Re: Imp advice for MBA aspirants @ 2nd tier European B schools
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02 Jul 2012, 12:58
Hi Alicia,
The important thing here is not just the course fee or a person's ability. A smart person does well anywhere & everywhere but if a smart person go to a really good school & gets the career support that only good schools provide, it helps the guy to get even better career opportunities. I found that many of these schools that i have listed tend to say a lot about their facilities but in reality the facilities are far below standard. I contacted a lot of international students because they need these services more than the local European students because of visa & work permit issues and rely a lot on what the schools write on their websites & say during the MBA promotion tours. I attended such a MBA tour in London recently and asked the school for an explanation about what a few recent graduates told me, silence was the only reply. You have to be weary of the school's marketing gimmicks.
I will insist that you contact a lot of recent graduates & current graduates of the school that you wish to attend. If you wish to pursue an MBA, this exercise becomes very important. Btw, Rotterdam is a 1st tier MBA school in Europe & has a strong reputation in western Europe but not much influence beyond European boundaries. Its MBA curriculum is very strong & up to date. Career services as a whole are average but the opportunities to network, as provided by the school are very good. Even amongst the 1st Tier MBA schools for like RSM, Said, Judge, Manchester, Imperial, Smurfit, Vlerick, Cranfield, ESADE, CBS, HEC, Manhiem and Cass, schools in the UK tend to have much better career services than other schools in continental Europe. As far as the FT & other MBA rankings are concerned, these rankings consider many factors which could be related to the overall experience at the school but at times it doesn't matter much to an MBA student. For e.g having a triple accreditation is no where a guarantee that the school's MBA is excellent, it just means that the school fulfills all the requirements required to be granted a triple accreditation and such requirements could be as basic as the size of the campus & the number of programs run by the school (including many new & worthless programs) etc. MBA is an expensive decision, i only suggest that study your targeted school inside out to find the truth so that you could be proud of your school later in life and not write hate blogs about your MBA experience as many i have seen popping up lately.