How to Choose A Right B School

1.  Identify your post MBA career goals: The resolve of getting through Business School is derived from deep introspection and self-awareness. Identifying where you are in your career and where you want to go is the most essential step in determining the list of schools that will help you in getting there. In this step, you need to identify what is it that you want to accomplish after you are done with your MBA. All the top business schools look for candidates with clear and achievable goals and how do they plan to accomplish these goals by getting an MBA from their school. These post-MBA career goals are the central themes for various application questions and even for interviews. In assessing the thousands of applicants vying for a few hundred spots, admission committees ask questions such as “Why do you want an MBA?” and “Why an MBA at our school?.”

Following are some common reasons given by aspirant to the “Why MBA?” question:

1. Switching to a different industry or to transition into a new career
2. Looking for better remuneration and salaries
3. Looking for a leadership role
4. Changing geography and location

Thus, it is important to take a step back and identify your motivations for an MBA. The clarity gained from this step, early on in your application process will serve as a guiding light through the various stages of the marathon – that is the MBA application process.

2)  Conduct a Self-Assessment

Business school admissions is a hyper-competitive field. The best MBA programs look for people who have the track record and credentials to make a big impact in their chosen careers/fields after getting their MBA. Thus, a self-assessment serves both as a reality check and as a guideline to improve your profile, and become worthy of securing an admit to a top Business School.

Things that you need to consider while conducting a self-assessment include, but are not limited to:

• Your undergraduate GPA
• Your GMAT score
• Amount of work experience required
• Academic and professional skills

Your answers to all the above questions will help you determine and classify the schools that you should apply to into three categories – 1. Dream, 2. Stretch, and 3. Safety schools.

Furthermore, if you find any gaps in your profile, there may still be some time to take corrective actions. For example, if you are lacking leadership experience, you can actively get involved in a local community project.

3)  Selecting Business Schools – Elimination Strategy

From the above two steps, you will have a clear idea of what you expect from your chosen Business schools. Thus, with some preliminary online research and speaking with friends, peers, and colleagues who have completed their MBAs would yield many probable options.It is also important to use the right source of information for your research. The college websites themselves are the best sources of information. Besides the website, you should look at the MBA student profiles as well as the employment report. They give you a sense of where the school’s students are coming from and where they’re headed after graduation.

• Business School Rankings: While rankings serve as a great data point to compare Business schools against each other, they should be used with a bit of caution. Different publications and online outlets have their own different rankings. These ranking are finalized using different methodologies and may measure different things. 

• Program Specialization: If you are targeting a job in the financial industry or you would like to start your venture and become an entrepreneur then a school which offers a specialization in these fields would serve as a stepping stone to your Post MBA career.

• Course Structure: The course structure varies from MBA program to another. At a glance, schools may seem similar, but each one possesses a distinctive culture and management development approach

• Geographical Location: Geography influences ties with recruiters, school strengths and the community environment. 

• Cost and ROI: While many rankings consider the ROI of Business School Programs, they look at different data points to arrive at different conclusions. 

• Job placement and career opportunities: It is important to evaluate if your Target B-Schools are well positioned to help advance your career goals and vision. Talk to alumni about their experience with the career services team, and review the programs career and employment report. Make sure to look beyond starting salaries and closely examine career statistics and recruiter data.
  The employment report reveals a rich amount of information, which can help you validate the feasibility of your post MBA career goals. Another important consideration would be the level at which graduates are hired into – are they leadership or C-suite roles in the organization. This matters differently to young and mid-career professionals.

• MBA Scholarships: While most business schools offer some form of financial assistance, it would be prudent to check and confirm with data available on the website, or by asking the admissions team. Prioritize this aspect based on the value you assign this criterion in selecting Business Schools.

• Profile Fit: By looking at the class profile, course structure, and teaching methodology do you feel a fit with the school? On speaking with alumni and current students, did you feel you could identify with them? If yes, then select the school.
• Teaching Methodology: Given that you are going to spend a lot of time in the classroom, it is important to evaluate the teaching method at business schools. 
• Student Services: How do current students and alumni rank the student and career services of the business school?
• Alumni Community: Does the school have alumni in your target company or profile?
• Faculty: Does the faculty have a mix of academicians and industry practitioners? Do they encourage hands-on learning through projects and experiences?

 How to get additional information about Business Schools? 

While there is a wealth of information available online about Business Schools and their programs, sometimes a human interaction can serve as the deciding step or as a tie-breaker in your school selection process.

Luckily, there a lot of ways to gain additional information from people besides online resources, some of them are:

• Webinars and Information sessions conducted by Business Schools about their programs.
• Meet and Greet events: Where admission officials tour cities in various countries to conduct information sessions.
• Networking with Alumni and current students: Preparing a list of questions to ask alumni and current students and comparing their responses, would also give you better clarity.
• GMAT Club: An online community where Business School aspirants share their experiences.
• Campus visits: Though this does not seem cost-effective, visiting your target business school’s campus will provide you with a real feel of the learning environment. If you visit during an open-house you would also get an opportunity to interact with students and faculty. This would provide you unparalleled insight into the school’s culture.
• Use LinkedIn: It may be difficult to meet with alumni and current students of your chosen business school due to constraints of geography and your location. However, using LinkedIn to find and connect with them to understand their perspective and the value they derived from their MBA experience can be valuable in your decision-making process.

Thus, in conclusion, choosing the right Business Schools is an extremely personal decision, and you should arrive at it after deep introspection, self-evaluation and reflection on your priorities and goals. Identifying the “must have” factors, will not only help you during the application process, but It will also save you tons of time, energy and work. You can utilize this time effectively by focusing on creating more polished applications for the schools to which you eventually apply. 

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