Finding the best fit
Some intangible aspects of fit to me means:
- what the weather is like (I don't like darkness, daylight savings etc too much. Sends me to sleep. Ditto cold)
- how good the facilities are (some schools have bright lights, nice and cheery. Others are very grey and dull. you can tell by visiting schools)
- what the staff are like (some were really mean to me, some were super duper nice to me, a prospective student)
- students' attitudes (I had a school tour guide tell my group "I don't know why this is the case, the admissions office just told me to say that during my tours". You get my drift)
The problem is that such "fit" is dependent on too many variable factors - when you visit, the weather forecast, if exams are going on, if staff had a bad weekend etcetcetc - so there is never any trueblue factor to go on. So for these characteristics I just went gut feel.
Some more tangible aspects:
- rankings
- alumni network
If you think rankings are a good source - man...there are just too many of them. WSJ, Business Week, Forbes, Financial Times, US News.....the list just goes on. None of them unbiased. Prospective students are no better. There is the "tiered" list - ie Tier 1 (HBS/Stanford/Wharton), Tier 2 (Columbia, Chicago, Kellogg, Tuck), Tier 3 (Duke, NYU, Berkeley) etcetc...or the "M7" list ie HBS, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Chicago, Kellogg, Tuck. The way I see it, anywhere in the top 10 is good enough. After that its just your hard work that will get you places.
And the other thing - EVERY b-sch student will tell you that their school was the best choice for them. One, its politically correct. Two, "save face" if they had wanted another school but couldn't get in. Three, well you wouldn't know better right, having attended only one school.
Alumni network is another important thing to me - I cant say definitively where I'll end up. So to hedge all bets, I like a school with broad-based alumni network. Probably need all the help I can get in the future! For others, choices differ. Some schools have a lot of alumni within a certain industry, or based in a certain area. So do your homework on this!
Some other factors which prospective students look at, but I didn't bother so much over are the following:
- Courses offered
- "Type" of school ie finance, consulting or marketing
- Salaries after the MBA
The types of courses never bothered me because I figure a top 10 school would offer pretty much the same things. Some things schools try to highlight - new courses, eg taking advantage of the wave of interest in healthcare and real estate. Or how often new courses are added.
Same reason applies to why "type" of school doesn't bother me. In general these are the reputations
General mgmt, good at all - Harvard, Stanford
Finance - Wharton, Columbia, Chicago, NYU
Marketing - Kellogg, Duke
Consulting - Tuck
Salaries after MBA is kinda bullshitty - see median or even average salaries depend on what students go for. If more students opt for marketing over ibanking, average salaries drop.
- what the weather is like (I don't like darkness, daylight savings etc too much. Sends me to sleep. Ditto cold)
- how good the facilities are (some schools have bright lights, nice and cheery. Others are very grey and dull. you can tell by visiting schools)
- what the staff are like (some were really mean to me, some were super duper nice to me, a prospective student)
- students' attitudes (I had a school tour guide tell my group "I don't know why this is the case, the admissions office just told me to say that during my tours". You get my drift)
The problem is that such "fit" is dependent on too many variable factors - when you visit, the weather forecast, if exams are going on, if staff had a bad weekend etcetcetc - so there is never any trueblue factor to go on. So for these characteristics I just went gut feel.
Some more tangible aspects:
- rankings
- alumni network
If you think rankings are a good source - man...there are just too many of them. WSJ, Business Week, Forbes, Financial Times, US News.....the list just goes on. None of them unbiased. Prospective students are no better. There is the "tiered" list - ie Tier 1 (HBS/Stanford/Wharton), Tier 2 (Columbia, Chicago, Kellogg, Tuck), Tier 3 (Duke, NYU, Berkeley) etcetc...or the "M7" list ie HBS, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Chicago, Kellogg, Tuck. The way I see it, anywhere in the top 10 is good enough. After that its just your hard work that will get you places.
And the other thing - EVERY b-sch student will tell you that their school was the best choice for them. One, its politically correct. Two, "save face" if they had wanted another school but couldn't get in. Three, well you wouldn't know better right, having attended only one school.
Alumni network is another important thing to me - I cant say definitively where I'll end up. So to hedge all bets, I like a school with broad-based alumni network. Probably need all the help I can get in the future! For others, choices differ. Some schools have a lot of alumni within a certain industry, or based in a certain area. So do your homework on this!
Some other factors which prospective students look at, but I didn't bother so much over are the following:
- Courses offered
- "Type" of school ie finance, consulting or marketing
- Salaries after the MBA
The types of courses never bothered me because I figure a top 10 school would offer pretty much the same things. Some things schools try to highlight - new courses, eg taking advantage of the wave of interest in healthcare and real estate. Or how often new courses are added.
Same reason applies to why "type" of school doesn't bother me. In general these are the reputations
General mgmt, good at all - Harvard, Stanford
Finance - Wharton, Columbia, Chicago, NYU
Marketing - Kellogg, Duke
Consulting - Tuck
Salaries after MBA is kinda bullshitty - see median or even average salaries depend on what students go for. If more students opt for marketing over ibanking, average salaries drop.