B-School Sucks???

DISCLAIMER : Pl. dont read this post if you realllly LOVE MBA..........

Hey all,
I am currently in a daze as this hit me with full force........

This is so bad and shouldn't happen to someone who is reaching inside for the WHY MBA question........ I am now on the backfoot as I am unable to deal with such deadly bouncers the net throws at me every now-and-then...........

But is the MBA so bad??? Although I understand that nothing is black-and-white, it strikes my observation that nobody on the discussion (in the above link) actively denied the accusations on the b-skool and its people.........

What if its all a marketing gimmick?? What if I discover the truth only a bit too late?? What if.....

It is strange that how the smallest amount of negativity can offset a large amount of positivity....... But that said, it is also true that only the minority knows the REAL picture and even fewer dare to open it to public........ While I m still very bullish on MBA, Ill have to do a lot of research to offset this newfound doubt...........

Comments are valuable on this one.....(Calling all admits, alumnii, admission consultants et al)..... If you've got anything to say, pls don't be uber lazy and do comment........ i'd love to hear what you guys think about this one.........
Peace

P.S. : Copy pasting for lazy folks like me........

I'm a second-year in a top 5 b-school. Before my mba, I was a consultant with one of M/B/B. I did my summer internship in S&T with one of GS/MS, received a FT offer, but decided to go to one of the top hedge funds instead. (All of this just to point out that I'm not bitter because I'm not being successful or something. As thefox mentioned, that's often the real reason behind people's complaints.) Having said that, while I enjoy certain aspects of b-school and I wouldn't call myself unhappy, I'm definitely quite disappointed by the experience overall.
First of all, the academics are completely and utterly worthless. If you're even remotely smart, don't expect even the slightest bit of intellectual challenge (unless you're taking some PhD courses instead of the regular MBA ones, which I highly recommend). The issue is that professors are usually trying to keep their classes as accessible as possible, and are therefore targeting the greatest common denominator among a highly disparate range of student backgrounds. As a consequence, most classes and homeworks are necessarily of the "feel-good" type, rather than work that really pushes your boundaries. Unless you're a complete moron, it's almost impossible to do worse than a B. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that school work doesn't take up a lot of time (you still have to physically go to class, meet up with teams, read the cases, do the write-ups, etc.), it just means that the work isn't very helpful or rewarding relative to the time invested in it. In addition, there's the well-known adage that "those who can, do it, those who can't, teach it", which definitely applies to b-school professors... I definitely feel I learned more in a day of work during my internship or as a consultant than in a semester at b-school. And in terms of intellectual stimulation, my undergrad was much more rigorous and entertaining.
The worst part, however, are the people. I'm obviously generalizing here, but B-school classes tend to be dominated by shallow, aggressive type-A personalities: people who are arrogant, loud, flat as a pancake, and in general incapable of introspection or reflection on anything beyond sports, sex and money. They are usually also of very mediocre intelligence (as compared to e.g. law school or PhD students), have poor real-world skills (other than superficial self-confidence), and they also tend to have a surprisingly uneven professional track record. (For those who don't believe this: remember that the smartest, nicest and most successful people in business obviously never have to go to b-school in the first place: they get directly promoted to Associate, go to PE after a consulting or banking stint, or continue running their own successful business...) While there are obviously exceptions, social life in b-school is therefore centered around parties, clubbing and drinking binges. It is easy to make small-talk, but hard to have a meaningful conversation with anyone. Easy to make acquaintances, hard to make friends.
And then there's the high level of phoniness in business school. A lot about this environment feels very fake. The learning is fake (as discussed above), the leadership positions usually are fake as well (most club officers don't even try to hide that they're doing it as a resume-builder), and many people's optimism and confidence is fake (many, many mba students are worried as hell about student loans, not finding a decent job, are desperately looking for a boy-/girl-friend, and are pretty miserable in general, sometimes leading to alcohol/drug abuse and random sex with strangers and prostitutes - I'm not even kidding). And even a lot of the superficial friendliness and camaraderie is fake (there's a lot of backstabbing going on, especially in recruiting season). The seemingly highly selective admissions are fake too: there's a lot of people here who haven't accomplished anything meaningful in their lives, but are just riding on daddy's success as a well-networked entrepreneur, CEO, banker, or PE/HF manager.
Lastly, let me add that for some of the very best jobs out there (in terms of compensation / lifestyle trade-off), an MBA degree is more of a liability than an asset. Last summer, I felt I got an offer from some of the more quantitative (and profitable) desks on the trading floor *in spite of* me being in b-school. In some of the very best hedge funds out there (think Shaw, Citadel and obviously RenTec), the title "MBA" is almost used as an insult (although some of them definitely do have a couple of groups that recruit MBA's, so it's not all black and white). Nevertheless, my point is that there are definitely better and more stimulating ways to get high-paying recruiting opportunities than doing an MBA.
Of course, after this long rant, I have some good stuff to add as well. While most of the people here suck, I have made some lifelong friends as well. I have tons of free time compared to when I was a consultant, I get to travel a lot, have worked on some pretty interesting projects outside class, and I've been fortunate enough to land some pretty good job opportunities... But overall, I'd highly recommend people - especially pretty smart and successful people - considering b-school to think twice. It's definitely not as good as it's made out to b.