The Big Surprise In Booth’s 2016 Pay Report

University of Chicago Booth School of Business logo sign at the Harper Center

MORE STUDENTS HEADING WEST

The appeal of tech on the West Coast is attracting more Booth grads. This year, a record 23.7% of the class headed west to the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Seattle, up from 18.8% in 2015. As expected, the majority of Booth MBAs stay in the midwest, with 31.5% of the Class of 2016 landing jobs there, roughly the same as last year’s 31.3% total. Some 23.2% of the class headed to the Northeast, up from 22.9%.

The big surprise in location was in the international sector which saw a significant drop to 11.7% from 17.3% a year earlier. It’s not clear why that would have occurred because the size of Booth’s international contingent did not undergo a major change. It is possible, however, that more international students were successful in securing jobs in the U.S.

Among international students, 4.1% landed positions in Asia, down 4.8% in 2015; 3.2% got jobs in Latin America, down from 6.9%; 3.0% in Europe vs. 4.2%; 0.7% in Middle East, up from 0.4%; 0.2% in Canada, down from 0.4%; and Australia at 0.5%.

Yet another surprise was that the highest median salaries went to MBA graduates who took jobs not in Silicon Valley nor New York. Boothies who gained a job in Dallas, for example, reported median salaries of $150,000, while those going to Houston reported median salaries of $144,000. MBAs who stayed in the midwest reported median salaries of $140,000, while those in the Bay Area and Boston reported medians of $135,000 (see table on following page).

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