Help me to choose Bschool

Hello manchevishnu,

Thank you for sharing your profile information. Though there is a lot more thought that goes into selecting the right school, I can help give you a structure to assess the best set of schools for you.

I am putting myself in your shoes and thinking about how I can categorize my expectations from the school. I would also look at it from an admission committee perspective.

Some questions I would like to ask myself

1. Since you are already clear about your geography - Let's first start with picking schools that are in an around the financial districts in the US. May be NY, Chicago, SFO, etc. Especially because that's what your short terms goals focus on. If are not clear about that too, it's important to get that clarity first. We can help evaluate that.

You can go through the school list from the USNews website and pick the list of schools as your first choice. Again this list could be your first choice list and best case scenario schools.

2. Research the kind of companies you would like to work with. I would also dig deeper by looking at the roles posted on these company's career pages, and look at what are the kind of roles that require an MBA.

3. I would look at the alumni list from the school websites or even from Linkedin. This research will involve looking for profiles similar to yours and checking out the career progression etc. This will also give you an idea about your fitment with the school. This would work especially if you are falling in the competitive pool category ( which you are).

With this kind of research, you would easily be able to get "your" top 10. You could take professional help too for this.

Now you should also assess your chances from a B-School / Admission Committee perspective.

1. Look at the class profile to get an understanding of the competition. % of students from finance background etc.

2. Average GMAT Score etc. If you are a candidate from a highly applied pool (especially Indian applicant average is 20 pts higher).

3. Like every company has a culture. Similarly, every B-school also looks for candidates with the right fit.
Dig deep into their website, watch their webinars, and attend their online events to access their culture.
Access aspects of your profile that focus on leadership skills, collaboration, examples of innovation, etc.

4. Talk to alumni of these schools. This is a very important exercise.

When your investment in terms of opportunity cost, time, and course fee is so high, please don't rely just on any list on any website. This is a very important decision for you and it's extremely important for you to put in that effort and work towards making the right choice.

Check out this video too

Hope this helps,