Hey guys,

after I've taken all necessary tests (GMAT, TOEFL), I'm considering to apply to these two schools (besides INSEAD and IMD) and I'm surprised about a few things.

1) In the FT 2016 ranking, both schools (Judge and Said) rank quite differently, presumablly because of the substantially lower salary of Oxford alumni. Does anyone have an idea why alumni from Said (136k) make significantly less (at least according to FT) than the ones from Judge (156k)? My first Impression was that that's because Said has a more distinct focus on social entrepreneurship (at least in their marketing..), but comparing their employment reports, it turns out that share is quite similar. Same applies for GMAT levels and working experience. Other suggestions?

2) Both schools have rather unrevealing career reports. Compared to the one that INSEAD publishes, it's almost impossible for me to find out how much graduates earn when placed in the Eurozone (say, France or Germany). After all, conversions using PPP from GBP and USD to EUR lead to quite different EUR values. Especially the Cambridge Report creates more questions than it answers. Does anyone have reliable salary information on EUR basis?

Best

Daniel

[Edited by Dan85 on May 20, 2016]

I think Oxford and Cambridge get different students. I think the Judge students have better (even if not more) work experience and earn more on the way in as well as on the way out, and the career progress they made is very different. One slight difference might be the far smaller number of Brits at Oxford, which perhaps flows from the different brand associations of the schools and their founders: Said as Thatcherite arms dealer and Judge as post-Thatcherite team-player. Personally, I think the far better careers services and more realistic career strategies of Judge students play more of a role.

[Edited by Duncan on May 20, 2016]

In terms of bottom-line salary stats I suspect it also might have something to do with the industry breakdown of the grads.

These aren't direct comparisons because the schools provide two different years for the employment reports, so take this with a grain of salt, but in the most recent Cambridge report, 61 percent of the grads went into finance or consulting. These sectors tend to have higher salaries than many other sectors. The most recent Said report they have up (2013-2014) only has 48 percent going into these industries, with the rest of the placements being more diverse (10 percent going into non-profits is great, but probably won't help the bottom line salaries.)

Duncan, Maury,

thank you for your thoughts.

Do you have any idea of how to deal with the salary data provided by the schools vs. those provided by FT? I know that Said and Judge report graduate salaries whereas FT reports salaries of alumns that are 3 years out - but the gap between these figures seems quite big to me. For instance, Cambridge reports 89,069 USD for graduates, FT reports (for the very same school and program, of course) 156,000 USD 3 years out. That would mean that graduates would almost double their income within this short time frame - realistic?

Also, the PPP conversion seems odd to me. Take Cambridge again: The reported 89,069 convert to very little 69,474 EUR if I apply the world bank PPP conversion factor of Germany. INSEAD, providing salary figures in local currency, reports a median of 95,000 EUR for Germany - both schools, however, have a very little gap between them in the FT salary figures. After all, I can't really bring all these figures together in a way that makes sense, especially because it seems clear to me that all data exclude bonuses etc.

Any ideas?

Their results will be replicable only with the same individual response data. Alumni go to different countries. It would take a long time to explain all the possible variables but you not find any suprising. These schools are sending alumni to different roles and countries so PPP reflects that global position and is not an effective guide to one specific country. Global averages need not mean different national outcomes but probably mean different distributions between countries.

Update: Decided to attend Cambridge over Oxford (had offers from both) although I found them quite comparable.

Main reasons were:

- Bursary in Cambridge vs. no scholarship in Oxford
- College selection for MBAs in Cambridge more flexible; in Oxford too restrictive for my liking
- Higher FT rank for Cambridge (really a minor argument, though).

Thanks everyone for answering some of my questions.

If anyone would like to get some information about the admission process of these two schools, feel free to ask.

[Edited by Dan85 on Nov 15, 2016]

Congrats, and good luck!

In terms of bottom-line salary stats I suspect it also might have something to do with the industry breakdown of the grads.

These aren't direct comparisons because the schools provide two different years for the employment reports, so take this with a grain of salt, but in the most recent Cambridge report, 61 percent of the grads went into finance or consulting. These sectors tend to have higher salaries than many other sectors. The most recent Said report they have up (2013-2014) only has 48 percent going into these industries, with the rest of the placements being more diverse (10 percent going into non-profits is great, but probably won't help the bottom line salaries.)

Cambridge is still showing higher percentages of their placements into consulting (29 percent vs. 22 percent). It's also placed much better in the FT ranking than Oxford.