By EDVARD PETTERSSON

Staff Reporter

Wall Street’s frenzy for Internet stocks is already having an impact at local business schools, where many recent graduates have been lured by the equity stakes being offered by soon-to-be-public start-ups.

The Anderson School at UCLA reported that 22 percent of this year’s graduating MBA class has either accepted or is looking for a position with a high-tech company. That’s double the number from previous years.

At USC’s Marshall School of Business, 10 percent of this year’s graduating class has opted for jobs at high-tech firms, mostly small e-commerce start-up companies.

Tom Kozicki, executive director of MBA Career Services at the Marshall School, said this is the first year the school has seen a large number of graduates choose start-up companies.

“They are attracted by the opportunity to have equity in the company, and they are willing to take the risk that this will pay off,” Kozicki said.

Part of that risk means accepting jobs that pay much less than can be made at a consulting firm or other more-traditional MBA employer, on the off chance that they’ll hit the jackpot further down the road.

“I’m making $30,000 less a year than I could have,” said David Ross, a recent Marshall School graduate, who took a job at Internet Wire in Marina del Rey. “I had five job offers from consulting firms, but this is what I want to do.”

While the prospect of future riches is undoubtedly a draw, Ross and other MBA graduates speak of additional inducements, such as the excitement of working for a small, entrepreneurial organization.

That was an important factor for Zuzka Polishook, an Anderson School student who will be graduating this month and who has accepted a position at Cooking.com, a Santa Monica-based e-commerce start-up.

“I don’t know about the money, but it is definitely hip and exciting,” she said. “I wanted to work at a small start-up company, where I can make an immediate impact. When I worked at large corporations, I didn’t see the impact of my work, or only in a very delayed way.”

Ross, who worked at Ernst & Young LLP last summer, agrees that there is no comparison between working at a large firm and a start-up. “At E & Y;, I didn’t see the CEO, but here the CEO is standing in the same room with me,” he said. “We are building a company, and every day we decide what we need to do and then we go ahead and do it.”

Although the average starting salary at Internet companies is not much lower than that at finance and consulting firms, Internet companies typically don’t offer the same bonuses as those firms, according to Alysa Polkes, director of the Anderson School Career Management Center.

New recruits at consulting firms and investment banks can expect as much as an additional $60,000 in sign-on and first-year bonuses, which can bring their total first-year compensation into the $130,000 to $140,000 range.

First-year salaries for recruits at start-up companies vary enormously, according to Kozicki. They can be as low as $45,000, though typically they are more in the $65,000 neighborhood.

Still, an equity stake in an Internet start-up, in lieu of a sign-on bonus, may be a good investment given the history of record-shattering IPOs by many Internet companies.

Start-up companies, unlike large, established firms, don’t recruit on campus, but interested MBAs tend to find their own way to the companies they want to work for, said Polkes. In fact, many students start working for start-up companies before they finish their MBAs.

Polishook, for example, said she worked at Cooking.com as a summer intern and as a part-time employee before being hired full time.

“Many students realize that the window of opportunity to get involved in an Internet company is small,” Polkes said. “The chance to get in on the ground floor may not exist a year from now.”

The strong appeal of start-up companies presents a challenge for consulting and other firms that compete for MBAs fresh out of business school.

“Over the last five years, consulting firms were very hot, and there were lots of opportunities there for students,” said Polkes. “Salary alone is not going to attract more students to consulting firms now, because the opportunities that attract students to high-tech firms do not exist at consulting firms.”

Nonetheless, Doug Fauth, campus recruiting manager for Ernst & Young, says he isn’t concerned. Though acknowledging that start-ups are providing a new degree of competition, he says the cream of the MBA crop is still opting for more traditional careers.

“The number of MBAs we hired from USC and UCLA actually went up this year,” he said. “Ninety percent of our hiring is done in the fall, when you can get the best and the brightest students. When smaller companies do their hiring, in the spring and summer, we don’t feel they get the best people that are out there.”