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.

I ran across an article from Fortune about the 25 Most Desirable MBA Employers, and since I’m going back to to school this fall to get my MBA, I naturally had some sort of interest in it. If you’d like to know where I’m going to school and why, you can check out this article.

Even though in the long term I’d like to start and run my own company, I thought I’d at least browse through this list of possible employers for MBA graduates to see what is out there. Not surprisingly, Google tops the list with it’s long list of perks such as onsite laundry and tuition reimbursement. I’ve also heard that you get free lunches as well with them.

There are also a variety of investment banks and consulting firms on the list, but I’m not all that interested in them since I don’t really have the desire to put in 70 hour weeks all the time. A few of the other companies topping the list are Apple, Walt Disney, Nike, Coca-Cola, and BMW. And I’ll be honest, I think I would really enjoy working for someone like BMW, at least for a little while.

It’s interesting to see a list of the many different companies that MBA grads would like to work, but mostly what I got out of the article was a realization of the many different opportunities that are available. There are many different industries and types of companies all operating in various business environments. I’ll have to eventually pick just one, but I haven’t narrowed down exactly what I’d like to eventually do just yet.

I’m off to Arizona today and will be there through the weekend. As you may know, I’ve decided to go to Arizona State University to get my MBA, and this is their preview weekend. Even though it’s a short trip (only until Sunday), I’m glad that my wife is able to come with me. It should be a nice getaway for the both of us, and I’ll be able to see what it is that I’ve actually gotten myself into with the MBA program. So here’s a quick run-down of what’s planned for this weekend:

Tonight there is a reception/dinner at the Scottsdale Mondrian Hotel which looks to be quite a ritzy joint. There’s going to be a pre-dinner reception and then the Associate Dean and Dean of the business school will have some sort of remarks. It should be a good time, although I’m not really keen on wearing a suit to dinner. I suppose I’ll manage though.

On Saturday there are activities planned from 8 am till 3 pm. We’ll be introduced to the core curriculum of the MBA program and then have a case discussion on leadership. The Career Management Center will discuss their role in the afternoon and then we’ll finish up with what I believe to be a question and answer session with current students. We’ll then have the rest of the afternoon and evening to ourselves or to hang out with some of the people that we met over the weekend.

We then fly out early Sunday morning so it’ll probably seem like a really short weekend. Hopefully it’ll not only be a fun weekend away from home, but also an informative one. It’ll also be nice to scope out some of the surrounding areas and get an idea of where we’ll want to live once we move there.

I’ll try to have some updates for this site throughout the weekend, but we’ll see how the schedule goes and what type of access I’ll have to the internet. As a final reminder, the Millionaire “Giveaway” Next Door Blog Contest will be ending tonight at midnight, so if you haven’t already entered just leave a comment to the contest post. I’m giving away two copies of the book, and right now your chances are pretty good.

This fall I’m going to be going back to school to get my MBA. After being accepted to all three schools that I applied to, I’ve decided to go to Arizona State for a variety of reasons that you can read about my MBA category. It’s always seemed to be off in the semi-distant future, but in actuality it’s a little less than five months away. So I guess I’d better start getting everything in order before then.

Probably my biggest concern that I need to address is how to handle the fact that we own our home here in St. Louis and will now be moving to the Phoenix area. Originally I had thought that I would just try to put it on the market and try to sell it for at least what we paid for it and break even. It’s not like we live in one of the real estate markets that saw wild appreciation and is now suffering, but it’s not exactly an active seller’s market either.

So instead, I’ve finally made the decision to rent the house out when we leave. I’ve already done this sort of thing once when we moved out here to St. Louis, but I had the benefit of being able to let my parents manage the property that we left behind. This time I’m going to have to enlist the services of a property management company. To date I’ve only called one company, but I plan on making some more calls to ultimately find one that I’m comfortable with. Hopefully this will all work out, but I’ll keep you posted.

This time around I’m a little more concerned about things since I’ll be in school and won’t really have an income to fall back on if I need to carry things myself for awhile. I really think that this is going to be the best option though, and it’s something that I’ve always wanted to try out. Having a company handle/manage everything for me would be the best “hands off” approach to making it a passive investment. But if things get a little rough, I suppose I could always put up a donation button on this site and appeal to everyone’s good nature…

I recently received a comment/question from a reader regarding my decision making and thoughts about my future MBA. This post addresses the questions. Here is the comment:

For those of you who don’t know, I took the GMAT back in August of last year because I wanted to get MBA. And since my employer would pretty much pay for it, I figured it would be a good time. Long story short, I ended up getting a 750 on the test (out of a possible 800), which is considered a really good score, and decided to rethink my options. Originally I was going to take a part-time program and have my employer pay for everything, but I decided to put out a few applications to full-time programs since that was what I really wanted to do in the back of mind all along. The high score just gave me a mental push because I knew that I had a great chance of getting in most places.

Why An MBA and Why Full-Time

If you’ve read my recently updated About page, you’ll know that I’m currently an Electrical Engineer. However, I have a strong interest in business and most things financial, as evidenced by this blog. I’ve known for a while that I don’t want to be a career engineer and would like to transition into more of a business role, so now is as good a time as any to get the ball rolling.

As far as my decision to attend a full-time program versus a part-time, there were a couple of factors that went into it. First of all was the cost of the program. Part-time would have been free because my company would have picked up the tab. I would obviously have to shoulder the cost of a full-time program since the company wouldn’t back me in this case. On the other hand, the part-time degree would most probably have made me an engineer with a supporting business degree. Participating in a full-time program will make the MBA my functional degree supported by an analytical/technical background. The main difference for me was choosing which degree I wanted to be the functional one in the forefront. As far as the costs were concerned, I was hoping the high GMAT score would help with some scholarship money.

Choosing The Schools

Once I decided to apply to full-time programs, I had to pick which ones I was interested in. For a couple of days I considered the likes of Harvard, Stanford or MIT, but decided against them for the same reasons I chose the other schools. Even though many will tell you that you can get a job anywhere in the country once you graduate, most of a schools placement is relatively close to their geographic region. I didn’t want to be in the Northeast or the West Coast and this ruled out a lot of great schools. The cost of living was also a big consideration. Looking over different schools’ data you have to realize that an average salary after graduation of $110K in the Northeast from Harvard may not be as attractive as $95K in the Southwest where the cost of living is significantly lower.

I ultimately chose three different schools which were the University of Texas (being that I’m from Texas it was almost a given), Arizona State University, and Ohio State University (yes I left “the” off intentionally). Ohio State doesn’t really fit the mold of the Southwest, but it’s a small, intimate program that’s ranked well and somewhat in the Midwest where I am currently. I applied to all of these schools and then just waited for the acceptance letters and financial aid offers.

Making The Final Decision

I was accepted at all three of my choices, so the decision basically came down to the program offerings and the financial assistance. Arizona State got back to me first with their offer, and the tuition costs would basically be covered for me through a tuition reduction and a cash award scholarship. The Ohio State offer was similar except it would have cost me about eight grand per year. Texas took the longest to get back to me (showing their size and slow processes) and it would have cost me about $18,000 per year.

Looking at all of these different offers, I finally made the decision to go to Arizona State where I’ll be starting in the fall. The program is pretty small as far as entering class size which means more personalized attention that was very evident through the application process (in comparison with Texas). Aside from their overall program ranking, they’re ranked third in the nation for Supply Chain. I could also easily see myself enjoying life in Arizona since it won’t be cold and I’ll be in the Southwest.

Hopefully this has shed some light on my reasoning for getting an MBA and where. As always, if you have any other questions about this or anything else, let me know in the comments or via email.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m looking into going back to school to get an MBA. I’ve applied to only three schools, the University of Texas, Ohio State University and Arizona State University, and I’ve been accepted to all three. I’m still waiting to hear from the University of Texas about any scholarships and their financial aid package, but hopefully that should be coming soon.

I would like to add one more piece of evidence though, that it seems like things are much bigger in Texas. There was a drastic difference between the different schools in what they sent to me for my acceptance. I got a letter from both Ohio State and Arizona State, yet I got an entire binder of information from the University of Texas.

I’m still undecided as far as which school I’m going to choose, mostly due to not having the financial information from Texas. Once I get this information I should be able to make the decision fairly quickly. As soon as I know anything more, I’ll be sure to post about it here. And once I know which school I’ll be going to, I’ll be able to relate a little more about the application process as a whole for all of these schools.

I finally heard from Arizona State University about my application to their full-time MBA program. There was some issue with FedEx getting me the packet which I won’t go into, but it finally arrived. Now for what the letter had to say:

• I was accepted to the program for next fall
• They lowered the tuition for me by about half.
• I have a graduate assistantship working 10 hours per week.
• I have also been given the maximum cash award per year.

So all in all it’s a pretty good deal. As far as tuition and expenses are concerned, I think it’ll probably cost about $5,400 for the two year program. Obviously there are living expenses and such, but it’s good to know that school is pretty much paid for.

Now for a few links that are worth checking out.
Living Below Your Means…?: A little different take on this often quoted advice.
Developing a Wealthy Mindset: It’s probably not going to happen for you unless you do.
Reasons I like Real Estate: Even in the current market these reasons still apply.