personality and connections (wine and cheese dinners, golf, etc.). Not too difficult from UCLA if you are focused. I also could not think of an area of finance that would care less about your GMAT score which is fine anyway.

Anderson '09

As someone who currently works at one of the top Private Banking shops, I can assure you that all you need to do is be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Depending on your Undergrad and/or work experience, you really don't even need an MBA if you want to get into it. Any of those schools would be fine

M.B.A news:
I have an MBA and noticed that the Extending Period of Optional Practical Training by 17 Months for F-1 Nonimmigrant Students only with STEM degrees. What about MBAs ????

MBAs we can submit our comments to the Department of Homeland Security to review this interim rule as quickly as possible Here is the information:

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=090000648046e418

I talked with my international advisor so that he can also submit and help us.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Read it carefully. 17 months OPT is for ALL students if they are approved for H-1B that year. So if you are working on OPT that starts in June this year, your OPT is 12 months (regular time) plus 5 months if your employer filed for H-1B and got approved so you don't need to leave the country in the time between your OPT is over and you get your H-1B. STEM grads gets 29 months OPT and this is that difference.

Hi Sunnie 2005,

Thanks for your information. But in my case right now I am in my OPT and got a job offer on April 10,2008. So, this OPT extension unfortunately does not help me. But, if the OPT extension would be for any MBA student I will be working right now...

Anyways, I strongly believe that the OPT-extension is ONLY FOR STEM DEGREES. I just talked to my international advisor and she confirmed it.

Thank you

Hi guys,

My name is Patrick Mille and we are a group of international students who are going to study a MBA degree in US, Canada, or probably Europe. However, I think Mike is right, because our counselor told us about the OPT-extension that is only valid for STEM degrees and we had a video-conference with two students of one of the top ten MBA b-schools and they told us that we should consider to study other degrees such as STEM degrees or if we want to study an MBA we should go to Europe.

We have already taken the GMAT and the Toefl but, we are still undecided about if we study in Europe or study something with STEM degrees. Good luck Mike and thanks for your comments. Guys your comments are so helpful for future MBA or STEM students. I saw a lot of forums in different sites over the internet about this new rule and the student comments.

Thank you

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Half down and half to go. As I am very much a positive person, I like the idea of my glass is half full. Well the last few weeks have been a roller coaster for my life; [I] had some ups a few more downs and a ton of stuff in between. A few things have been helping me through all of this, my great classmates form Ivey and my amazing group. They don't know it but the few days I spent [learning] in Hong Kong really helped me get away from it all. Last week was especially good, a busy Sunday night and [being] personally chaperoned to the airport gate always is a great plus.

So what was the last class like you might ask...Strategic Analysis and Action, more of a reading and pure thinking class than a true pure analysis. The cases were interesting, especially companies such as Merck who I knew a bit about from reading Built to Last (a great book). The discussions were ok and I could see that the professor was trying to get a bit more out of us to get some good discussions going but he was not always successful. I try and take the opposite point of view most of the time just to get the discussions going, but I am not sure if my classmates roll their eyes when my hand goes up or think ok good Chris is going to say something and wake up the class. Wish we had learned some more practical cases that I could utilize directly into my business life.