Congratulations! You have decided to embark on this crazy journey that we call and MBA!
Beware this is not for the wary and it will likely be a harder and longer process than you foresee; don’t forget your reasons why you decided to pursue this and it will all be worth it!
Maybe you have taken your GMAT or GRE already or maybe you want to pick your target schools first; either way, there are some really important factors to consider when picking schools.
How to choose your Target MBA Schools
1.Your personal brand & profile
I have an entire post written on personal branding and how to build one. If you haven’t done the work to determine what yours is, this step in narrowing down MBA target schools might be a longer one. I highly encourage you to think about “what makes you tick”.Think about the things that you like to be associated with, the lifestyle that you want and how your personal brand will affect your happiness.
As an example: I didn’t even consider applying to any American schools because it didn’t jive with my personal brand. I wanted a more wholesome European experience that involved living there, embracing the culture and growing alongside a very diverse group of classmates that are 90% international students.
Regarding the profile aspect of this step and my example, I am 30 years old as I enter my MBA, this is the average age for the European MBA programs but on the more mature side for the American ones. Not to say that you won’t have older MBA students in the American programs but the work experience required in the application is less and therefore there is a younger age range in the class.
Your personal branding and your profile should be the first things to consider in assessing target schools.
2. Your post-MBA goals
This is big! Questions like, “why are you doing an MBA” and “what do you want to do post MBA” come into play.
When you have your answers you need to take some serious time to research and critically assess the schools and their specific MBA programs. Other than the enjoyment of the MBA process the whole point is to set yourself up for success post-graduation and put your best foot forward to getting the job of your dreams or a job on the path to the job of your dreams.
When looking at the school it is so easy to fall into the “ranking only” assessment. I know we all want to go to the top-ranked schools but you should really assess the schools based on them giving you what you need to get to your dream job alongside the rankings.
For example, if I only looked at global rankings I should have at least applied to a few USA schools. For me, however, that doesn’t align with the work that I want to do nor the geography of where I want to be post MBA, so those schools, though highly ranked, shouldn’t even be considered for me.
3. Your past education
I think the business environment has become very global and therefore it is highly sought after to hire diverse, adaptive individuals with global experience. This would indicate that there is an extreme benefit to attending an MBA program in a different country than your previous degree, perhaps even a different continent altogether! While to me this is mainly a geography point, also consider the teaching style of your last program and diversify from it. If you mainly learned in a theoretical approach in your undergrad, possibly look for schools that lean heavily towards the case-based approach and vice versa. The whole idea of this point is finding a program that will “fill in the gaps” in terms of your experience that you didn’t get the last time that you were a student.
4. Length of program
This one is definitely a personal preference. MBA programs range from the traditional, American model of two years to other offerings that can be completed under one year, and this is only referring to full-time study programs! If you would like to maintain working full or part-time during your studies there are a variety of part-time MBA programs offered that will range from two to three years. The key is to return to your goals and your “why” (why you’re doing an MBA) and combine this with your previous experience.
If you did a bachelor of commerce, maybe a two-year program is too long for you and you would rather condense things as you will have seen some of the course material before. Perhaps you are changing multiple factors of your career (i.e. geography, function, industry) and need more time to specialize in your new field or maybe you really would like to do an internship and therefore the program needs to include that in the length of study.
The answer can only be chosen by you, however, it is really important to find an MBA program that gives you the length of the program and ultimately the opportunities that you need to succeed post-graduation.
5. Specialization & niche offerings
Depending on the industry that you would like to work in post-graduation, certain schools will have niche courses, special partnerships and/or favorable internship opportunities. Really research the schools that you’re interested in and make sure that they ACTUALLY OFFER WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR! If you want to study sustainability, make sure that the schools that you’re considering are connected with companies who value this and that the program offers specialized courses in this area. The same goes for any specialization from luxury goods to finance to digital strategy. There are so many options for the specialization but MBA programs don’t specialize in everything, so choose wisely!
I hope these items have helped you kick off your research for MBA programs and will help you narrow down the choices. The application step of an MBA program is no joke, it is important and takes a great deal of care and time (and not to mention a fee to pay if you want to submit the application!).
Should you have further questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!
In the meantime, happy researching!