Studying MBA at LBS is one the greatest decisions ever I have made in my life. I got acceptance from two bests business schools in UK and I decided to study at London Business School. I recommend an MBA degree at one of the top 15 schools if you want to do an irregular change in your career.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO STURDY AN MBA? 

First of all, do you really need an MBA? What are the other options if you really need to do some studying? Obviously, you need to find yourself why you want to do an MBA.

Here is some great examples;

  • An entrepreneur already has a business. S/he wants to grow the business or manage better way but struggling with some fundamental skills such as finance, marketing, strategy, organisation management, soft skills…so on. MBA may add lots of value for this kind of profile
  • A military person would like to switch his career. S/he has great team management and business discipline however needs to learn some finance & marketing skills as well as get some networking
  • A banker would like to setup his/her own hedge fund and would like to develop more skills and network
  • An engineer would like to switch his career from technical side to the business side
  • A middle manager/director is targeting to become CEO,  needs to see bigger picture

WHICH SCHOOL?

I recommend only top 10/15 schools in the Financial Times MBA ranking. You may not get the maximum benefits from the other schools when you make ROI calculation. In another words, your investment won`t pay off in short time if you don`t go to top 10/15 schools. You might disappoint with your decision if you can`t get the outcome after your investment. Therefore, studying at the right school matters a lot.

Also, I recommend to study at a Business School where the school offers only business education. 

ONLINE vs. FULL TIME vs. PART TIME MBA

These days online educations are getting popular. I`m not very fancy for the online education. I believe learning experience is important however combination of learning experience and networking is crucial. For example, if you really want to learn finance, go to book shop and get 3-4 different books. I`m sure you`ll be guru once when you finish those books. 

I`ve studied part time MBA while working full time. It was extremely challenging for me to balance the life.  I wish I could study a full time MBA after working 5-7 years.

LOCATION

Location…Location….Location…

Location of the school is absolutely very important. MBA education language is usually English. Therefore, I recommend to study in a location where native language is English and you can get a job after your graduation. However, work visa for foreign students is getting very very difficult in many countries, especially in English speaking countries. Governments are bringing more tough legislation in order to keep local jobs for the local people.  You need to check out the visa issues as well.

MBA EVENTS 

You need to follow school events before applying them and get some information from recruitment stuff as well as some alumni. You may need to ask “right” question in order to get “right” answer. Otherwise, everyone is #1 in one of the rankings. Make sure that you really get lots of information about each particular school.

GMAT PREPARATION

GMAT exam is almost mandatory for all good schools. If one of the school is not asking for a good GMAT exam, it means it`s a very good sigh that they are struggling to attract good students. 

GMAT sounds like very easy but it`s not very easy to get 700+ for most of the people and it`s getting more difficult every year. Depending on your language skills as well as your background, you might need to go to some courses before taking the exam. Also, there are some limitations as well. For example, you can`t take the exam more than 5 times in a year. Also, you need to give 30 days break between two exams. 

There are so many resources in the market for GMAT exam preparation. You can practice whatever book you like. But I recommend to study with official guides since real exam questions are very similar to the preparation questions. 

You might need to practice the GMAT exam very well and get at least 700+ for MBA and 650+ for the Executive MBA schools before your application. If you get 750+, you can potentially get some scholarship as well. GMAT score is especially very important if your work experience is not with a global firm and your GPA is under 3.0/4.0