Choose Your School and Program

With more than 1,900 graduate business schools offering more than 4,500 programs around the world, you’re certain to find a school and program that’s a good match for your career goals.

In graduate business education, it’s all about choice. Schools offer full-time and part-time MBA programs on their campuses and online. They offer specialized Master’s degrees in Finance, Marketing, Accounting, and other fields. There are traditional 2-year programs and accelerated 12-month programs. Many schools have created programs that deliberately tailor their focus to specific industries and professions.

Business schools are actively looking for candidates who come from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds. More than half of all current graduate business students majored in fields other than business in college.

When considering which schools interest you the most, think about the career, lifestyle, financial issues, and curriculum that are important to you in making your selections. MBA.com also can help you through our GMASS® School Search Service.

Admissions officers want to know you as a person, not just a GPA and a GMAT® score. They will look at your entire application and make critical judgments when selecting candidates for their program. In other words, they take into account your total experience.

In putting together your application, you’ll typically need to provide:

• Undergraduate transcripts
• GMAT scores
• Essays
• Work experience (usually required for an MBA)
• References and letter of recommendation
• Extracurricular activities
• Interview (some schools)

Here’s why—schools will use:

• academic record, recommendations, and work experience to judge your potential for success in a program relative to the overall applicant pool.
• GMAT scores to predict how well you will do academically in their core curriculum.
• work experience, extracurricular activity, and letters of recommendation to help them gauge your professional promise.
• interviews and essays to determine why you want to earn a degree and how you will use it in the future. These parts of the application will also help schools learn about your communication skills.

As you’re completing your application, also consider:

• What does your competition look like? Evaluate the school’s past applicant statistics against your own strengths and weaknesses.
• What would you add to a class?
• How can you enrich the school’s learning environment?
• Are your career goals are attainable?
• How competitive are you?

For more in-depth information, see Schools and Programs.