2020-21 NYU Stern MBA Salary (By Industry & Function)

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NYU Stern MBA, with its tightly integrated experiential learning in New York City, faced its biggest challenge in 2020 when at one time, the daily covid cases were touching 10,000 in March 2020. The restaurant and hospitality industry that drives $27 billion in sales and $10.7 billion in wages, employing 300k+ jobs, suddenly faced its biggest challenge.

IMPACT of COVID and Stern Works

The small businesses, the real estate industry, and the financial services supporting the enormous ecosystem also faced unprecedented pressure. In addition to the lack of in-person classes, Stern MBA students were faced with a challenging economy. Despite the shock to the system, the Stern Alumni community pitched in and funded the ‘Stern Works’ initiative – an experiential learning project that funded 100 projects supporting 60+ students to offer meaningful consulting services to local businesses impacted by the Pandemic.

NYU Stern MBA and Investment Banking

The proximity to Wall Street is a big motivator for applicants targeting NYU Stern MBA. Although the real-world was impacted by covid-driven shutdowns and restrictions in movements, Wall Street, with renewed deals and transactions, driven by distress sale and strategic acquisitions, saw an increase in M&A activities that slipped initially by 20% between March and June 2020, picked up and overtook 2019's M&A activity at 379 – an 11% increase, driven by the July-Dec renewed optimism in the Tech, Healthcare, and Financial Services industries that fared 11%, 2% and 5% above the 2017-2019 average. Industries, Energy/Utilities, Communication, and Real Estate remained muted due to the low demand and overall caution among consumers against opening their wallets.

NYU Stern MBA Placement – By Industry (2020-21)

The placement trends at NYU Stern MBA 2020 graduating class mirrored the trend with 25.7% of the class accepting offers in Investment Banking, 2.5% in Asset Management, and the remaining offers in Insurance and Diversified Financial Services, completing the 33.5% offers in the Financial Services industry.

Consulting continued to be the most popular industry at 31.7% with Healthcare/Pharma/Biotech – a strength of New York, attracting 4.2% of the offers. Entertainment/Media/Sports that was a strong placement vehicle received a muted 1.1% response.

Technology/Communication was at third with 16.9% of the offers.

NYU Stern MBA – Base Salary and Bonus by Industry (2020-21)

The incredible trend is that although Stern MBA does not consistently feature in the top 5 or even top 10 global MBA ranking list, the median base salary for the 2020 graduating MBA class was $150,000 with a $30,000 signing bonus – a benchmark for top 5 schools in the world. The Consulting and Financial Services industries that contribute to 65.2% of the class and the majority of the placements in New York and Northeast (76%) with a high cost of living could be attributed to the world-class compensation. However, when the trends in Investment Banking placement have been on a decline across schools, New York Stern stands out for its unique strength.

NYU Stern MBA – Base Salary and Bonus by Function (2020-21)

Management Consulting (27.9%), Investment Banking (20.8%), Corporate Finance (6%), Product Management (4.2%), Brand Management (3.9%) were the top five popular functions at Stern MBA with the compensation correlating with the offers accepted, except for Corporate Finance and Brand Management that remained on the lower side of the payment distribution for all functions.

Industry	Median Base Salary	Median Signing Bonus
Management Consulting	$165,000	$31,145
Investment Banking	$150,000	$57,161
Corporate Finance	$120,000	$40,000
Brand Management	$110,000	$29,545
Product Management	$141,500	$51,750

2018 vs. 2019 vs. 2020 (Placement Trends)

The Pandemic drove the offers in the Healthcare industry with 4.2% compared to 2.1-2.7% of offers in 2018-19. Investment Banking with 25.7% made a comeback of sort compared to 2019’s 22.6% but remained lower than the 26.2% placements in 2018. Retail and Real Estate were the casualties dropping below 1% compared to the 1.5-2.5% offers it received in the previous two years.

Technology made a comeback with the increased need for digitization and security services, from a 1.5% drop in placement during 2019 to a 1.9% increase in offers.

NYU Stern MBA Career Service Team – Effectiveness

The 77.1% of total offers facilitated by the Career Service team-driven on-campus interviews, internships, career fairs, conferences, and job postings, and the impressive 45.1% of internship converting to full-time offers ranks NYU Stern MBA as among the top schools to consider if your interest is in Investment Banking, Consulting, Sales/Marketing, or Product Management.

Related Services

• F1GMAT’s Career Planning Service
• F1GMAT’s Essay Review Service

Related Books

• NYU Stern MBA Essay Guide
• Winning MBA Essay Guide

Reference

New York University: Stern

Essay 1, Professional Aspirations (500 words maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font): What are your short-term career goals? Why is the Stern MBA the necessary next chapter in your professional story? Please be specific.

Essay 2, Personal Expression, also known as "Pick Six": Introduce yourself to the Admissions Committee and to your future classmates using six images and corresponding captions.

Six images that help illustrate your interests, values, motivations, perspective and/or personality, and a one-sentence caption for each image explaining why it was selected.

Download F1GMAT's NYU Stern MBA Essay Guide

About the Author

I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.

For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.

My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.

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