When The Sky Is Nearly the Limit: Highest Paid MBAs of 2010

HIGHEST PAID MBAs AT TOP SCHOOLS THIS YEAR.

SOURCE: Business school employment reports. * An estimate based on Harvard’s report that a $185,000 base salary for one of its Class of 2010 MBAs is at the 75th percentile of the range of offers for private grads going into private equity. An estimate based on Tuck’s report that a $201,000 base salary for one of its Class of 2010 MBAs is at the 90th percentile of the range of offers to the class.

BUSINESS SCHOOLS DEEMPHASIZE THESE BIG MBA WINNERS.

Most business schools try to play these numbers down because they don’t want to raise unrealistic expectations among applicants and students. After all, the average starting pay for MBAs from most elite schools is a third or less of these outsized gains. The University of Virginia’s Darden School and the University of Michigan’s Ross School only report median and average compensation numbers so that applicants never know how much the lowest or highest-paid graduates pull down in base salary. Harvard Business School and Dartmouth’s Tuck School takes the focus off their highest paid grads by respectively reporting only the 75th percentile and 90th percentile numbers.

On the other extreme, Wharton reported that the lowest-paid MBA in the Class of 2010 received a base salary of juist $25,000 a year for a job in the “media and entertainment” industry in the midwest. At Stanford, the lowest paid MBA this year accepted a health care job paying $40,000–less than the lowest paid non-profit job which paid $50,000 in base salary.

EYE-POPPING NUMBERS AT WHARTON OVER THE YEARS

SOURCE: Wharton Career Reports. Record in bold.