Wharton Follies Poke Fun At B-School Rivals

MBA students at Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Chicago Booth and INSEAD are the victims of some good-natured fun in a new Wharton Follies video that takes dead aim at the stereotypes of students at each of those rival schools.

In a skit entitled “MBAs Assemble A Malm Bed from Ikea,” Wharton writers portray Booth students as nerds, Harvard students as arrogant CEO wannabes, and INSEAD students as Euro-trash partygoers. The Harvard MBAs never even open the Ikea box. They’re too busy deciding which of them will be CEO of the project.

Or as one Wharton MBA puts it, “Twenty years of school, two degrees, five years of work experience, I was literally born to build Ikea furniture.”

Counters another: “I’ve got some really exciting ideas to optimize this process. We can specialize our rules. We can merge with other bed makers. We can outsource to Mexico. We could refinance. We could LBO.”

The Wharton Follies, typically one of the better B-school theatrical revues, concluded this past weekend with a number of over-the-top satires that poked fun at MBA life and especially student at other schools.

In one musical number, “Nothing to Do,” a Wharton student presumably sponsored by Bain & Co. flunks out of schools and ends up working at a McDonald’s counter. The female student sings:

“Bain is paying me to drink, smoke and screw

While others drown in debt, I drown in wine and Percocet

Sponsored at school is just the best deal a girl can get”