Hi eosly--
*Now* we have something to work with! You've given some great info here and there's lots we want to respond to.
eosly wrote:Well, in terms of my career goal, it's quite broad. I want to work in the management consultancy field.
Funny you should say that... While yes, management consulting is a broad field in that you can go to work for a variety of companies in a variety of industries... MANAGEMENT CONSULTING actually is pretty specific in terms of defining your career goals. You'll want to do more than this in your application essays, but this is certainly enough for us to continue the conversation in much greater detail.
eosly wrote:I decided on a MSc rather than MBA because I personally think MBAs are of great value once you have a solid experience (over 6-7 years).
Many bschools would agree with you though in general, after 4-5 years is a good time to go for the MBA. You can be "too old" for it, too.
eosly wrote: But by the time I get that and complete said MBA, I'll be 30+ and would like to rather focus on family.
This is one reason why many bschools have just 35% women! Many bschools are aware of this too though and many are open to accepting a strong female candidate who's younger if she can prove that she's ready for the MBA.
eosly wrote: So the MBA, if I ever enroll for one, will happen in say 15 years time. Meanwhile, I want a decent job and I've only got a bachelor degree so far. Hence the need for a MSc.
OK, your logic is sound -- but you actually still might want to consider an MBA instead of some other flavor of Master's.
The main reason is job opportunity.
If you're trying to advance your current management consulting career, then either you can specialize in a certain area through a Master's of (fill in the blank) -- or you can go for an MBA (which will also let you specialize, based on the school you go to and what you focus on there) and likely have a MUCH easier time of getting a great job at a good consulting firm coming out, simply due to the fact that the MBA is such a well-established track for people to go into consulting, and all the firms use the bschools to recruit from. There's a channel for this; many schools expect to get X number of new hires from schools A, B, and C every year, which means it's way easier to get hired into those firms when you go through this process.
Certainly, many of these firms would also be recruiting out of the Master's in (fill in the blank) programs, but for management consulting, the standard path is the MBA.
Given your profile, and the list of schools you're citing, you could definitely be a good fit - you have a lot of interesting elements. And, while many European schools look for older students for their MBA programs, many are also starting other programs and options for younger ones like you. So this does sound like a good strategy.
We still think the MBA might work better for you. How about ESSEC? Or, IE has a Master's in Management that has an upper limit of two years of work experience (not sure if it's two years at time of application or two years at matriculation, you'd need to check). Any of the other schools you've listed could also be good targets. Probably the way you'll want to make your selection would be whether the types of companies you want to work for recruit out of those programs. That seems like the best way to approach this.
The GMAT obviously will be important too, but less so for some of these schools.
Hope all this helps!! Let us know what direction you go in.
EssaySnark
