My MBA Journey –Part 7 (Selection of international B-schools)

Until I had plunged into the next phase (which I will cover in this and subsequent posts) I had not discovered the real meaning of joy, irritation and hard work all at the same time. Now onwards was starting the real journey and what preceded was only the trailer.

It was already late Nov ’09, time was running fast and I had very little time to select the list of foreign b-schools. And the decision was a key decision as it would have a long-lasting effect on my career .Also, doing an international MBA needs huge investment (see point 3 below) and as this probably would be my last degree on my resume, the decision was all the more important.

For the last 3-4 months I was constantly in touch with alumni of some of the most reputed b-schools in the world who had been kind and gentle enough to give me precious tips on selecting b-schools. Alumni tips, suggestions from my friends pursuing international MBA, learning at MBA fairs and discussions with like-minded people on various forums on net allowed me to come up with the various reasons a student looks for while selecting or prioritizing a b-school:

1) Duration of the b-school
12 months programme (such as SAID, JUDGE, INDEAD and most of the European MBA programmes)
18months programme (CEIBS, NUS etc.)
>20months programme (LBS and most of the USA universities such as Harvard, Wharton, Stanford)

2) Reputation/brand value/ranking of the b-school
Students consider various rankings such as Financial Times ranking , US News ranking, Top MBA ranking etc. to decide on the reputation of the college prevailing among aspirants, current students, alumni and the industry. Plus there are many other resources on net/outside net which could help an aspirant decipher the real brand value of the college intellectual capital wise and most importantly in terms of long-term benefits.

3) Financial burden while pursuing the MBA course (probably the most important factor of all)
As mentioned earlier that international MBA is a huge financial investment. For example, tuition fee of 2 year DUKE MBA is 100,000 US dollars i.e. around 48 lakh rupees .Add to it other expenses and total expenditure would be around 70-80 lakh. Similarly 1 year Cambridge MBA (JUDGE) costs 35 lakh (tuition fee) + accommodation +food +travel+... and total would be around 50 lakh. So think twice before you finalize on the school.

4) Location of the b-school
Some students prefer to study (and marry a firangi girl :)) in US, others prefer Europe, some like Asian colleges etc.

5) Reputation of the college in the country in which the student wants to settle down
Suppose my home country is India and I want to come back to India after 3-4 years post-MBA. In such a scenario I would prefer a University which gathers higher respect among organizations in India than say a similar or even higher ranked college (as per the Global rankings) which is relatively less known among Indian professionals in India. For example Cambridge MBA (Judge) is ranked 17th while CEIBS in China is 8th but reputation of Judge in India far exceeds that of CEIBS.

6) Other factors such as faculty reputation, course content, specializations on offer, school strength, international student diversity etc.

Based on the above factors, I was able to come up with the list of the schools I would apply to after mulling over for more than 2 weeks. I had finalized:

In Europe: Cambridge MBA (JUDGE), Oxford MBA (SAID), Cranfield, Rotterdam, Lancaster
In Asia: NUS Singapore
In Australia: Melbourne Business School

Earliest deadlines of all were of Cambridge (9th January ‘09(round 2)) and Oxford (16th January ‘09(round 2)) followed by NUS (31st Jan ’09).Cranfield, Rotterdam, Lancaster and MBS had rolling admission.

So my strategy was:

• Prepare applications for Cambridge and Oxford simultaneously
• After 16th Jan (deadline for Oxford)prepare application for NUS
• After 31st Jan (deadline for NUS) , prepare applications for rest of the colleges starting with Cranfield

I was perfect with my strategy only that I had forgotten that CAT written test results would be out on 9th Jan ’09 and if I am shortlisted for GD & PI of IIMs where the hell I would get the time from to prepare for the same.

Anyway, completely missing the above point, I went ahead to prepare my first b-school application.

Advice for students in the mode of selecting b-schools: Always prepare a list that contains 2-3 dream b-schools (schools that you would join without an iota of doubt if offered an admission) , 1-2 back-up schools(schools that you would join if not selected in any of the dream schools) and 1-2 safe schools(schools that you would definitely gain an admission into).