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| New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business |
OVERALL 1998 RANK: 13 BW corporate rank: 10 BW graduate rank: 20 BW 1996 rank: 14 |
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1999 Profile Update School Profile School Statistics Graduates' Comments: The administration, faculty, and staff are constantly asking the students, as well as alumni and Corporate America, what they can do to make Stern a better place. The most surprising aspect of B-school was the intensity and commitment that the Office of Career Development gives to the students. The director of Career Development, Margaret O'Hara, is a fantastic woman who sincerely cares about each individual student. I can honestly say that I would not have had a job if it wasn't for the excellence of that office. --Finance I was disappointed with the Placement Office. The staff has done a great job bringing the types of firms Stern MBAs want to work for to campus. However, the placement office needs to do a much better job preparing students for the interview process. In addition, the Director fails to treat the MBA students as valued customers of the school's services. I remember a couple of group settings where she belittled students -- treating them like children. "The customer (i.e, the student) is always right" is certainly not the motto of the Placement Office. The emphasis on teams and group work at Stern is excessive. I was so sick of group projects after the second semester that I actually chose classes not on the basis of whether the class content was enjoyable to me personally or whether it would be relevant to my career. Rather, I needed a break from all the stupid group projects and selected one course during my third and fourth semester simply because I knew that group projects were not part of the course work. The school demands we do the group projects, but the physical space in which groups can meet is limited. Stern's New York City location gave me the opportunity to hear many high-level Wall Street and corporate executives speak. --Finance Stern has made noticeable strides in the past two years within the recruiting area due to the outstanding efforts of Margaret O'Hara. In my career area, every major player now recruits at Stern, whereas two years ago, several of the major firms had not begun to recruit on campus. Also, having the alumni network of the Stern school was extremely important to me during my job search. --Finance (Investment Banking) The Office of Career Development headed by Margaret O'Hara is beyond belief. Margaret is outstanding and her efforts on the student's and school's behalf are unbelievable-truly first rate. A refreshing aspect to Stern is that the school realizes it is not No. 1 and is therefore constantly seeking to improve itself and listen to any and all suggestions. --Finance I am utterly astonished at how much Stern has changed and improved in even the two years I've been here. Dean Daly has outlined a set of specific goals and laid out tactics to meet those goals. As a member of Stern's admissions committee, I can safely say the caliber of applicant has shot up dramatically; I doubt I could have gotten in this year if I had applied! The kinds of student services, the cohesiveness of the full-time students, the cooperation between first- and second-year students, and the number and quality of job opportunities have all grown and improved in my time at Stern. To demonstrate their committment to quality teaching, both Dean Daly and Vice Dean Avijit Ghosh teach classes. I took classes with both of them, and felt fortunate that I was able to develop relationships with the leaders of my school. Dean Daly places lots of emphasis on activities like having Deans in classrooms and students on the admissions committee. He calls it "signaling" -- that is, actively demonstrating through behavior what he wants Stern to be. --Consulting Under the leadership of Dean George Daly, Stern is making great progress towards becoming one of the top MBA programs in the country. The administration is currently making tremendous efforts to improve the school's facilities (a major building expansion is just beginning and will be completed in phases over the next 2 years). The student body has tremendous international international representation (about 40% of the class). Stern offers one of the largest selections of MBA exchange programs of any leading school (with roughly 30 institutions around the world and growing -- I was able to spend one semester in Santiago, Chile). --Finance The best thing about the Stern school is the Global Business Consulting program. Students travel to emerging markets in Asia for three weeks over Winter Break to complete consulting projects for clients such as Royal Dutch Shell, J.P. Morgan, MasterCard, and IBM Consulting. The clients pay for the students' transportation and hotel expenses and the students receive 3 credits for the course. The program has been in place for two years now, and this year 36 students went to countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Taiwan. --Marketing One thing that need to be mention is the school's effort to better itself. There are continous meetings, proposals, requests for feedback and advice. The school keeps students, faculty and staff costantly informed on its actions and future plans and demands for opinions and advice. The second thing I would like to mention is the incredible and invaluable network of contacts that the school has within the business community. Professionals from almost all the major firms teach elective courses, give seminars, participate almost on a weekly basis at debates and meetings sharing their experiences, their views on current events and their future impacts. The final thing I would like to mention is the incredible multinational enviroment that the school offers. The opportunity to work together with representatives from all the regions of the world, represents an incredible plus to our education. --Finance An MBA is not only an academic experience, but the fact of being in NYC has greatly enhanced my MBA experience. I would like to mention that our Dean George Daly has provided a great impulse to the development of our curriculum. Also, I would like to mention that the school is a great place to be as an international student given the diversity of the student body. In my core course class there were people from 23 countries (out of 64 students). And many countries had a representation of more than one student, i.e. 2 south africans, 2 venezuelans, 3 indians, 3 south koreans, 2 greeks and 2 mexicans. --Finance ...While most schools appear to have large numbers of engineers and business majors, Stern has a high proportion of liberal arts majors with interesting work experience. --Consulting ...I learned as much from my fellow students as I did from the lectures or textbooks. People were competitive, but in a good natured way, outgoing, and fun to be with... The subject of leadership is addressed at Stern to an extraordinary degree. I heard more than 30 major CEOs speak during my two years here, and personally talked with more than 10. These were great experiences in a subject that is often hard to approach. --Consulting There is no other school in the world that can compete with Stern in terms of location. Living in the heart of Manhattan, every student can meet with as many stars of finance, consulting, and the broadly stated corporate world as one wants to. At the same time, New York's outstanding cultural and night life adds more colors to the MBA experience. The school has also amazed me by the caliber and variety of the student body. Every person has had unique experiences before entering the school -- most of the people came from or lived in different countries. --Analyst I am a Japanese student, sponsored by the company I worked for. I guess the reason why Stern cannot hit the top 10 can be attributed to the low evaluation by graduates. I would say they do not realize Stern today is completely different from what they know. For instance, in Japan, it has been held that Stern is the "Last Resort," meaning people who fail other top schools like Wharton or Columbia can pass Stern easily. I would say Stern is one of the most difficult business schools for Japanese candidates (We have only 10-13 Japanese students, which is I guess a much smaller population than those in Wharton or Chicago.) --Accounting Coming from a superb business undergraduate experience at Wharton, I was not easily impressed by many MBA programs. However, NYU's Stern School has truly exceeded any expectations that I may have had at the beginning. I had six job offers in management consulting by Thanksgiving. I believe that NYU has made great strides in developing and improving its program, and showed a continual willingness to accept criticism and feedback in the most constructive way. This school allows its best students to work with professors to design new courses. --Consulting I have never before had teachers that were that knowledgeable of their subject, up-to-date in terms of industry trends, top-notch in terms of research, and at the same time so accessible for students. --Consulting The size of the class (about 420 people) is great because you can get to know most of your classmates. The building was poorly designed but I believe that they are working on that. --Finance When I was first applying to business schools, I noted that Stern offered a star-filled faculty. To my amazement, if I went there, I could share the classroom with Nobel Prize winners, current and former opinion and deal leaders from Wall Street and world-renowned academics. After my first semester, this aspect only got better with the inclusion of former statesmen such as Domingo Cavallo, and other personalities such as Paul Volcker, who will be teaching at Stern in upcoming semesters. --Unknown Stern is perhaps the only top business school that can really boast and brag about its location. Its geographical position gives the advantage of being able to combine a student and academic life with the excitement of a wonderful city, without being nested in the northwest corner of Manhattan but rather in the middle of everything. On campus recruiting or not, most of the financial activity takes place here, and this aura surrounds Stern permanently. As a student you can feel the rush of Wall Street just a few blocks away and the mystery and excitement of the humongous deals that are concocted in Midtown. Then, when you get to class, the Wall Street working professor discusses what he did during the day...and allows you to get a fuller real-life view of what is going on. --Unknown Stern is no longer an all-finance school as the management, marketing, information systems and operations research classes are fully integrated into the core and with outstanding electives in all areas. Stern avidly promotes student-student and student-faculty interactions that result in what will be lifelong friendships despite many of us parting ways that will separate us mileage-wise. Relating to this, I believe an interesting aspect to know is that all the academic rigor at Stern comes with a reward at the end of the week, with student run but school promoted convivial on Thursday afternoons. I believe that the integration of work with fun is a fundamental aspect of a great managerial education, and Stern excels at doing this. --Finance Stern exceeded my expectations in almost every way. I enrolled at Stern because of its excellent reputation in finance and its location in New York City. I discovered, however, that the school was much more than a haven for Wall Street types. I found excellent instruction in almost every course that I took and an incredibly international student body. Most importantly, I found an institution that treats its students with professionalism. The well-documented changes that Dean George Daly has set in motion at Stern have generated a host of projects (academic and otherwise), and the administration and faculty are happy to allow students to assume as many of those challenges as they would like. The faculty taught me more about leadership by dealing with me as an equal and giving me real responsibility than they ever could have in contrived leadership courses. --Unknown Dean Daly has focused on attacting a top-flight faculty, renowned for both teaching and research. Domingo Cavallo, the Minister of Finance of Argentina from 1991 to 1996, taught a class at Stern in my first year and made himself quite accessible to me and other students interested in emerging markets. Professor Richard Sylla taught two courses on economic history that placed many of the more technical aspects of the program into perspective. I took classes with two of the three most important deans (David Backus and Avijit Ghosh) of the MBA program and built up close relationships with each. Professor Edward Altman, the most renowned academic in bankruptcy finance, hired me as his research assistant after I took his class. The opportunity to work very closely with researchers at a very personal level greatly enhanced my education. The school is very supportive of student initiatives and encourages all to become involved. --Unknown I benefited from this openness as I worked to create a new student organization that I founded in my first semester at Stern. The Dean's office helped me to plan speaking events and other gatherings. David Backus introduced me to an old grad-school friend of his (Jaime Serra Puche) who just happened to have negotiated NAFTA for Mexico. We paired Serra Puche with Domingo Cavallo and the head Latin American economist for Salomon Brothers to discuss emerging markets privatization. From this roundtable grew the idea of having a full-fledged conference on trade regimes throughout the world. We have scheduled this conference for November 13, 1998, and have already lined up Paul Volcker as Chairman and Serra Puche, Carla Hills, and Michael Wilson (the three lead NAFTA negotiators) as keynote speakers. The administration helped us in our projects by treating us with professionalism, as equals and partners in transforming Stern. --Finance One of the most outstanding courses at Stern is the Global Business Consulting class headed up by Charles Fonbrum. We were divided up into groups, given a consulting project and then sent to Asia to work on it. I point this out because I know several schools were featured recently in Forbes regarding the consulting project (Stern was excluded). However, I feel no school has done more than Stern. Our faculty has gone out of there way to develop this program and seek out consulting projects. I know at Wharton, they also do consulting projects, but it is a required couse. As a result, the students do not really appreciate it nor really want to do it. At Stern it is an elective and we get the opportunity to travel. This is just one instance of many where Stern is underrated. --Finance The two most popular detractions made about Stern-NYU are: 1) The school's location is the main reason for its placement rate, and 2) The school is only about finance. The former is, frankly, silly. Stern has an excellent faculty and administration. It has the backing of an extraordinary university and its location is an advantage that complements the school's academic status. The second detraction is even sillier, since it is born out of ignorance about Stern's MBA program. Firstly, finance is the foundation for all aspects of the business world and, as such, should be a base for all MBA programs. Secondly, Stern is much more than a "finance-only" school. The school's diversity, in terms of students and faculty, is incredible. The differences among those in the program are a source of strength. Other academic areas are strong, especially due to learned and experienced faculty members. Another source of strength is the high integration among the various areas. --Finance The administration has done a wonderful job at tailoring the program to current business trends. The new Center for Law & Business headed by William Allen and the new Media & Entertainment specialty track are two examples of the administration's commitment to maintaining an up-to-date curriculum. --Finance The quality of students (as well as their commitment) is very uneven. --Finance The school is still very much heavily slanted towards finance, but every year there is increasing diversity among recruiting companies. One problem with the school having such a large part-time program is that many electives are offered only at night. This potentially leads to large gaps between classes, and night classes are generally slower-paced and less collegial than day classes. The open campus is wonderful. How can you not love Greenwich Village? I was surprised and dismayed at the quality of a few of the professors, all of whom were tenured. On top of it, the worst professors I had were in Finance. Naturally, I had expected only top-quality professors from Stern, especially in the Finance department. Stern still adheres to a standard grading policy when other top B-schools have adopted pass or no-pass, or non-disclosure grading policies. There is a drawback to disclosing GPAs, namely that some people actually take them seriously (recruiters and students alike). In many courses, normally the quantitative ones, the grading does seem fair. But in the more subjective courses, and a few of the quantitative courses, the grading appears arbitrary, inconsistent, and debatable. --Finance My main complaint is that the school's faculty lacks depth. There is one phenomenal Corporate Finance professor, and then the rest do not compare. The same is true in many marketing classes, macroeconomics, and financial statement analysis. If you don't get Silber or Dmodaran for finance, then you probably did not get a true taste of finance at NYU. That is unfortunate. The school has taken steps to become a more balanced program, rather than merely a finance-quant school. Consulting and marketing have become more prevalent. --Finance Prior to entering Stern I had no knowledge of finance or accounting (both critical to my intended career path). By the end of my first year, I had developed enough technical expertise in these areas that I was frequently cited as a particularly knowledgeable summer associate. This education was a function of a faculty which was committed to student development. Every professor's door was always open. Moreover, Stern's location in New York City allowed us to benefit from instruction from many adjunct professors who are leading professionals in their field. Stern offers countless electives taught by such faculty. For example, I learned Project Finance from the head of Societe Generale's Project Finance Department. I took Mergers & Acquisitions with a former Managing Director in M&A at J.P. Morgan. These professors provide a significant degree of practical experience to complement the theoretical underpinnings provided by the core courses. --Unknown Stern has an intensely cooperative culture. Students, faculty, and administrators were always willing to lend a helping hand. English speakers coached non-English speakers in business communication, Latin Americans held Spanish tutorials, American students served as guarantors on international students' apartment leases. Even in the job search (perhaps the most competitive arena in business schools), I was astounded by the degree of cooperation. Classmates prepared each other for interviews (even when they were competing against each other). The placement office was fantastic. From the first day of the first year, the Office of Career Development was prepared to offer constructive advice about crafting resumes, interviewing, networking, and selecting a job. In addition, OCD orchestrated a mock interview program, which allowed MBAs to practice their interview skills with MBAs who had interviewed for similar positions a year. --Finance There are too many part-timers! The large number of full-time students makes the job hunt tough enough, but with the additional competition it became very difficult.--Finance Stern is a unique school because it allows for both a part-time and full-time educational opportunity. Sometimes, full-time students do not see this value and only confuse the masses of part-timers as chaotic. It is important to realize this bias within Stern. Also, Stern is a city school and therefore may lose the closeness of community a smaller, campus-oriented school may possess. --Marketing Some improvements can be made in areas such as Marketing and Information Technology. --Finance (Private Equity) The School is almost tailored for Finance. I know that I was more prepared for my summer internship in banking than the other interns from many of the top business schools. I actually think that the school is underrated as a Finance school. --Finance The amount of work that is expected in the first year is somewhat excessive and competition amoung students is high. --Marketing Back to Top 1999 Profile Update School Profile School Statistics |
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