boom shaka laka boom.

Typically, you don't get an MBA without 2-3 years of work experience for Harvard/Stanford or more like 5-10 for Chicago, Northwestern, and Wharton.

You work hard and you save. If you work on Wall Street- heck, if you work as an engineer in downstate IL- and can't save $50-$75K in three years, you have some serious spending issues. That leaves about $50K to be financed. Remember that you can transfer income from your working years to your school years via a 401K, so you're also saving about $5-10K in taxes between the 28% tax bracket and the 10-15% bracket.

Unfortunately I don't work on Wall Street nor am I an engineer. I work for a supermajor oil company as a financial analyst. I get paid in the $60K-$70K range....I guess I will hold off on buying that new BMW.

Thanks for the response though, I know the substance of this post didn't live up to its title.

Ok, that's fine. On $65K/year anywhere outside NYC, I think it's doable to max out your 401K. You probably get a 401K match on 50% of up to 6% of your salary- that's an extra $2K/year on top of your $16.5K/year in savings, or $18.5K/year. This will wind up costing you about $12K in after-tax income; perhaps $11K after state taxes.

This should enable you to build up $55K in pre-tax in savings for your MBA in three years. In reality, you will still probably get year-end performance bonuses if you do well, which may not be huge numbers, but will be a significant boost to net savings. There will also be your summer internship, which will net you $10-$15K.

I remembered doing the calculations a few years ago- if you get no other income, I think you can withdraw about $26K from a pre-tax 401K for tuition and owe $0 in tax (assuming you have no other income) after the lifetime learning credit. After that, federal tax is 15%. So maybe you budget $5-10K at most on the tax for the withdrawals. Let's say that offsets your savings from bonuses over three years.

So the result is that you've got $55K from your 401K, $10K from your internship; $65K to pay for your MBA. You graduate with $60K in debt; you graduate earning $120K/year on average and pay the debt off in perhaps 18 months.

Finally, your company may be willing to pay for an MBA. If happen to be working for BP in Chicago, this is really just perfect- get your MBA part-time from Booth, have BP pay for it, work for them for two years after your MBA, and you're free and clear. If you are at Chevron in San Ramon, you can go to school part-time at Stanford or Berkeley. Perhaps UT Austin could work if you are working for Conoco or Exxon?

An MBA is not really worth it if you're not attending a top 50 program- unless it is required for a promotion. But you work for a Fortune 500 company- if your firm needs you to get an MBA, they will most likely pay for it and have you go part-time, or in a few cases, full-time.

Wow, this information is very useful. I'm currently working for this company so I really can't count on that summer internship you speak of. I wish I was working for BP in Chicago, I would LOVE to go to Booth, that would be a dream come true. My company is headquartered in H-town (yeah you're right, that's the one), but I'm not even in Houston right now, I will move down there in about 12-18 months. I'm going to stick around here atleast 2-3 years before I go to grad school. I don't plan on working here after grad school, so I have to finance grad school myself.

Due to family responsibilies I will have to remain in Houston so I'm looking at the following three options:

1) Go to UT (part time in Houston) and get that coveted HF/PE role in the H after. 2) Go to Rice and be indebted like a mad-man, but come out a with Southern-Ivy MBA. 3) Be a cheap ass and go to UH and work for the student investment fund, get a 3.7-4.0 GPA, and hope I land a nice gig after MBA...I know many ppl who've landed respectable positions in ER and IB from UH after MBA.

For obvious reasons I like option 1 & 2 much more, I'll just have to be very careful (cheap) with my money till then..

To be honest, in the short-term it would be very hard for me to land a trading role within my company, I would have to work here atleast 4-5 years to move into that role. I'm banking on the fact that I work for a supermajor and maybe I can oversell myself and land a job that I really want. I'm working towards the CFA designation, so I think that will help also.

I don't really have a complete strategy yet, but I'm working on it. I want to move out of this role sooner rather than later, not that I don't like its I just feel I could be grinding much harder at 23 (my hours are a piece of cake and the stress is very low).

I think it's too soon to think about an MBA since I graduated about 5 months ago, but I would like to keep it in the back of my mind. I've considered a MFE from a top notch school but wouldn't getting a CFA then become redundant?

I just saw a pie chart for recent hires at Simmons, they recruit "100%" from Harvard, that was amazing to me and a little intimidating as well.

Thanks for your input buddy, you've been very helpful.

Half of all HBS students, including myself, are on fellowship. I got the maximum (~$40k/yr) because I wasn't in a high-paying job before getting my MBA (I was making ~$45k/yr), but even some bankers get fellowships.

Until I started looking into B-schools and thinking about going in the next year, I was under the false impression that everyone at top business schools came from rich families and just hung out driving Cayennes and hopping a ride down to Aspen on dad's jet for the weekend and shit... that sounded better than what I've found out the real situation is... sigh.

slit your wrists

My advice is to not do part time. If you're looking for a complete career changer or not to stay remotely within what you're doing now, Rice full time is probably better if you want to live in Houston, and Rice is generous with MBA scholarships, so I've heard.

Second it's very easy to save money in Houston. Just don't be like everyone else and drive a truck/suburban.

Once a school has given you a place then you will see that they are very keen to make sure that you get there. I'm not going to encourage you to spend all your cash (saving up makes a lot of sense) BUT you will pretty much always be able to afford to attend. Schools will provide financial aid (70% get fin aid) and then loans are no way near as expensive as you'd expect and readily available. So you'll always be able to afford to attend, its just if you think it is worth it. Hope that helps.

btw my wrist slitting comment was not pointed at the OP ;]

Don't do part-time unless you want to stay at your current firm and they're willing to pay for it. If you want to make a transition or have access to on-campus recruiting, you gotta do full-time.

A full-time MBA from an elite school is priceless and opens professional opportunities that are beyond your wildest dreams.