{"id":2571,"date":"2010-03-09T11:00:50","date_gmt":"2010-03-09T19:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=2571"},"modified":"2010-03-09T11:00:50","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T19:00:50","slug":"mba-program-selection-weighting-your-needs-and-wants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/mba-program-selection-weighting-your-needs-and-wants\/","title":{"rendered":"MBA Program Selection: Weighting Your Needs and Wants"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE<\/em><\/strong>: This is #4 in a series of blog posts on the topic, \u201cHow to Select the Right MBA Programs.\u201d To see previous segments, link to the following: <\/em><\/p>\n

Post #1, Introducing the Series<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Post #3, Determining Your Needs and Wants<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A little more work is needed on the needs and wants issue.\u00a0\u00a0 It will be helpful to weight them \u2013 though not rigidly or in detail.\u00a0 Simply, understanding the basic level of importance of a given factor will save you time up front by not considering schools that don\u2019t meet your core needs no matter how intriguing they seem.\u00a0 It will also help to uncover any contradictions that you might need to resolve (e.g., prefer to attend schools in the southeast, but also want to be near boyfriend in Boston).<\/p>\n

For each of the wants\/needs you\u2019ve identified, assign one of the following categories:<\/p>\n

Essential<\/strong> \u2013 This category applies to things that you must have no matter what.\u00a0 If you have a family member whom you care for on a regular basis, you have to be able to get to that person in two to three hours.\u00a0 Period.\u00a0 If you are making a career change into marketing, you need a program with strong marketing curriculum and recruiting.\u00a0 Period.<\/p>\n

Very important<\/strong> \u2013 This category applies to the things that are highly important to you, but are not as absolute as those above.\u00a0 Things that you would consider compromising on if you really, really had to, but really, really don\u2019t want to.\u00a0 For some people that might mean a geographic location (or avoiding a geographic location), for others a warm and fuzzy community, for others the chance to take courses in the university\u2019s law or public policy program.<\/p>\n

Important<\/strong> \u2013 Consider this the \u201cnice to have\u201d category \u2013 things that would definitely make a program more attractive to you but wouldn\u2019t necessarily be a deciding factor.\u00a0 The same examples in \u201cvery important\u201d above could apply here for a different set of people.<\/p>\n

Neutral<\/strong> \u2013 This category means simply not a factor.\u00a0 Some people would just as readily have curriculum flexibility or structure; would just as readily live in Palo Alto\u00a0or Fontainbleau.<\/p>\n

The main purpose of this exercise is to help you see the factors in meaningful context.\u00a0\u00a0 Some people may be comfortable keeping these rankings in their head as they go through the next steps; others will make a spreadsheet with them.\u00a0 Both approaches are fine.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/a>By Cindy Tokumitsu<\/a>, co-author of The Finance Professional\u2019s Guide to MBA Success<\/a>, The Consultants\u2019 Guide to MBA Admission<\/a>, T<\/span><\/em>he EMBA Edge<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0and author of several articles and the free, email mini-course,<\/em><\/span><\/em> \"Ace the EMBA.\"<\/em><\/a>
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOTE: This is #4 in a series of blog posts on the topic, \u201cHow to Select the Right MBA Programs.\u201d To see previous segments, link to the following: Post #1,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-b-school-life","category-current-events","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2572,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions\/2572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}