I recently purchased a couple of School Guides from
mbaMission (for UCLA and Duke). I found them to be extremely helpful, and just wanted to share my thoughts with a review.
Given that I haven't had the chance to visit each school, and being an applicant who lives fairly far away from both campuses, I really appreciate the amount of detail that the guides go into. At approximately 100 pages each, the guides include pretty much everything you could want to know about the school, with all the information consolidated into a simple, easy to read format. It definitely cut down my school research time a lot, which helped me in writing my essays.
The guides discussed important things that differentiate each MBA program - such as school location, class size, the curriculum, specializations, notable profs, the alumni base, rankings, and the overall school culture. I found the descriptions of the school culture to be especially interesting -
mbaMission provides quite a number of direct quotes from current/past students at the respective schools, which gives a good 'inside perspective' from an actual student's view. For instance, Fuqua provides itself on 'Team Fuqua' which is a huge differentiator of its program - this sentiment is echoed throughout the school guides, and is definitely a notable piece of information to have that you probably wouldn't otherwise know about unless speaking with students first-hand.
The guides also provide some important statistics regarding class profile, recruitment/employment statistics (top recruiters, number of student hires, industry breakdowns, etc) and comparisons with peer programs. There are also admissions tips from the program dean included.
In sum, I would recommend these guides to anyone looking for a quick reference and comprehensive summary of a particular program of interest - the information from these guides has helped me tackle the 'Why our school?" essay question that can be tough for someone who doesn't have the time to visit the campus or lots of time to do all of the research. At $25/guide, it's extremely good value!