The Big Surprise In Booth’s 2016 Pay Report

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).