37 year old chemical engineer(12 yrs exp) confused about MBA

Hi Anand
It's the same situation with me.

I am 36 yrs old working as Structural analysis Engineer (Aerospace). I have 11 yrs of experience after my Master's. Through out my career I have been a Engineer. I am struck in my current job as only Engineer
All my friends who studied with me , are now Team leads and project leads/Managers in different organisations in India.

I am thinking of MBA now. I have been re-searching through all this for 4 months now.
I will try to share with you my opinion.
Now coming to your question, it depends on how much you are able to spend/invest on your MBA? considering your Family circumstances.

Full-time MBA in most business schools is a 1 year program.
On the other hand, Executive MBA is for the working professionals.
If you are moving to US or Canada to do MBA, then you should go for full-time MBA. Couple of reasons for this. To do Executive MBA , you might need a job in that country. Moreover Executive-MBA is mostly a 2 year program with classes during the weekends.
Not only that, Full time MBA will provide you an opportunity to attend various workshops/guest lectures/Business education tours-industry visits/networking with business leaders & alumni. You will miss certainly some of these things in executive MBA or part -time MBA or online MBA.

Also if you are looking for MBA's in top b-schools, GMAT is a must (score of 650 and above preferable to be considered for admission). Not only that, top b-schools charge a very hefty fees. Damn tough competitions will be there for available scholarships. Scholarships are mainly based on our profiles.
If someone got an excellent promotion to managerial level within short period of time in his/her work, they have a very fair chances for scholarships.

Finally, I would say it's purely your choice based on your situations/circumstances.


Regards
Balakrishnan

I am afraid that you will be accepted in MBA program at this age normally after this much experience people opt for EMBA even if you go through average age bracket of MBA students there are hardly 5% of class who are 35+

Hi Anand,

You are on the higher side of age/ work experience, and I think breaking into Stanford/HBS is going to be extremely difficult if not impossible.

I'd suggest you look at some of the excellent Indian options such as the executive programs at the IIMs - you fit the age/WE range at these programs. European MBAs are also more open to accepting people with substantial work experience- more so if you have good international exposure and leadership experiences. ISB has recently come out with a program for working executives- check it out.

You will also need to be more realistic about your career shift- an MBA will help you gain cross functional business knowledge and make you ready to take on a business oriented role but a complete career turnaround will not be possible given your substantial skill base in a technical role. Think of it this way- you should be able to transfer the skills you have already built onto your next job.

Feel free to share your resume with me. Also have you taken the GMAT / thought about it as that would be mandatory to every program where you apply?