Wharton Reveals 2018 MBA Employment Report, Announces $25 Mil Gift
Lots of news out of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania recently. Employment statistics have been published for the most recent graduating class, and a big donation will fund a cool new building dedicated to entrepreneurship in West Philadelphia as well as more international scholarships for undergraduates.
Here’s what’s going on at the Wharton School.
Penn Employment Report (2018)
The 2018 MBA Career Report revealed a slight increase in job offers and salaries with finance drawing in more students than ever. In 2018, 36.9 percent of full-time MBA graduates went into financial services (up from 33 percent last year). Consulting lured the second most graduates at 25 percent, down from 28 percent in 2017. As for technology—the third most sought-after industry—this year there was a small dip down to 14.9 percent from 16 percent in 2017.
Employment Summary
Overall, of the 77.9 percent of Wharton MBAs seeking employment, 98.4 percent received a job offer 90 days post-graduation, and 94.6 percent accepted. For the remaining 17.2 percent not seeking employment—140 students—84 returned to their current company (60 percent), 34 started their own company (24 percent), 17 postponed their job search (12 percent), and five students gave another reason (3 percent).
As for top employers, many prominent companies hired two or more graduates including Accenture Strategy, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Bain & Company, Deloitte Consulting, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, and Tesla.
Salaries Rise
Wharton MBA salaries continued their climb, with the school reporting a $5,000 increase in total median base salary, bringing that figure to $135,000 in 2018. The highest median salary—$180,000—went to graduates heading into professional services, followed by venture capital at $175,000 and hedge fund managers at $162,000.
As for regional differences in salaries, the 42.7 percent of Wharton MBA graduates who accepted positions in the Northeastern United States commanded a median salary of $140,000. Another 23.2 percent of grads headed to the West, where the median annual salary was $135,000. The Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., with its median annual salary of $139,000, drew the third largest percentage of grads, at 7.7 percent. Interestingly, those who took jobs in the Midwest and South reported the biggest paydays, with a median salary of $150,000. This was trailed by the Southwest, with a median annual salary of $145,000.
Another 11.7 percent of the graduating class sought post-graduation employment outside the United States, where salaries on the whole were lower. In Latin America, the median annual salary is $92,000. Salaries are slightly better in Europe, where the median is $119,000, and best in Asia, at $126,000.
$25 Million Gift for Scholarships and New Hall
Right on the heels of publishing its employment statistics last week, the Wharton School also announced a $25 million gift. The transformative gift will go toward constructing Tangen Hall, the first-ever dedicated space for cross-campus entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania. It will also establish an international scholarship fund.
“This gift not only represents a profound commitment to Penn and Wharton student financial aid; it also energizes our entire campus community through Tangen Hall, a game-changing facility for innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology,” Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett said in a press release.
Nicolai Tangen, W’92
Alumnus Donation
Nicolai Tangen, the founder of London-based investment partnership AKO Capital and 1992 Wharton undergraduate alumnus, encouraged the AKO foundation to donate as part of Wharton’s More Than Ever fundraising campaign.
“Katja and I are continually inspired by Penn students and pleased to have the opportunity to engage with them and set them up for success,” Tangen says. “We look forward to their many achievements in the years ahead and to witnessing how this new building will bring together the next generation of entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators to share their talents with one another and for the greater good.”
Tangen Hall
Tangen Hall will be located at 40th and Sansom Street, offering students almost 70,000 square-feet of space to pursue entrepreneurial goals. The hall brings together students from across the university to participate in the new Venture Lab. Also, the building will become the new home of many entrepreneurship-focused programs including:
- Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship
- Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Program
- Weiss Tech House
- Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center
- Wharton Small Business Development Center
- The Master’s Level Integrated Product Design Program
Tangen Hall will have dozens of meeting and collaboration spaces for students, retail space for student ventures, a test kitchen, a maker lab with 3D printers and laser cutters, a VR cave, and a café.
“Tangen Hall marks a new chapter for the entrepreneurial community at Penn and in Philadelphia, providing a central hub for the groundbreaking innovations that happen here every day,” Wharton Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Karl Ulrich says. “This physical space will allow faculty to more strongly support students who turn ideas into outcomes that will transform business for years to come.”
Construction will begin in 2019 with completion slated for 2020.
International Scholarship Fund
Beyond Tangen Hall, the $25 million will also go toward a new Katja and Nicolai Tangen International Endowed Scholarship, which will provide funding for international undergraduate students. The goal is to help students who could otherwise not afford a Penn education.
It’s the fourth scholarship made possible thanks to the AKO Foundation and the Tangens. So far, they’ve supported a total of 22 Penn students since 2012.
“We are profoundly grateful to Nicolai and Katja Tangen for their extraordinary commitment to extend opportunities for entrepreneurship to all Penn students,” Penn President Amy Gutmann says. “We are also grateful that Nicolai and Katja are expanding their steadfast scholarship support, enabling the best students from every part of the world to attend Penn, to thrive in their studies, and to serve communities worldwide.”
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
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LA Small Business Growth, UCLA Time Management Advice, and More
Take a look at some of the top stories coming out of the Los Angeles business schools this week.
The Growing Role of the CIO – Wall Street Journal
Vijay Gurbaxani, professor of business and computer science at the the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, recently sat down with Ben Fried, CIO at Google Inc., and the Wall Street Journal for a conversation on the changing role of the CIO in today’s companies. The conversation was led by Nikki Waller, WSJ bureau chief.
Gurbaxani discussed changing technology and its impact on business, particularly the importance of cultivating talent in machine learning. For companies to stay current and competitive, he says, they must perfect the art of gathering data and putting it to good use.
“If you fall behind your competitors in developing this new know-how and leveraging, you’re going to fall further and further behind,” Gurbaxani said. “So my message to you would be get out there in a hurry.”
To read more excerpts from the interview, click here.
Study: L.A.’s Small Businesses Optimistic About Growth – Los Angeles Business Journal
A recent survey, conducted by 1st Century Bank in a partnership with Beacon Economics, has showed positive signs for LA small business growth, which is projected to continue through the end of the summer.
The study, which surveyed 150 small businesses in 30 core industries, reported a number of findings that offer hope and a positive outlook for small business owners in Los Angeles. About 78 percent of businesses reported that they expected to see an increase in market demand, while 54 percent witnessed an increase in profit margins over the past six months. Nearly 56 percent of the businesses reported a boost in sales during that same period, and over 70 percent expected to see further increase during the next six months.
More than 70 percent of small business owners in LA are expecting even more growth within the next six month.
According to Beacon Economics research director Adam Fowler, small businesses are a crucial part of the Los Angeles economy and throughout the nation.
“If we don’t understand small-business sentiment,” he comments, “we can’t know the direction this important sector will be heading in … nor can we improve conditions for their success.”
Click here to learn more about the LA small business growth research and look at the complete report here.
Time Management for Startups: Entrepreneurs Act as if Future Hours Aren’t Worth Much – UCLA Anderson Review
While larger companies have become increasingly aware about the importance of time management in a hyper efficient work environment, the same may not be true for entrepreneurs. Upstarts in the business world are as notorious for breaking certain conventions as they are for cutting their teeth, putting in triple-digit hour work weeks to build companies from scratch. And the reason being, says UCLA Anderson‘s Charles J. Corbett, is that there isn’t enough research quite yet.
“I realized there wasn’t much out there,” Corbett said in a UCLA Anderson Review interview. “A lot of the issues that entrepreneurs face don’t come up in our core management studies.”
Alongside fellow UCLA Anderson and INSEAD professor Guillaume Roels, and University College London’s Onesun Steve Yoo, Corbett found that entrepreneurs have to think of time management in the terms of their future, rather than today. And the trick is to understand “net present value (NPV).”
“But, according to Corbett, Roels and Yoo, people, including entrepreneurs, aren’t very good at thinking about their time in the same way. When people think about the value of their time, they tend to think about its current value, today, and not the future ramifications of having that time today. Correctly anticipating those dynamics, ‘NPV thinking’ is particularly important for entrepreneurs with the ambition to grow their business.”
You can read more from the trio’s time management research here.
