btcapital

nigelnyc wrote:
…wIth the proliferation of online MBAs, this designation seems to be getting watered down. It impacts those pursuing MBAs outside the top 20 schools a lot more.
Even though I know many will disagree with me, I think being in the top 50 is good.  Florida, Penn State, and Texas A&M are really good MBA programs, but they’re not in the top 20.  An MBA from Texas A&M is different from an MBA from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
nigelnyc wrote:
If I decided to go get an MBA from say Baruch is a HR professional really going to differentiate that MBA from the University of Phoenix?
I don’t know what Baruch is.  But I think certain schools have a niche for certain majors.  University of Texas-Austin has the best Accounting program in the nation,and also a world-class extension on petroleum mining and engineering.  So if you need somebody to do corporate finance for an oil and gas company, I would start looking at the University of Texas.  Cornell has the best school in the world for hotel managment and tourism.  Michigan has a good a finance school as anybody.
nigelnyc wrote:
…are these designations really going to help you make more money unless they are deemed absolutely necessary by your employer?
Well, like I said: as a CPA in public practice, it’s not about whether they are necessary, but whether the clients think I’m smarter for having them.  Who would you rather take your business to–a guy who only has one designation in financial Analysis?  Or a guy who’s a Certified Public Accountant, has FOUR certifications in Personal Financial Planning, TWO certifications in Business Valuation, and TWO certifications in Mergers and Acquisitions?
If you didn’t know better, you’d take the latter, because ten certifications are better than one, right?  Now, I believe that the CFA is probably harder than all the others put together, but clients don’t know that.  And they’d probably be willing to pay the second guy more.
Now, if you want to go to work for a firm where the bosses know better, that’s a different story.  If you go tell a portfolio manager at UBS’s private bank, “I have the AAMS.  It’s about the same as the CFA”, you’ll get laughed out of the interview room (assuming you’re even granted an interview).