Narrowing the Field

If you read and listen closely, you'll hear a unique message from each business school's marketing materials, students, and faculty

By Brandon Cornuke

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Brandon Cornuke
Northwestern (Kellogg)
MBA Class of 2010

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Last month, I flew across the country to visit Fuqua, Duke's business school. In addition to interviewing with a second-year student, attending a Strategy class, touring the campus, and talking with several current students, I met more than a dozen hopeful applicants.

While these aspiring MBA students had fascinating stories, our conversations inevitably turned to our target schools. In fact, we traded questions like: "Where are you applying?" or "What are your top choices?" as quickly as "Where are you from?" or "Where do you work?" These questions probably reveal a self-conscious desire to size up the competition as much as they provide easy conversation starters, but I've learned that a person's target schools actually say a lot about them. In fact, for many applicants, choosing where to apply is just as personal as deciding to get an MBA.

That didn't occur to me when I started eyeing MBA programs. Instead, I just assumed I would apply to as many Top 10 schools as I could manage. A Top 10 school, after all, seemed like an MBA applicant's Promised Land. As Vernon Loucks, the former Segway CEO, is quoted as saying, "If you can get in and do well at one of these schools, it's nirvana." He has a point. Top schools attract world renowned professors, provide access to global business leaders (many of whom are alumni), and boast the strongest recruiting networks around. Considering that costs don't vary much among the top 50 programs, it's easy to see why applicants take B-school rankings so seriously.

Schools Want to Promote Their Uniqueness

Of course, a definitive Top 10 list doesn't exist and opinions differ on exactly which programs it should include. When I was explaining this phenomenon to a friend recently, he said, "So, it seems like there are about 15 Top 10 schools." That sums it up nicely. Sure, a perennial Top Three on one list can fall below 10 on others, but most people (including employers) seem to believe in a relatively consistent (albeit slushy) top tier of business schools.

While studying the elusive Top 10, I began to see that each school offers a discernibly unique MBA experience. In fact, as I talked to alumni and visited campuses, it became clear that business schools are eager to promote their uniqueness. Since "What makes you special?" is a common application essay and interview topic, it only makes sense that schools work to make their programs stand out. Sure, every business school offers strategy and statistics courses, but if you listen closely, you'll start to hear a unique message from each school's marketing material, students, and faculty.

As I paid closer attention to these messages, I saw how important it would be to define the type of business school experience I want. Not only would this help me refine my goals but it would also be a key element in my admissions essays and interviews. After all, admission is a major hurdle in the quest for an MBA. Sure, scattering applications across the top schools might seem like the best way to ensure at least one acceptance letter, but building a quality application means more than simply explaining why you want an MBA. Admissions committees want to know exactly why you want to attend their program—and there's no one-size-fits-all answer to that question. It's probably just as well, too. Schools don't want to admit students who don't fit their culture any more than students would want to spend $100,000 getting a degree from a program that doesn't maximize their experience.

Five Categories

To find the programs that offered what I wanted out of a graduate school, I started by listing 20 or so top schools from several different lists. Then I began evaluating them on five categories: education, people, employment, exposure, and environment.