Chicago Booth: The Broadest ETA Infrastructure in Any MBA

Most top business schools offer a course on entrepreneurship through acquisition. A handful have a student club or an annual panel. Chicago Booth has built something structurally different: a layered infrastructure that combines a dedicated ETA Fellows program, a co-hosted conference that draws over 1,000 attendees from 13 countries, a senior advisory role embedded within the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and a course taught by two practitioners who have each lived the acquisition model firsthand.

The result is the broadest institutional support system for ETA at any MBA program. Where other schools concentrate their resources in a single course or a single faculty champion, Booth has distributed its investment across multiple touchpoints that reinforce each other. A student can move from the ETA Fellows cohort to the classroom to the conference to the Polsky mentorship network without ever leaving Booth's ecosystem. For anyone serious about getting started in ETA, that kind of depth matters.

This profile covers the institutional architecture that makes Booth's program distinctive, the faculty who teach it, the conference that anchors the broader ETA community, and the practical considerations around cost and fit.

The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is the institutional hub for all entrepreneurial activity at the University of Chicago, and ETA is one of its most developed verticals. Unlike programs where search fund activity is run informally by a student club or a single professor, Booth has formalized ETA within Polsky's structure. This means dedicated staff, a funded fellowship, a mentorship directory, and a conference operation that runs year-round.

The Polsky Center provides physical space, event infrastructure, and connections to the broader University of Chicago ecosystem, including its law school, its economics faculty, and its hospital and research networks. For ETA students, this translates into access to legal clinics for deal structuring, exposure to rigorous analytical frameworks, and a community that treats small business acquisition as a legitimate and intellectually serious career path.

Booth's approach to integrating ETA into the MBA experience is notable for its breadth. The program does not rely on a single point of contact. Instead, it has built redundancy: if a student misses the Fellows program, the course is still available; if a student takes the course and wants more, the Discovery Cohort and conference provide additional depth; and the Polsky Center's mentorship network remains accessible to alumni long after graduation.

In Autumn 2024, the Polsky Center launched the ETA Fellows program, a structured cohort that selects 6 to 8 students per year for an immersive experience in entrepreneurship through acquisition. The program was funded by a gift from A. Michael Muscolino (MBA '99), and it represents one of the most tangible investments any business school has made in ETA infrastructure.

The Fellows program goes beyond coursework. Selected students participate in a dedicated cohort that meets regularly, receives mentorship from active searchers and investors, and engages with the Polsky Center's broader network of entrepreneurs and advisors. The goal is to accelerate the transition from classroom learning to active search preparation, so that Fellows graduate with a clearer thesis, stronger investor relationships, and a more realistic understanding of the search timeline.

What distinguishes the Fellows model from a standard club or elective is selectivity and commitment. The small cohort size ensures that each Fellow receives meaningful individual attention, and the Polsky Center's institutional backing means the program has resources that a student-run initiative cannot match. For students who know early that ETA is their path, the Fellows program provides structure and accountability during the MBA years when many peers are recruiting for consulting or banking roles.

Booth's ETA program is taught and advised by individuals who have operated within the search fund and acquisition ecosystem. This is not a program designed by academics studying ETA from the outside. The instructors and advisors have raised capital, acquired companies, and managed the post-acquisition transition that defines the searcher experience.

Mark Agnew

Agnew is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth who co-teaches BUSN 34302, the dedicated ETA course. Before joining the faculty, Agnew served as CEO of Lou Malnati's Pizzeria, growing the business to 58 locations and over 4,000 employees. That operating background gives him a perspective on post-acquisition management that is grounded in the realities of scaling a business with a large workforce, complex logistics, and a consumer-facing brand. Students who want to understand what happens after the deal closes, particularly the challenges covered in the first 100 days as CEO, benefit directly from his experience.

Brian O'Connor

O'Connor is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship who co-teaches BUSN 34302 alongside Agnew. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of NextGen Growth Partners and previously founded Fellowship Capital Partners, a search fund, in 2011. O'Connor brings the full arc of the search fund journey to the classroom: raising a fund, sourcing and evaluating deals, closing an acquisition, and building a portfolio. His dual perspective as both a searcher and an investor gives students insight into both sides of the investor relationship.

Alex Hodgkin

Hodgkin (MBA '14) serves as Senior Advisor for ETA at the Polsky Center. He is the co-founder and CEO of Intrinsic and was instrumental in creating Booth's ETA program from the ground up, including co-creating the Booth-Kellogg ETA Conference with Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. His role at the Polsky Center is not a teaching position but an advisory one, which means he works directly with students on their search strategies, investor outreach, and career planning. For students navigating the decision between ETA and other post-MBA paths, Hodgkin serves as an institutional resource who has lived the journey.

Booth's dedicated ETA course is BUSN 34302, Entrepreneurship through Acquisition. The course runs across three sections and enrolls approximately 140 students per year, making it one of the highest-enrollment ETA courses at any business school. It is consistently oversubscribed, a signal of both student demand and the course's reputation within the Booth community.

The course covers the full lifecycle of a search fund acquisition: fundraising, deal sourcing, valuation, due diligence, negotiation, closing, and post-acquisition operations. Agnew and O'Connor teach from their own experience, which means students hear about real decisions, real mistakes, and real outcomes rather than abstracted case studies.

With approximately 140 students enrolled each year, Booth's course creates a substantial peer network of ETA-interested classmates. This is a practical advantage. Students leaving Booth have dozens of peers who understand the search fund model, many of whom will go on to become searchers, investors, or advisors. That network compounds over time and becomes increasingly valuable during the search phase, when warm introductions and shared deal flow can make a material difference.

The Booth-Kellogg ETA Conference is the largest student-organized ETA event in the world. The 11th Annual conference, held in November 2024, drew approximately 1,000 attendees from 13 countries and 47 universities. The 12th edition took place in November 2025, and the 13th is scheduled for October 2026.

The conference was co-created by Alex Hodgkin and counterparts at Kellogg School of Management, and its continued growth reflects the rising profile of ETA as a career path. Attendees include MBA students, active searchers, institutional and individual investors, operators who have completed acquisitions, and faculty from programs across the US and internationally.

For students, the conference serves multiple functions. It is an opportunity to hear from practitioners who are in the middle of the search or operating a recently acquired company. It is a networking event where students can meet potential investors and mentors. And it is a signal of institutional commitment: Booth and Kellogg invest significant resources in organizing an event of this scale, which reinforces their positioning as leading ETA programs.

The conference's international reach is also significant. With attendees from 13 countries, it connects Booth students to the global ETA ecosystem. This is relevant for searchers considering cross-border acquisitions or international fund structures, and it complements Booth's broader global orientation.

Beyond the Fellows program and the formal course, the Polsky Center operates a Discovery Cohort designed for students who are exploring ETA as a potential career path but have not yet committed. The Discovery Cohort offers a lower-commitment entry point: students can attend events, participate in workshops, and engage with the ETA community without the time investment of the full Fellows program.

The Polsky Center also maintains a mentorship directory that connects students with alumni and practitioners who have completed the search fund journey. This resource extends beyond graduation, which means Booth alumni can continue to access guidance during the search phase and the critical early years of running an acquired company.

The layered structure is deliberate. A student who arrives at Booth uncertain about ETA can start with the Discovery Cohort, move into BUSN 34302, apply to the Fellows program, and attend the conference, all within the same institutional framework. This progression from exploration to commitment is harder to replicate at schools where ETA resources are concentrated in a single course or dependent on a single faculty member.

Chicago Booth tuition is $87,354 per year ($29,118 per quarter) for the 2025-2026 academic year. Including living expenses in Chicago, health insurance, books, and personal costs, the total two-year investment can exceed $200,000.

The financial calculus for a prospective searcher is different from that of a student heading into consulting or private equity. Search fund economics involve a period of modestly compensated search, typically 18 to 24 months after graduation, followed by an acquisition and the beginning of CEO compensation. The financial payoff comes primarily through equity upside, which can be substantial but is not guaranteed.

Chicago's location is a financial consideration that works in students' favor relative to peer programs in the Bay Area or the Northeast. The cost of living in Chicago is materially lower than in Palo Alto or New York, which can reduce the total debt burden by tens of thousands of dollars over two years. For a searcher who will be self-funding or operating on a lean budget during the search phase, this difference is not trivial.

Booth offers merit-based and need-based scholarships that can significantly reduce the net cost. For a detailed framework on evaluating whether an MBA makes financial sense in the context of a search fund career, see our analysis of MBA ROI for search fund entrepreneurs.

Booth occupies a distinctive position in the ETA landscape. Its strengths are not in historical primacy (that belongs to Stanford GSB, which invented the search fund model) or in the size of a single fellowship grant. Booth's advantage is breadth: the combination of a funded Fellows program, a conference that reaches 1,000+ attendees across 13 countries, a high-enrollment course taught by two practitioners, and an advisory infrastructure embedded within the Polsky Center.

Compared to Kellogg, which co-hosts the same conference, Booth has the additional advantage of the ETA Fellows program and the Polsky Center's dedicated advisory role. The two schools share the conference, but Booth's institutional investment in ETA extends further into fellowships and formal mentorship.

Compared to Stanford, Booth lacks the biennial Search Fund Study and the depth of faculty who were present at the model's creation. But Booth's conference surpasses any single event at Stanford in scale, and the Fellows program provides a structured cohort experience that Stanford's Search Fund Garage addresses differently.

For a comprehensive comparison across all leading programs, see our ranking of the best MBA programs for search funds.

Booth is the strongest fit for candidates who want to enter an MBA program with ETA infrastructure already in place at multiple levels. The ideal applicant is someone who values structured support: a Fellows cohort, a practitioner-taught course, advisory access through the Polsky Center, and a conference that provides annual exposure to the broader ETA community.

Booth is also a strong choice for candidates who are still exploring whether ETA is the right path. The Discovery Cohort provides an entry point that does not require early commitment, and the large enrollment in BUSN 34302 means that a student can test interest in the model without self-selecting into a small, high-commitment program from day one.

Candidates with an analytical orientation will find Booth's culture a natural fit. The school's emphasis on rigorous, data-driven thinking extends into its ETA program, where students are expected to evaluate acquisitions with the same rigor they would apply to any investment thesis. This analytical foundation is particularly useful during due diligence and valuation, two stages where disciplined thinking separates successful searchers from those who overpay or miss critical risks.

Finally, Booth is worth serious consideration for candidates who plan to search in the Midwest or who want access to deal flow outside the coastal markets. Chicago's position as a hub for middle-market business creates natural proximity to the types of companies that search funds typically acquire. For students thinking about long-term exit strategies, being embedded in a deep middle-market ecosystem is an advantage that coastal programs cannot easily replicate.

• Getting started with search funds
• MBA and ETA: how business school prepares you
• Best MBA programs for search fund careers
• MBA ROI for search fund entrepreneurs
• Finding investors for your search fund
• The first 100 days as a search fund CEO
• Exit strategies for search fund acquisitions
• Stanford GSB profile
• Kellogg School of Management profile
• Yale School of Management profile