A Guide to the Guidebooks
MBA program guidebooks help promote rankings of programs or comparisons of business schools and often include student profiles, subjective advice, and strategies for getting into school.
Putting Guides in Perspective
Guidebooks can be helpful introductions to graduate management schools and their programs, but they can’t offer you all the information you will need to choose the right school or program for you. Guidebooks may offer advice on the application process but cannot ensure that you will be successful. Think of guidebooks—like rankings—as only one source of information, and not the most authoritative one.
Your best source of information on schools will always be the schools themselves—their representatives, brochures, viewbooks, and websites.
Prep Books on MBA Programs
There are shelfloads of books out there to help you research business schools. Some recommendations:
- Merritt, Jennifer, Elizabeth Garone, Kathryn Beaumont, Mica Schneider, and BusinessWeek Management Education. BusinessWeek Guide to the Best Business Schools. McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books; 8th edition, 2003
- Alsop, Ronald J., and Wall Street Journal Staff. The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Top Business Schools 2004. Free Press, 2003.
- Petersons Publishing. MBA Programs 2003. Petersons Guides; 8th edition, 2002.
- Petersons Publishing. Petersons Graduate & Professional Programs 2003: An Overview. Petersons Guides, 2002.
- Bickerstaffe, George. Which MBA? A Critical Guide to the World's Best MBAs, 13th Ed. Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2001.
- Carpenter, Phil, and Carol Carpenter. Marketing Yourself to the Top Business. John Wiley & Sons, 1995.
- Doughty, Harold R. The Penguin Guide to American Business Schools. Penguin USA, 2000.
- Montauk, Richard. How to Get into the Top MBA Programs. Prentice Hall Press, 2002.
- Robinson, Peter. Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2003.
- Strachan, James L. How to Get into the Right Business School. Contemporary Books, 1998.
