Tulane University Freeman School BLOG

#7: Too many JD/5 Year/International Students in an MBA Class Can Be a Bad Thing

The MBA cohort is supposed to be something special. The average MBA is closer to 30 years old than 20, has 5+ years of work experience and has lots (or at least a few) past experiences s/he can call on to contribute both in class and group work. Having too many JD’s, 5 years, and international kids can screw up the mix for the rest of the traditional MBA’s. Let me break it down:

JD/MBA: These kids are getting an MBA and a JD at the same time. Their program is usually three years, at the end of which they’re both a lawyer and a businessman. However to accomplish both programs in time, the JD/MBA’s are allowed to drop certain classes from the MBA curriculum. They’re also gone for at least one of the 4 bschool semesters over the two year program. This is bad because they don’t contribute to the class as much, because they’re not around as much. Add to this the ultra-competitive nature of JD’s (group work is a foreign word in law school – ripping pages out of library books, anyone?) and you’ve got a group of kids who crank up the stress/competitiveness level, don’t contribute as much to the MBA and aren’t as close of friends/classmates as I’d like them to be. One or two is ok, but when the JD’s start making up a significant portion of the class, this can cause problems.

5 year’s: 5 years are MBA’s who came straight through from Tulane’s undergraduate program. They spend 3 years doing undergraduate work and two years in the MBA at the end of which they get both degrees. This is bad for them and bad for us. Bad for them because (as my classmates have discovered) they have a harder time getting a job at the same salary as a regular MBA. This hurts our average salary and pulls down our rankings. Bad for us because, let’s face it, these kids are 20 or 21 when then enter the program. They have zero work experience and are on a totally different maturity level than a 26/7/8 yr old. No they’re not immature, but cutting your group meeting short because you have to go to your fraternity formal is somehow different than cutting your group meeting short because you want to go watch the Saints. So less work experience, lower salaries, less group contribution and a different social scene is fine…if 5 year’s make up only a small percentage of the class. My class had around 10%…too high.

International Students: Increasing diversity in an MBA class is a great thing! As I said in #8, an international perspective is key to a well-rounded MBA program. But too many international students can hurt a class, especially in today’s job market. H1-B visas are extremely hard to get these days. I don’t care if you’re the most talented Englishman/Indian/Australian/whatever, all other things being equal an American employer will find it easier to hire a US Citizen than a foreign one. Of the international kids in my class, fewer than 15% of them got jobs in the US, and these are kids that aren’t equal to me…they’re much smarter! It sucks, but that’s the way it is. So too many unemployed kids at graduation does a few things: for Tulane it pulls down our rankings (see a theme here?), but more importantly, for the international kid’s friends back home, it dissuades them from coming to Tulane, which is also bad! This is a catch-22, and the only way I can see to amend it (in the short term at least), is to accept fewer international kids and focus more resources on getting them jobs in the US.

I’ve spoken with a few international kids in the class below me and they tell me stories of discussing the Freeman School with friends back home, telling them that they should look at other schools because of the aforementioned problems they’re having. I hope the H1-B/job market/economy improves because I feel like I got a much better deal by interacting with the international students in my class than they did when it came time for them to find a job in the US.

MBA Class Diversity? Yes! MBA Class Overdiversity? No!
-Joel, joel@tulanemba.org

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