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Help with college selection

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Help with college selection

by Indradeep » Wed Oct 01, 2008 4:13 am
Sorry if this looks like cross posting but I dis not get any response to this article...

Hi,
I had a very simple question and I belive this is what a lot of non US students, specifically Indian students would want to know:

When we are talking about making a college selction in terms of beign a good fit, what are the most important parameters to look for:

Lets start with the rank for various specializations. But what about after that?

Factors like location, class size, faculty strenghts, campus recrutiment, tuition fees are all within 10% range of one another. So if I can not visit campus, how do I select which college to apply?

I mean where do we start our research?

Just like a college identifies whether we are a good fit or not, even we need to identify which colleges are good fit for us.

Another point was that what is the source to find out, say the top 30-40 US colleges for MBA in consulting(engineering), IT/Marketing? If there is no such source, then how would we know which safe colleges to pick and would be the reason to pick that college?

Thanks a lot,
Regards,
Indradeep
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by Lisa Anderson » Wed Oct 01, 2008 7:56 pm
Dear Indradeep,

You ask some really good questions; I will do my best to answer them.

First, I think the best way to determine fit is to look at the curriculum and placement reports of the schools. Will you receive the education/preparation needed for your post-MBA career goal? Are the electives offered that make the most sense for your desired industry/functional role? Does the school have the resources (i.e., corporate connections, alumni) to help facilitate this goal? Does the school show graduates placed in this industry or functional area at a reasonable percentage for the last year or two?

Second, you will want to evaluate the cultural fit of the school for your personality. Will you be comfortable there? Do you seek a strong collegial atmosphere or have a preference on size? Does the faculty to student ratio matter to you?

Last, you should consider geography and reputation of the school. Geography and reputation are both important for your career search, but neither are insurmountable (hence why this is third). If you believe you will return to your home country (assuming you go outside your home country), then it is also important you select a school that will be recognized.

You do not need to visit campus to get this research. Many schools offer a lot of this information on their websites, including online chats with current students or links to facebook pages they created. There are websites out there (like mba.com) that can be helpful as they have lots of data on many programs. Rankings can also be useful here as they give you nice charts for comparison purposes--but rankings are a place to start in your research not a decision-making tool.

Hope that is enough to get you started. Our sticky on school selection also has other tips and suggestions you might find helpful.

Best of luck,
Lisa
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by Indradeep » Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:36 pm
Lisa,
Thanks so much for being candid. I would want to specifically ask you some questions about the parameters youy mentioned:

1. Curriculum and placement reports of the schools. -> The top 20 colleges all roughly have a mean and median of about 100K with other bonus adding up to another 60-70K. Now it is really difficult to differentiate between the two. As in my case, I am looking at consulting(strategy/planning/IT/Project management) and apart from predominantly finance based schools, most of them are really close. Coming from a tech background, how much do you actually make out in terms of curriculum? Even this is something which can not be quantified. I mean most of the classes in the top 20 are taught by great profs and are really close to one another. Maybe you could give me an example by comparing 2 schools(any)
2. Cultural fit of the school for your personality -> Faculty:Student ration does not really matter to me. I think for most of us having a large/small student size is not really that important. We would all prefer smaller class size but it is only 5-10% of our preference.
3. Geography and reputation -> International reputation is definitely important. However, having said that how do you figure out which colleges are recognised world wide? Even there, the top 30 colleges would be very close to one another, isn't it?
I fail to understand how gegraphy would play an important part except proximity to typical industries you want to work in, e.g. IT/banking

Maybe an analysis of college to college would really help.

Also, at the end of the day we would want to actually apply to those colleges which are renowned in our expected area of work/ have great placement records/ where we have a great chance of getting through/ good scholarship options and not so huge tuition fees. But somehow, itis really difficult to differentiate based on these factors alone, isnt it?

Regards,
Indradeep
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by Lisa Anderson » Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:32 pm
Dear Indradeep,

By placement statistics, I am not referring to salary statistics. I am referring to where the graduates are taking jobs when they leave the program. So, you want to see if the schools is placing in the industry/functional area you desire and with companies that you are interested in working for in the future.

By curriculum, it is not the core curriculum or faculty. I am referring to the elective tracks offered or other opportunities to get direct, experiential learning to prepare you for your desired post-MBA career.

For geography, it is important for your career search to be near your desired post-MBA industry while in business school. You will need to network with companies in the industry to land internships and full-time offers, and if you are not located near the industry, it will be harder (and more expensive) to conduct your networking as you will have to travel for these meetings.

In terms of reputation, start asking MBAs in your company where they went to school, ask managers what schools your company like, ask your friends about their companies preferred schools. You will quickly find out which schools have a reputation in your home country. Also, placement reports for schools often have a geographic breakdown so you can see if there is any international placement.

Happy researching,
Lisa
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by Indradeep » Fri Oct 03, 2008 7:36 pm
Thanks for the awesome reply Lisa. This would help me a lot now.
Cheers
Indradeep
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