{"id":7859,"date":"2011-07-12T08:52:42","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T16:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=7859"},"modified":"2011-07-12T08:52:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T16:52:42","slug":"selecting-your-target-mba-program-do-your-homework-on-stereotypes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/selecting-your-target-mba-program-do-your-homework-on-stereotypes\/","title":{"rendered":"Selecting Your Target MBA Program: Do Your Homework on Stereotypes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows the Kellogg School of Management is a marketing school, right? After all, Kellogg is home to Philip Kotler, author of some of the world\u2019s most widely used graduate-level textbooks on marketing. And no one can deny Kellogg\u2019s prowess in this field (and it goes far beyond Kotler). However, Kellogg perceives itself to be far more than a mere \u201cmarketing school.\u201d \u201cIn fact, Kellogg has sent significantly more graduates into consulting positions every year for the past five years than into marketing roles\u2014yet its marketing reputation persists<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, many candidates will likely assume that Columbia Business School (CBS) is \u201cjust a finance school.\u201d Sure, it consistently sends a significant percentage of its graduates into positions in the finance field (an average of 53.2% of each class over the past five years), but assuming that CBS is \u201conly\u201d a finance school ignores the program\u2019s strengths in consulting (which an average of 20.5% of its graduates have entered over the past five years) and fails to recognize CBS\u2019s excellent entrepreneurial program (which boasts an incubator on campus), among numerous other strengths and resources. The Wharton School likewise faces the \u201cjust finance\u201d stereotype, but it actually offers a first-rate health care program, the largest MBA marketing faculty in the world and more.<\/p>\n

We could continue undermining the stereotypes of each top business school ad nauseum<\/em>, but we hope we have made our point by now.<\/p>\n

The dangers of stereotyping an MBA program are twofold. First, by assuming that a school offers \u201conly\u201d one type of educational experience, you may deny yourself the opportunity to explore a school that might be right for you. Second, if you believe a program truly has only one focus, you may be tempted to pander to the school\u2019s stereotypes and try to present yourself as\u2014or even become!\u2014something you are not. Your logic might be \u201cCBS is a finance school, so I had better become a finance candidate,\u201d which would lead to an insincere or weak application\u2014a non-finance person who tries to convince the admissions committee that he\/she can compete with experienced finance professionals, rather than developing his\/her own distinct story, is likely destined to fail.<\/p>\n

So, to return to a common theme in this series: do your homework<\/em>. Make sure that you understand what a school really has to offer in your area of interest. A specific academic discipline may be associated with certain schools, but do not fail to consider that these schools may have strengths in several other areas as well.<\/p>\n

By Jeremy Shinewald<\/a>, Founder\/President, mbaMission<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows the Kellogg School of Management is a marketing school, right? After all, Kellogg is home to Philip Kotler, author of some of the world\u2019s most widely used graduate-level…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-b-school-life","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859","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\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7859"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7862,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859\/revisions\/7862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}