Chicago Booth MBA Students In Class Bidding Kerfuffle With MiM & MiF Colleagues

Top business schools use a process called bidding to allocate limited seats to MBA students. Students and schools alike view the process as a necessary evil. But at one top B-school this fall, student enmity toward the process has grown into outright rebellion.

MBA students at Chicago Booth School of Business are calling on the school to take corrective action, decrying what they call the B-school’s “decision to prioritize new degree programs at the expense of the FTMBA experience.” They say students in the inaugural cohorts of two new degree programs, the Master in Management and Master in Finance, have been allowed to bid in Phase 1 for seats in full-time MBA classes in breach of school policy.

That’s not all. Under four categories in a petition at Change.org, MBA students laid out 15 other charges against the B-school based on how students in the new programs have been integrated into the school. Through November 26 the petition had 514 verified signatories. See its full text below.

TROUBLE FORESEEN

Chicago Booth announced the launch of its new 10-month Master in Management program in summer 2023, the first new program for the school since before the Second World War. Half a year later it announced the launch of the Master in Finance, with 10- and 15-month tracks. Both welcomed their inaugural cohorts this fall.

Some MBA students at the M7 school were concerned about a drain on resources caused by the new programs, as reflected in an oped published in Chicago Business, the B-school’s student newspaper, in February 2024. Author Qi Zheng, Class of 2024 MBA, wrote, “Although the deans communicated the pair of announcements as exciting news for all, a rudimentary analysis would suggest that the excitement was misplaced at best. Harper Center is close to its capacity – study rooms are scarce, common area seating runs out at lunchtime, and MBA classes tend to fill all ten classrooms on the C-floor.”

Starr Marcello, deputy dean for MBA programs, responded at the time with an oped of her own: “Booth is committed,” she wrote, “to fully supporting all of its degree programs to be transformative educational experiences for students. We are onboarding additional resources to support the growth of our degree programs to welcome the new Master in Finance (MiF) and Master in Management (MiM) students.” She added: “Adding these new degree programs to Chicago Booth will only elevate the reputation and offerings of Booth.”

A more recent article at Chicago Business authored by “6 Students from the #academics Slack Channel” details the “Impact of One-Year Masters Programs (MiM + MiF) on Winter Quarter Bidding,” beginning: “Many top business schools use ‘bidding’ to allocate a scarce resource based on students’ willingness to pay,” the authors write. “Historically Boothies have had a love-hate relationship with bidding – most understand it’s a necessary evil to effectively pick classes. However, this most recent bidding cycle has left many students feeling more hate than love. This shift is due to the introduction of the two new 1-year Masters in Management (MiM) and Masters in Finance (MiF) programs to the bidding mix.”

The authors state that key issues voiced by the community on the full-time students’ Slack #academics channel include:

• “Non-home” students bid phases and the messaging (or the lack there-of) to the MBA community
• Bid point imbalances
• Academic impact of a materially different demographic in the MBA classroom
• Another dynamic adding to the frustration is a sense of miscommunication amongst many full time students

NEW PROGRAMS ‘ARE CASH GRABS,’ ONE STUDENT SAYS

The Change.org petition begins: “We, the Full-Time MBA (FTMBA) Classes of 2025, 2026 and alumni, are deeply disappointed by Booth’s decision to prioritize new degree programs at the expense of the FTMBA experience. Allowing Masters in Management (MiM) and Masters in Finance (MiF) students to take seats in FTMBA courses has jeopardized our academic opportunities, created unfairness, and eroded trust in Booth’s leadership.”

Qi Zheng, author of the ChiBus article, writes in a comment at the petition website: “When I interviewed Dean Marcello in February for a ChiBus op-ed, she summarily dismissed a similar set of concerns, promising the student body that the influx of Master’s students would only enhance the FT MBA experience. The reviews are now in. The deans’ decision to ignore these demands reveals a troubling reality: they put their own careers ahead of the students. Let’s be clear, what they are really doing is taunting us with this—in two years, you’ll all be gone, and a new crop of admits will be ready for the harvest.”

Among the signatory comments:

“I thought i was paying $80k/yr to at least take classes that I was genuinely interested in or aligned with my career path,” writes Joshua. “I am now forced to take a random assortment of classes that are irrelevant to me because that’s the only way I can fill out a schedule. I chose to attend Booth because it was ‘the most flexible curriculum of all MBA programs,’ but that was clearly not true.”

“These additional programs are damaging the brand and are cash grabs,” writes Andrew. “People choose the Booth MBA over others because of the academic rigor. We need to protect these assets.”

PETITION: Protect the Chicago Booth Full-Time MBA Experience

We, the Full-Time MBA (FTMBA) Classes of 2025, 2026 and alumni, are deeply disappointed by Booth’s decision to prioritize new degree programs at the expense of the FTMBA experience. Allowing Masters in Management (MiM) and Masters in Finance (MiF) students to take seats in FTMBA courses has jeopardized our academic opportunities, created unfairness, and eroded trust in Booth’s leadership.

Unacceptable Issues:

1. Policy Violations
– iBid states: “Phase 1 is for home-program sections only.” MiM and MiF students are not FTMBA students, yet they bid in Phase 1 for FT classes. This is a clear policy breach.
– Dean Rajan and Starr Marcello both promised that MiM students would not take seats in our classes. This promise has been broken.
– Quantitative Portfolio Management: 19 FT students vs. 46 MiM/MiF students.
– EFPE: Went for 8,000 points, with 12 MiM/MiF students taking spots from FT students.

2. Class Access Disparities
– Many critical courses offer significantly fewer seats for FT students than for Part-Time (PT)/Weekend students:
– FSA: 70 FT seats vs. 130 PT seats—an 86% advantage for PT students, despite FT students being 30% more of the population.
– M&A Strategy: One section offered, with 23 FT vs. 47 PT/Weekend students.
– Forcing FT students into Saturday or night classes undermines the full-time MBA experience we were promised.

3. Unfair Bidding System
– MiM and MiF students start with disproportionately more points compared to the FTMBA’s 8,000, bid for fewer courses and earn points at the same rate as FT students. Why do non-FT students have a bidding advantage in FT courses?
– Bid inflation is preventing FT students from securing foundational courses and making it almost impossible to access electives later. FT students are being locked out of the classes they need to progress.
– Joint-degree students, like MBA/MPCS, are penalized as bid points for non-MBA courses have been cut to accommodate new programs. All two-year joint-degree programs should accrue 2,000 bid points per non-MBA course.

4. Harm to FT Students and Booth’s Brand
These decisions have serious consequences:
– Missed prerequisites for internships and future coursework.
– Inflated bid prices preventing access to foundational and cornerstone classes.
– Erosion of the exclusive FT MBA experience Booth markets to applicants.
– Diminished classroom learning due to lack of work experience among MiM & MiF students.
– Alumni trust is at risk. This change will harm Booth’s future FTMBA yield rates. Short-term revenue gains should not come at the cost of Booth’s reputation.

MiM and MiF students should have their own classes, as they do at peer schools like Kellogg, and should not be competing for our seats.
We call for immediate corrective action:
Reverse Phase 1 bidding this quarter.
Create separate course sections for MiM/MiF students.
Increase the number of sections exclusively for FTMBA students.
Prevent MiM/MiF students from bidding on FTMBA courses entirely.

DON’T MISS BIG NEWS: ANOTHER M7 SCHOOL LAUNCHES A MASTER IN MANAGEMENT and CHICAGO BOOTH LAUNCHES A MASTER IN FINANCE, ITS SECOND NEW DEGREE IN 88 YEARS