Finding the Right Business School

How does someone decide if they are right for business school? And how do they decide which school is the right one for them? TopMBA.com investigates. 

The times, as Bob Dylan sang in the sixties, are a-changing. And no more so than in business education, where the recent recession and the arrival of Generation Y onto the education scene have given MBA programs cause for major self-reflection in recent years.

Business management is booming, especially in the world’s fastest growing economies.

Indians, more than ever before, are considering MBAs as a way of progressing their careers, earning better salaries and giving themselves great career flexibility. As the management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company have long said, there could soon be a problematic lack of educated managers to handle the vast investment that is coming into and from within India.

But choosing the right business school is a big decision. It’s not just a matter of rankings but of MBA candidates working out what schools are right for them.

According to GMAC (the Graduate Management Admissions Council), which runs the GMAT exam, there are now around 8,000 business schools worldwide, and the figure is increasing year on year.

Business school diversity

As we enter the second decade of the 21st Century, with globalization at the core of business, diversity is the buzzword at the world’s top business schools. The reason for this is that MBA classrooms are places of peer-driven learning.

An Indian student in a business school in Europe, with generally higher rates of diversity than in the US, will expect to form cohorts with people from as far away as, say, Ecuador, Sweden or Nigeria.

As Anna Parkin of Melbourne Business School says: “Learning is very interactive and experiential in the MBA classroom, and students learn as much from their peers as they do from the textbooks. For this to be successful you need people from all sorts of countries and backgrounds.”

Engineers may rub shoulders with lawyers, doctors, marketers and those who may have managed a family business. But what binds these together is work experience - most top business schools are looking for people with at least three or four years in some kind of management position.

Gloria Batllori, MBA director at ESADE Business School in Spain says, “The peer-to-peer component of an MBA course is essential, so therefore students on our course need to have some kind of management experience to bring to the table. In the case of ESADE the average is four years.” Meanwhile, IMD in Switzerland asks for a minimum of eight years.

Schools are keen to stress that there is no one-type-fits-all equation for their classrooms. There are people with less work experience who may have exceptional grades or a good GMAT score, or who have other skills such as leadership of a charity project that may impress the admissions board.

However, for applicants to be sure that their applications are the best they can be, and that they aren’t simply wasting their time applying to unsuitable institutions, there are a set of questions they must ask themselves.

Firstly, MBA aspirants must know what is it that they hope to achieve from an MBA.

According to the TopMBA.com Applicant Survey, which questions thousands of MBA candidates each year, the main reasons are to change careers, to improve promotion prospects within a company or industry, to increase international flexibility, to start a company and, the perennial favorite, to improve earning potential.

Secondly, all applicants should know their target schools and why.

All business schools are not the same. Although they seem to offer the same MBA qualification on paper, each has a different approach, school culture and MBA specializations.

The Kellogg School of Management is famed for its strong marketing stream; MIT Sloan could be the best for technology, while IE Business School is very strong in its entrepreneurship specialization.

Thridly, learn what is the ‘right fit’ for schools and see if that suits you.

As Santiago Iniguez, dean of Spain’s IE Business School says: “What we, and all schools, look for is a person who will suit our school in terms of diversity of background and in terms of seeing if they can get the most from our strengths and we from them.”

An example of the culture of the school might be comparing Harvard Business School, which famously encourages a very competitive culture between students, and ESADE, which nurtures a far more team-building approach.

Also, look very closely at accreditation. This is a concept that does not have as strong a foothold in India as it does in many other MBA-providing nations.

In some countries it’s possible to set up a business school in a shop window and charge thousands for an MBA. However, accrediting bodies run by national governments do exist.

In the MBA world there are also three major MBA accrediting bodies, EQUIS, AMBA and the AACSB. Ask about accreditation and make sure the school you’re applying for has some kind of accreditation to its name.

MBA rankings

And this is where MBA rankings play a controversial part. It’s easy for a student to set their sights on a top five ranking, then waste significant time, money and effort trying to get in, only to be turned away for perfectly legitimate reasons.

While there is a place for rankings as a rough guide, MBA candidates should look far deeper at what a business school does before committing to applying there. After all, you wouldn’t buy a house without making certain it was going to keep the rain off your back.

Candidates should get on a school’s online forum, speak to alumni from schools that appeal to them, speak to the admissions people and faculty on the phone or, ideally, visit them at MBA fairs like the QS World MBA Tour. And if you are gently turned away, if is probably for the best. However, ask those people where they recommend that you apply instead.

Because the answer my friend, contrary to what wise Mr. Dylan said, is not blowing in the wind, it is inside you, and it is up to you to find it.