He has read through some of my past entries and knows that I’m not a huge fan of non-top-tier programs, so he has some good questions for me as he considers his options.
—–
MFI wrote:
Hi Marquis,
I randomly came across your blog the other day and have found a lot of interesting insights in the answers to people’s questions.
I am currently in the process of applying to part time MBA programs in the Chicago area. I plan on applying to Loyola(my safety), along w/ Booth and Kellogg which are my stretch schools.
A bit of a background on myself:
My company has a very nice reimbursement program where they reimburse up to 25K per year of graduate school tuition. They hold you to a two year commitment afterwards(they only support you for part time evening/weekend studies). My intent to go to b-school was to move from the plant operations side into the commercial side (sales/marketing) of my organization. In an ideal world, I would have liked to get a 700+ GMAT score to compensate for my lower undergrad GPA but after three attempts I couldn’t crack 650. I feel comfortable as a shoo-in for Loyola based on the numbers but would probably need a miracle to get into Kellogg or Booth. I read in one of your posts that you don’t place much value in getting an MBA from a non top-tier program. I would assume Loyola would fall into this branch. Keeping in mind that I am not looking to change companies and am considering only part-time programs, would you advise me to go to Loyola? Or should I keep pushing for that 700 GMAT score and try for Kellogg/Booth?
The other thing that interested me was Loyola’s Masters of Business programs. They have a Masters in Marketing which I thought may be a good compensation for my lower undergrad GPA (provided I do well) and could possibly springboard me into a functional switch. Is there value in a Masters in Marketing by itself? If I did this, I would probably pursue an MBA after getting the Masters.
Thanks for your time.
-MFI
—–
My response:
Hi Mahin,
I hope this message finds you well. Thanks for reaching out to me with your question. The MBA decision is a big one, so it means a lot that you thought my opinion would be useful. It may sound like I’m blowing smoke, but it still humbles me after all of these years to have folks hit me up for my perspectices on such important issues.
I’m sorry that it has taken me a while to respond to your email. You’ve read through some of my past entries, so I’m sure that you knew of my sometimes-long response times. Hopefully, this message is getting to you early enough to be useful to your thought process around the MBA choice.
Before diving too deep into the email, I want to address the point that you made in your email about me not being a big fan of non-top-tier MBA programs. While that is true in general, there are some circumstances where going to a lesser ranked/reputed business school. If a person aspires to get a job at Google or make a transition to a major management consulting firm or investment bank, then going to a low-ranked/unranked MBA program will likely not help in accomplishing that goal. Due to the cost of business school, I believe that a person has to ensure that the return on investment is high enough and, 9 times out of 10, the ROI from the MBA degree just isn’t there if a person isn’t getting it from a school with a reputation that will be additive to his/her profile.
That said, there are cases where getting an MBA from a lower-ranked school makes complete sense and may actually be the most prudent thing to do:
- When someone else (i.e., an employer) is paying for business school (or at least a large chunk of those costs)
- When the goal is to make a lateral shift career-wise within a company and/or an industry versus trying to make a jump over to a different industry or function
- When the lower-ranked school has a strong brand in the person’s local geographic area and the person has no plans to relocate
- When taking 2 years off to attend a full-time program would cause unallowable economic hardship and going to a lower-ranked program offers the only chance to earn an MBA
Based on what you stated in your email, your situation may hit all of these points above, so I can understand why you’re looking at Loyola. I totally get it.
Before moving on… Just to recap, if a person is hoping to use the MBA to make a jump to a new industry or functional area or to make a leap into leadership in business, a lower-tier MBA is a tough play as far as I see it. If someone else is paying for it, then a case could be made for it, but, even then, I think that one should aim for the best B-school that he or she can because it is such a major part of one’s professional profile. I don’t think this applies to your situation though, so I’m not over here thinking of your case and wondering “What the hell is this guy thinking???”… 🙂
OK, now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to your real question… Would I advise you to go to Loyola? In your case, choosing to attend Loyola if you get in makes sense and, barring admission at Booth or Kellogg (more on that below), would be a great move for you. My thinking here is as follows:
- In the Chicagoland area (inclusive of Indiana and Wisconsin), Loyola has a strong brand and an even better network for you to leverage. A Loyola MBA might not get you as far as a Booth/Kellogg MBA if you ever wanted to move to NYC or San Francisco, but, as long as your goal is to stay in the Chicago area, you should be able to get a lot of run out of having attended Loyola for business school.
- If you plan on using the MBA to move into a different career track within your current company, then the fact that Loyola isn’t a top-tier school shouldn’t negatively impact your ability to accomplish that goal. If you were hoping to move on to a different company, the brand and available recruiting resources at Kellogg or Booth would be very important, but, in your situation, Loyola doesn’t hurt you here.
- Your company is willing to reimburse you for $25K per year for 2-3 years of part-time/weekend studies and only requiring a 2-year commitment. That is MAJOR!!! Many companies would ask for a commitment of 5 years or more for an investment of $50K-$75K in your education, so being free and clear in only 2 years is a big-time win for you. It sounds like you wouldn’t jump to a different employer after that 2-year period anyway, but, thinking purely from a debt management perspective, your company’s policy helps to make the dollars and cents of attending Loyola manageable.
- With your Mechanical Engineering background and deep industry experience in metals/mining, I have a feeling that you’ll be able to easily handle the quantitative parts of the Loyola MBA program and would have a lot to say in class. Both of these factors would probably position you to earn strong grades at Loyola and graduate with a high GPA, which would look good on your resume if you ever did start looking at leaving your employer. If a person is planning on attending a low-ranked/unranked MBA program, he/she HAS to come out of it with a high GPA because, without that, the impact of having that degree can actually be detrimental to the person’s professional profile. .
Despite what I’ve said above, I do think that you should apply to Booth and Kellogg just in case you’re able to squeeze into one of their programs with your 650. Lots of people would tell you that a 700+ GMAT is necessary to get into those schools and that a 650 knocks you out of contention, but those people are likely thinking of the full-time programs there. The game is different for the part-time MBA programs at those schools.
I know lots of people who have attended those part-time programs, many of whom have GMAT scores in the same range of yours. It seems that the admissions process for the Booth and Kellogg part-time programs focuses a lot more on the strength of your current experiences and what your plans would be for making use of a Booth/Kellogg MBA. In other words, if you have a great story and can demonstrate that a Booth/Kellogg MBA will help you to KILL IT in whatever you want to do going forward, I’d say that you might have a fighting chance. Don’t take yourself out of the running for that by not even applying because you’re concerned about your chances.
Your idea of getting the Masters in Marketing by itself and it actually reminded me of my own motivation for getting my first grad degree from UVA (M.S. in Management of IT). My undergrad GPA was low-ish and I thought that earning a non-MBA grad degree with a strong GPA would help to show that I could hack it in an MBA program. I ended up completing the program at UVA with a 3.7 and was admitted to 4 top-15 programs, including Stanford, so I’d like to think that this approach worked for me.
As we think about your situation, the big question is whether you genuinely have an interest in Marketing and whether that interest is strong enough for you to spend a year studying the subject. If the answer is “Yes”, then earning the Marketing grad degree could be a good move, especially if it can help with your internal mobility within your current company. If the answer is “No”, then I’d be left wondering why you’d want to delay making the move into business school by a year or more. If earning the Masters in Marketing would be part of your way to get into business school, then go for it. But, if it isn’t really necessary, then you might as well make the best push toward business school in the near term.
Perhaps, your best option here is to apply to both the Marketing grad program and the 3 MBA programs at the same time. If you get into one of the MBA programs, then you can jump directly into it immediately and forget all about the Marketing degree. If you only get into the Marketing program, then enroll in it, push yourself to perform as well as possible, and reapply to the MBA programs later with the M.A. in Marketing as a key asset to your applicant profile.
Wow, this email turned out to be a LOT longer than I’d intended when I started typing it. Sorry about that…I hope that my comments above are helpful as you think through your options here though. The key thing to remember is that you already have a job, so you have a strong current starting point. Since you don’t plan to change companies, you at least know that you’re going to be OK in the near term.
Take care and good luck with your applications.
Marquis
You must be logged in to post a comment.