Much is written about “finding the best MBA program for (marketers, financiers, entrepreneurs, etc.),” however, we believe it starts with knowing yourself and what you want from the program. The bottom-line outcome of your education is your post-MBA salary. This impacts both the MBA program’s ranking vis-a-vis other schools and your ability to repay your loans so you can begin donating money back to the school’s endowment.
How can we truly evaluate an MBA program’s true excellence in relation to our desired outcome(s)?
Four Factors For Success In Your MBA Program
Lesson 1: Think of your MBA journey as a three-legged stool, balancing academics, social life, and career development. Each of these pillars come with their own opportunity cost, requiring you to make decisions on what you’re willing to let go of to strengthen the other two.
Practical Considerations
When it comes to finding your path, you must first begin with understanding your motivations and influences.
- Where (geographically) do I want to live/work?
- In what field do I want to work and what level of success do I hope to achieve?
Career Development
Lesson 2: “Recruiting feels like a game of musical chairs, but you can only take one job.”
- What makes the school’s career services group unique?
- How strong is the alumni network in my desired field?
Academics
Lesson 3: “They don’t call it ‘A’-school,” they call it ‘B’-school.”
- What are the university’s stated values as they relate to my self-identified community?
- What is the student-to-student culture in the program?
Social Life
Lesson 4: “I could do so much more if I didn’t have to sleep.”
- Who are the tenured or professional faculty that I can leverage outside of class to advance my knowledge and understanding?
- To what degree do clubs and faculty bring noted guest speakers from my desired fields to campus as speakers?
Takeaways
We spoke with several individuals who’ve been through MBA programs to obtain additional insights and evaluate their responses. In the following we will review some of the major takeaways collected from student’s responses:
“You don’t enter a graduate program really knowing exactly what that future state looks like. And so I think that the first thing that I would share is that it’s completely OK.”
“And so there is a challenge in getting accepted. And the day you’re accepted, your mindset has to completely flip to. Right, rather than showing what you’ve got to get accepted. Now it’s time to start building upon what you have and again, marketing that. So it’s definitely a step change function.”
“Looking long term is what nudged me toward considering culture and community a little bit more than sort of the brass tacks of what you might see on a website. And so I think that’s sort of my key takeaway in my whole MBA experience thus far and ended my search for an MBA experience a few years ago.”
“The best advice that I was given a couple of years out of school was to follow your curiosity and to leverage your existing skills to acquire new ones.”
“I think it’s a really tough balance to strike between having a really clear goal in mind and building up so that you can achieve that goal.”
From these responses and interviews, we learn that we must ultimately trust in ourselves and make a decision that is best for us. Therefore, we must be sure to engage in proper decision-making and truly trust in the process. We must also set goals that are clear and achievable that allow us to align with a path that is right for us and leverages our skills and allows us to acquire new ones.
Final Thoughts
Because an MBA Program is more than an academic program, we must seek to understand and accept the program in an academic, social, developmental, and motivational manner. Compounded, these factors allow us to truly gain insights into how the program will help us become more well-rounded and engaged overall.
No matter where you go or what program you find, be sure to consider these factors and allow them to guide your decision-making.
