Choosing business schools: By industry

Admissions staff are trained to identify genuine passion for their school in your application essays and interviews. This means that choosing the business school which best fits your profile increases the chance of successful application. Consider your target industry for post-MBA work.

Career changers: Many candidates use an MBA to switch industry. Others choose to remain in their current industry but use the qualification to reposition into a different company. Your choice of business school should reflect your target industry and even specific companies. Relationships with recruiters: Career departments of all top MBA programs have relationships with a range of employers across sectors, but relationships by company will vary. The truth is that corporate recruiters have limited bandwidth so they tend to cultivate relationships with only a handful of business schools.

Feeder companies: This means that candidates determined to reach a specific handful of companies should research which schools fed candidates into those companies. Many business schools in their presentations have a slide of companies who visit campus. For example Cambridge Judge in its employment report explicitly cites its top-5 hiring companies.

Ask admissions: Otherwise it's fair game to ask admissions outright what kind of relationships the school has with specific companies. If necessary ask to speak to somebody at the careers department. This kind of engagement with schools, when done positively and professionally, is looked upon positively by admissions staff.

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