A little while ago, I received a couple of questions in response to a post that I wrote about various post MBA opportunities. Here’s the comment in full:

After reading both articles, I’m curious what sources you used to research the MBA program. I find myself overwhelmed at the information available on the internet and the fact that I have to weed through advertisements to find the real stats and information.

Were you saying in your other post that you are not fronting any money out of pocket for your program what-so-ever?

I’ve also been told by a number of people who have completed their graduate work to just pick the school that requires the least amount of credits and will be the least expensive. Some people give the reasoning that it is just another piece of acquired paper that the employer wants to know that you have. What do you say to that?

Thanks for your insight and feedback!

So, there are a couple of questions here, and I’ll just answer them one at a time in order. To research the different MBA programs and ultimately choose one, I used (for lack of a better term) a funnel approach. I more or less started with the U.S. News and World Report rankings of the best graduate business schools. I wouldn’t say that I was all that concerned with the specific rankings, but I used it as a starting point to find the schools that I would look into further. I also narrowed the field of schools by geographic location; I wanted to stay in the southwest region if I could, and I didn’t want to be on the west coast or up in the northeast.

Once I chose about 5 to 8 different schools that I could be interested in, I started looking into them in more detail using information from U.S. News and more importantly from the individual schools’ websites. Among other things, I looked for the program specialties and the size of the entering class.

As for the second question, I was fortunate to receive a generous financial aid package from Arizona State so that the out of pocket costs for the program will be minimal at worst. I think everything would have been covered except that the tuition cost has gone up this year compared to last and I have to buy an approved laptop for the program.

For the third point, I’ve heard similar comments myself and my answer is two-fold. If you are planning on staying with your current employer and the culture is such that you just need an MBA to check the box in order to move up, then the least expensive and the fewest credits could be the best option for you. On the other hand, if you’re looking to get your MBA full-time and make a significant change to your career, either by accelerating yourself into leadership or by completely changing your career path, I think that the type of MBA program does matter.

For one, you can look at the average starting salaries of graduates from the different schools. There really is a pretty wide range from the top of the pack on down. This information is available from U.S. News or from each school’s website individually. Aside from this aspect, and I think more important, is the network that you will gain from the school and the fact that you will be an alumni. And as I briefly mentioned before, each school usually has a specialty or at least has some programs that are stronger than others. If you’re interested in marketing vs. entrepreneurship vs. supply chain, then you’ll want to look into schools that are stronger in your area of interest. These specialty rankings can also be found in U.S. News and World Report.

Hopefully some of this has been helpful in answering the questions. If anyone has any other questions, feel free to ask them in the comments or email me directly using the contact form.

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