My visit to Wisconsin

Wisconsin school of business
Poets & Quants rank: 26
Average GMAT: 675
Tuition & fees: $31,221

Wisconsin was my first out of state MBA visit. I visited on a designated "preview day" with a lot of other people. We started with a breakfast and met a LOT of current students. One of the things that really impressed me were the number of current students who attended the event. I would estimate the number around 15-20 over the course of the day. Wisconsin being also an 8 hour drive away, I had every intention of leaving after the tour and heading back home. I ended up staying quite a bit later for the meet & greet session, it was a blast.

One of the things that impressed me the most about Wisconsin was how sharp everyone there is. Not just the staff, but students. In visiting schools, I can usually get a gauge of how smart I am in relation to the people there. Hands down Wisconsin is the top program I will visit from an overall intelligence perspective.

Pros:
As I stated above, this is a smart group of people. Depending on the school, I have felt about average or above average intelligence-wise. Here I definitely wouldn't be the smartest guy in the room, and I think that would allow me to really grow. Madison is a great city for young professionals. It houses the college but is also the state capitol and it has a lot going on. It definitely isn't just a college town. Recruiting is a huge pro as well. Wisconsin probably has the best recruiting of anyplace I visited. Their placement stats reflect this in that they have the highest reported median salary of anyplace I have looked at. Financially, in a vacuum, they have the best combination of cost and future salary of anyplace I am looking at (not taking into account scholarships).

Cons:
Well if you've read this far, you know I'm rather bullish on Wisconsin, but there are a few cons. The biggest con for me is that it is super competitive and I very well might not get in. Wisconsin is definitely a stretch school for me and even with a 700 GMAT (which I haven't even gotten yet), I am not 100% sure I'd get admitted. And a minor gripe, it is cold in Wisconsin.

I am really enamored with Wisconsin. I can probably say they are the best school I am applying to. I really liked Madison and felt really comfortable with the students. I can probably say they are the one school that I might pass up a scholarship to the others to go to. They are about as close to a "dream school" as I have (yes more so than Ohio State).

Crunching the numbers

     As someone who intends to pursue a career in finance, I am very numbers oriented. One of the things I like about looking into MBA programs is the ability to quantify almost everything about a program. Everything has been ranked multiple times by multiple sources. In deciding where to apply, it is then necessary to take a look at where a person feels competitive with the applicant pool & where there is good overall value (at least for me). In compiling a list of schools, I had a few criteria: Overall ranking, Geographic location, Finance concentration (I require one), Top 50 in Poets & Quants' overall rankings (one school I'm considering dropped out), and low relative cost. The data is as follows:

School	P&Q	Salary	Tuition + CoL	Avg GMAT
Wisconsin	26	53	98,662	675
Ohio State	28	46	92890	673
Penn State	34	48	114536	643
Purdue	39	29	115316	635
Iowa	42	NR	108176	660
Illinois	43	39	103542	657
Georgia	49	38	96664	637
Tulane	61	51	145386	630

I got the overall ranking from Poets & Quants', the salary rankings here, and financial data & GMAT scores mostly from the schools' own web sites. This data is based on out of state tuition for every school except OSU as I'm an Ohio resident. It doesnt take into account any sort of scholarship or award as I wanted to look at just raw numbers.

I have visited or will visit most of the schools on the list, and I will post reviews similar to the Iowa post on all of them, but I want to make this just about the data. . .

Looking at the numbers, a few things pop out. UGA is an excellent value for the low tuition & cost of living. Their ranking in salary surprised me since they were higher than all but Purdue. Wisconsin also surprised me as their publicized average salary is the highest of all the schools I have visited so far. I don't know how the payscale data works, it obviously isnt in a vacuum and every case is unique. Another thing that pops out is Tulane. I recently visited there and had a great visit. Given their relatively lower GMAT, I feel competitive for the program and they did make the top 57 in salary. They were in Poets & Quants' top 50, I believe this had something to do with them slipping to 61. However, 145k is 30k more than the next highest school (Purdue). Another note, Iowa didnt make the list of top 57 schools by salary. I know they are ranked relatively highly on the Poets & Quants rankings due to their high return on investment. I know this is due to the large percentage of scholarships they give out, which could make them the least expensive school in the group. However, I wanted to look at things "all things equal". Of course, the 680 GMAT required to get into OSU or Wisconsin would probably get you a scholarship on every other school on the list.

Another thing to note, I am fully considering all 8 schools. I think all of them could get me where I want to be career wise. I just think an MBA is the biggest decision I have made in my life, I should do all the examining I can. I wanted to put this out there in the hopes that it might help someone else as well. . .