P&Q’s Must Reads: Wharton MBA, Jobless For A Year & $200K In Debt, Offers ‘Urgent Warning’ For Career Changers

Hello everyone  — Welcome back to Poets&Quants’ Must Reads, a quick, digestible recap of the top business school news, sponsored by CentreCourt, P&Q’s virtual admission events.

I’m your host, Kristy Bleizeffer, and I’ll be highlighting the most important P&Q stories you might have missed. So, let’s get to it. 

No. 1: Wharton MBA, Jobless For A Year & $200K In Debt, Offers ‘Urgent Warning’ For Career Changers

An MBA from an elite business school is supposed to be a ticket to a better life. Too often for those who need it most — first-generation, low-income students — it doesn’t work out that way.

John Costa knows this firsthand. He graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with the MBA Class of 2016, looking to break into management consulting in a pivot from his pre-MBA career in local government. But the last eight years have not gone exactly according to plan.

In this article, Costa shares his story and his advice for MBAs, like him, without backgrounds in FAANG, MBB, or bulge bracket investment banks. You can find it on our homepage.

No. 2: MBA Ranking: Business School Careers, Culture And Curriculum 

The Princeton Review takes a different approach to business school rankings. Rather than bundling data, it breaks it apart so readers know specifically where their target schools shine. 

The ranking consists of 18 categories, such as the quality of the faculty or consulting programming. Rather than a final index score tethered to questionable weights, The Princeton Review simply shares the Top 10 performers across each category. In the process, readers can identify the programs providing the highest student and alumni satisfaction in the areas that matter most to them. 

If you want to know where your target schools excel, check out the full story which you can find in our trending tab.

No. 3:  2024-2025 MBA Application Deadlines

Looking for a handy guide to all your target schools’ upcoming application deadlines? Stop by our homepage now for the latest updates.

This guide has all the relevant dates and deadlines – Rounds 1 and 2, interviews and decisions – for the top business schools in the world. And it’s constantly updated to keep you updated.

No. 4: Our Weekly Round Up of  News You Can Use

No matter where you are in your MBA journey, we bring several helpful stories for you this week.

First up: Crafting A Compelling Career Vision For Your MBA Application. This story, available from our homepage, offers actionable advice for conveying a career vision statement that’s persuasive, coherent, concise, and authentic in your MBA applications and interviews

Next: Avoid The Trap Of Being A Copycat MBA Applicant. Discover how to overcome the notion that you must be regular and how it robs  you of the chance to be extraordinary. This story is available in our admissions hub.

Finally: How To Get Into A Top MBA Program With A Low Test Score. MBA Coach Scott Edinburgh tells you how to punch up the rest of your application in this article, which is available in our admissions hub.

And, that’s it for this week’s Must Reads recap. 

I also want to alert school seekers to our events tab from our main menu. There, you’ll find all the upcoming admissions events for a range of degrees and programs including full-time and online MBAs, specialized masters, entrepreneurship and more. Registration is free.

Again, I’m Kristy Bleizeffer, and you can join me next week, right here, for a recap of what’s important in the world of business education. Thanks for listening.