Need Advice:B-School top 30-60, strong at Entrepreneuship & Marketing?

I think then entrepreneurial angle can work out for you but I wonder why you can't take out a bit of a loan? I would strongly recommend a top 15 school with some fin-aid over a top 30 with full tuition cover. What are your post MBA goals? Do you plan to go back to Vietnam? In that case your fin-aid choices make some sense. Otherwise, it could be a pretty dangerous risk.

Thank you for all of your advice!

I totally aware of the difficulty of finding a job in US after MBA even MKT or entrepreneurship, so my short-term goal after MBA is continuing Marketing career in Vietnam or Singapore which may allow me to saving for my start-up. The end in mind is opening a start-up in tourism industry which might take quite a big investment. Therefore loan seems to be a threat to my plan.

Could you plz give me more advice on how to convince the adcom to accept me into the MBA entrepreneurship but my short-term goad is still MKT? or should i tell them, like, i will definitely go to start-up right after the MBA?

My company is one of the biggest FMCG in VN and we're very famous for entrepreneurship spirit & innovation (the 20th place on the Forbes' list of the World's 100 Most Innovative Growth Companies 2015). But our launching is not always successful, yes, we have a lot of failures. So do you think it may be a good point to be leveraged in my entrepreneur or MKT MBA?

Hi NguyetLe,

I echo what others say on quality of the program over financial aid, but given your plan to return, a heavy loan can spell problems.

As far as your career goals for MBA application are concerned, entrepreneurship is a leap-of faith goal. It’s difficult. Few survive. Yet fewer scale up. That’s why you need to show what are the factors (passion is not enough) that are likely to make you successful in travel industry in Vietnam. Product is typically the easy part. Most difficult is market entry especially in a well-entrenched industry such as travel. What’s your market entry strategy? Second, you mention that it’s going to be a capital-intensive venture. Do you have a low cost option to show a proof of concept? If not raising the capital itself will be a humungous task. It depends on geographies but, unlike Silicon Valley (here too that’s not common), mere ideas rarely get funded. These are the questions you need to think of, as they form the very foundation of your venture. People look for credibility when reading applications, and details in such leap-of faith situations help. Passion and hard work are table stakes in entrepreneurship.

On a different note, in my opinion, if someone is sure that they want to dive (not dip toes; that’s for hobbyists) in entrepreneurship in the short term, they don’t need an MBA. An MBA degree is likely to be counter-productive: loan will make them risk-averse and the degree may make them conform to a particular lifestyle. And as far as entrepreneurship is concerned, lot of water has flown down all the rivers in the world in the last decade or so. So many excellent resources (example: accelerators, mentorship programs, Y-Combinator, Steve Blank…) are available outside the realm of formal education now. Some of them may be exclusively for tech industries, but most of it holds true outside too.

I agree with everyone that you should target Tier 1 schools; however, just because you cannot afford a Tier 1 school is no reason to believe that you are not worthy of one. So, if you just cannot afford them, work hard towards your GMAT score and essays, aiming for a Scholarship at Tier 2.

You can refer to what I wrote on this. You want the story to connect dots: if you have no experience in this area, make it a long term goal rather than short term. You want to look employable - that you have transferrable skills to bring to your post MBA employer (because that is how you will get a job, and business schools want to know you will be easy to recruit.) That is the way to get accepted, there is no "accept me into the MBA entrepreneurship" it's about getting in the school and then, when you are in, you get to choose which classes to take/your focus. Does that make sense? You can still discuss entrepreneurship in the essays but feel you would enhance your chances by making it the longer term goal. Use what you have built so far to get into the school - show how you need an MBA for the next step. Then, show how your short term goal plus the MBA will position you for the long term goal (entp)
Hope this helps. Also, I ran across a resource you might find helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x41TClMlCDE&feature=em-subs_digest

Many thanks 99Colleges umg MBAPrepCoach! Highly appreciate your advice! They are very useful & help make clear a lot of my concern & trigger me to think more.
The more potential approach i'm thinking of now is choosing MKT which will definitely help me to lift up my career post-MBA & also my entrepreneur latter on. And if there is a school which is strong at both 2 areas, it will be perfect to connect everything.