Finding the Right Business School

(page 2 of 4)

Related Items

• B-School: Finding the Perfect Fit
• Finding a 'Fit' at Chicago
• Finding the Best Fit at Berkeley

Graham Richmond
Co-founder
Clear Admit

Story Tools

• post a comment
• e-mail this story
• print this story
• order a reprint
• digg this
• save to del.icio.us

You've been an admissions counselor and advising people on admissions for a long time. Over the past decade what sort of changes have you seen in what students are looking for in terms of the right fit for them in a business school program?

I think students are probably better-informed today than they've ever been, and there seems to be more of a focus around career planning. More and more students are recognizing that the MBA is in many respects a means to an end, and so they're looking at where they want to be post-business school, and then looking carefully at the schools and trying to determine which ones are going to be best equipped to educate them in the areas they're looking to learn about and also to place them in the field they're targeting.

It seems like there has been more of a focus on student life and the facilities that a program has. And that sounds kind of odd, but I guess the best metaphor is thinking of baseball parks. A lot of the MBA programs—like baseball teams—have built new facilities over the last few years. Wharton has Huntsman Hall, Chicago has its own new facility, and so a lot of the schools are actually doing ground-breakings and getting ready to unveil state-of-the-art facilities, and it's definitely something that candidates seem to be taking more and more into account.

So there are a number of things that have changed, but I think if anything, if I had to pick one, it's career focus. People are definitely looking at the career they want and then trying to match that to the right program in ways that probably were not happening before.

When deciding on the right fit, should the potential applicant opt for a "reach" school where he might be one of the lesser students in a pretty stellar class or go for a less selective school where he has a better chance of being in the top of the class or being a standout student?

That's a great question. I think applicants should apply to programs that have the right fit. Whether they're a safety school or reach. And then they should attend the best program that they get into, and the reason for that is that I don't think that I would advise someone to make a life decision based around something like their future class rank, especially when you consider there are other key factors, such as who's recruiting at the program, what the alumni network is like.

In fact, I guess I'd rather see someone in the middle of their class at a top-tier MBA program rather than acing their way through a second- or third-tier option. Part of the reason that we founded Clear Admit was to help MBA applicants realize their potential and really stretch themselves. It always makes sense to look at a balanced selection of programs when you apply, but I'm an advocate of pushing people to stretch themselves, and go after those reach options.

You mentioned that location is important. What sort of considerations are there in location? What kind of job opportunities are going to be available to you in that area afterwards? Things like that?

Yes, I mean there has been research done at the undergraduate level that shows that people often do end up not too far away from where they attended undergrad, and I think that to a lesser extent that still remains true with MBA programs, and so that could be a factor.

If you know that you want to work in a certain industry—for example, media and entertainment—then it would make sense to have places like New York and Los Angeles on your list of target locations, as you begin to review MBA programs.