Why Pay to do an MBA - Quora FAQ 1

Since the start of the year I've been pretty active on Quora, mostly doling out advice on the GMAT and MBA prep based on my own experiences. It has been interesting seeing what questions Quora throws me, but most of the questions do end up being pretty similar. Thus I thought it might be useful to whoever stumbles upon my blog to pop some of my answers to these frequently asked questions on this blog.

Question: Why pay to do an MBA?

Some variations:

• What's the point of doing an MBA?
• Is an MBA necessary or can I study the skills on my own?
• Is it worth paying to attend a top MBA school or getting one from a cheaper school?

My thoughts...

The value of an MBA isn't its educational course content. I'm not saying that course content isn't important. It's just that the knowledge from the course material are easily obtained from outside the program itself. There are tons of textbooks and cheaper courses out there on finance, accounting, operations management, marketing, management etc.

So why take on more debt to do an MBA? Why pay top prices for a top school when it would be much cheaper to do one at a much lower ranked school?

For those of us who decide on going down the MBA route and pay top dollar, it's not just the educational business skills we're after. It's usually because we're also after a combination of the following: 

1. Ability to leverage the brand name of the school
   Prospective employers or customers don't really know you as a person, but they know top schools. Since we inherently subconsciously rely on pre-conceptions to interact with new people, their initial perception of you will be based on what they think of your CV. Top MBA programs are notoriously hard to get accepted into and getting admitted is an achievement on its own. As such, having an MBA from a top school on your CV automatically makes potential employers perceive you as a "quality" candidate before they meet you. This in turn has subconscious effects on how they interact with you so you're more likely to start off on a positive foot when meeting them
   It also means you could potentially command a higher paycheck. After all one doesn't expect an MBA grad from a top school to come cheap.
2. Opportunities to interact with recruiters from top organisations who come to you
   Attracting the notice of highly desirable firms like McKinsley, BCG, Goldman Sachs etc. isn't easy. They're also very selective about where and how they do their recruiting. Granted, you could manage to network your way in, but it's certainly easier when they are coming to you at your school and you are presented with opportunities to have coffee chats with them. These firms rely on the rigor of the MBA application process to shortlist the thousands of applications that are coming in
3. Opportunities to interact with top executives from top companiesTop business schools have cultivated relationships with top global companies for years. Plus it's highly likely that their alumni can be found amongst the top execs anyway. This means they are able to help students get an audience with key executives by organising various events e.g. guest speakers and conferences. Let's face it, top executives in huge global companies aren't exactly the easiest people to reach and their time is extremely precious.
4. Career switchingMany senior positions seek "previous experience".This makes changing industries or job functions not easy unless you're willing to start from the bottom. The MBA program is therefore a shortcut for career-switchers to jump to the middle, thanks in part to the ability to leverage on the school name and in part to the rigor of the course.
5. Instant access to a large network of successful people who are more likely to assist you with whatever you needTop MBA programs admit people who have a very high potential of being successful. The alumni network is therefore a goldmine of useful connections. You'd get far better response and assistance cold-calling an alumnus and saying that you're from the same school than an otherwise complete stranger.
6. Other experiences
   There are many other experiences that you get to have with doing an MBA that would be more challenging to obtain on your own. For instance seeing a problem from different perspectives due to the widely varied backgrounds of your classmates; learning to work with multiple Type A personalities on different projects; learning about different cultures through first-hand interactions; career treks....the list goes on

Basically, what you're ultimately paying for is the network, opportunities and experiences that would be difficult to obtain on your own. T

he value of the MBA program really lies in the people and not the content itself. In the end it comes down to what you want out of the MBA. Is it just business knowledge, or more.

Of course, an MBA doesn't automatically make you successful. It merely provides you with the opportunity. What you do with the opportunities, the network and the experiences is then entirely up to you.

An Unexpected Call from INSEAD

Round 2 results for INSEAD were due to come out by the end of this week. Updates on acceptances started appearing on the GMAT Club forums from Tuesday. Surprisingly though, 2 fellow Round 1 waitlisters also reported getting accepted from the list. This made me wonder whether I should actually just go ahead and accept the LBS offer since I hadn't heard from INSEAD.

Last night while I was in the shower the phone rang. My Significant Other brought the phone in saying it was an international call. So I jumped out of the shower and called back. Yes, it was INSEAD and yes I was accepted for starting on the Singapore campus! Unbelievable!

Thinking about it though, it is somewhat unusual to have such quick movement from the waitlist, given that in previous intakes waitlisters have suffered months of uncertainty. I'm wondering if perhaps the attacks in Paris might have yielded INSEAD fewer applications than usual in Round 2? Or maybe I got lucky and there aren't actually many marketers remaining amongst the applicants.

I'm stoked regardless. I'll admit the part of me that also cares what other people think is doing cartwheels because now it feels like It wasn't a fluke that I'm being recognised. Not that an acceptance from LBS is anything to sneeze at. Just that as an overachiever, 2 acceptances is always better than just 1! Though it does present the difficult dilemma of which school to attend. That is however a problem for another day. :)

Wheee!!!

So after the disappointing email from INSEAD on Thursday, I woke up early on Friday morning to do more research around dealing with being waitlisted. Then I noticed on the Clearadmit MBA update feed that some Round 1 results for LBS were out even though they weren't due for a week . Unlike INSEAD who calls accepted applicants, LBS conveys results to everyone via email. So with held breath I checked my emails and...

Yes! I was accepted!!!

That email totally made my day. I went from upset to ecstatic in less than 12 hours - what an emotional rollercoaster. It certainly made the waitlisted outcome from INSEAD much less of a disappointment. It is such a relief to know that no matter what, I'm going to get to do my MBA come August 2016, which is what I set out to do. Even better - no need to do more applications! Wheee!!! It would be nice to get accepted to INSEAD as well before the deposit for LBS is due in January, but at this stage I'm planning my actions as if I'm heading to LBS.

Note: You are most welcome to skip the following paragraph.
Indulging my conspiracy theory delusions here: I wonder if LBS planned this early release to time it with INSEAD's announcement? LBS and INSEAD often compete for the same candidates. By releasing their results at almost the same time, it cleverly steals some of the limelight from INSEAD. Those who got accepted to both would potentially face the tough decision of decided which to pick diminishing maximum happiness somewhat. Those who get accepted to INSEAD but not LBS would be happy they're going to INSEAD but still think about LBS (since it would've been the later news). Those who were waitlisted at INSEAD but admitted to LBS would be happier than they would've been if they had been accepted to both due to the additional happiness from the relief after the prior disappointment. Plus if INSEAD later decides it would like to accept a waitlisted candidate after all, it might be too late and the candidate might have decided to go with LBS. Ok yes I'm rambling!

In any case I've an acceptance pack on it's way to me soon. So excited! Scholarship offers are due to come out in the next couple of weeks. I'm really hoping I do get a scholarship given the astronomical cost of both the tuition and living in London. Sadly, the NZ dollar doesn't stack up so well against the British Pound. Next thing to tackle - financing!

And the INSEAD Results Are...

INSEAD Round 1 announcements started coming out a day before the deadline. During this time I kept willing my phone to ring. Unfortunately, that never happened. Instead, I received an email in the evening informing me that I had been waitlisted. Bummer! Ok I was really really gutted.

Yes, being waitlisted means that I wasn't rejected so there's still hope. But it also means that you're left in limbo. According to the email from INSEAD, the offer could come anytime between "now and right before the program starts in August 2016". That's an 8 month window! For someone like me who is a hardcore "planner", this is pure torture. Plus, those who have researched INSEAD would know that INSEAD generally discourages reapplying if you are rejected unless your situation changes dramatically, which is rather unlikely in my case.

After receiving the announcement email, I had a minor panic that if LBS waitlisted or rejected me, I would end up in the horrible position of having nowhere to go. Luckily, because I'd applied in Round 1 it meant that I still had the chance to do another round of applications for Round 2 in January to other schools. I dreaded this though because applications take so much time and energy and not just on my part, but on the part of my recommenders as well. On hindsight, it probably would have been more prudent to have prepared my Round 2 applications when I was doing Round 1 while I was in the "application zone".

I accepted my place on the waitlist and proceeded to then spend a few hours calculating the likelihood of getting accepted from the waitlist based on the previous year's intake (ok yes it was a pointless exercise, but I really couldn't help myself). I also looked up advice for being waitlisted, of which there's plenty online. The most useful ones I've found are from Accepted.com and Poets and Quants.

One thing I've been actively checking myself on is to resist the impulse to dash off an update letter immediately. As mentioned in Poets and Quants, it's best to wait till a bit closer to the Round 2 announcement deadline, which isn't actually all that far away. Fingers crossed I'll get an acceptance notification really soon!

The Interview Wait

The wait after submitting an application is excruciating. You will most likely find yourself experiencing the following:

1. Chronic email checking and refreshing
2. Worry that your application was not good enough and whether or not you should have said something differently
3. Chronic checking of forums to see if others have received any results. This is done in conjunction with #1 above
4. Anxiety and deep down some jealousy (if you're being honest) when people start announcing on forums that they have received interview invitations and you haven't. This leads to more experiencing of #1 and #2
5. Worry that no news means a ding...then more of #2
6. Decline in productivity at work due to all of the above.

Well, unless the school releases invitations to everyone at about the same time like in the case of LBS. In which case the above applies for a much shorter period of time.

At the end of the long wait, I received invitations to interview from INSEAD and LBS - half the battle won! It was a ding from Yale. I wasn't too gutted about that though, as looking back Yale didn't really fit my key post-MBA objectives very well anyway.

School Applications Part 2: Writing Essays and Branding

As a marketer, I know that communicating a consistent brand image is key to good marketing. This applies to business school applications - the essay component in particular. Figuring out the answers to the key questions I mentioned in my previous post helps with this. However, as the essays generally have word limits, you do need to make sure your application as a whole "brands" you the way you want to come across to the admissions committee.

I must admit that I struggled with trying to figure out my "brand image" (marketing products is much easier!). So I did end up enlisting the paid aid of Admissionado with an exploratory package to clarify how I should "market" myself. In doing so, it also helped me work out what strengths and accomplishments I should focus on and bring out in my application.

Some things that I learnt in the process:

1. Comparing your profile to others who have been admitted is really not useful.
   You are compared against the people who are applying in the same intake so what might be an outstanding candidate profile for a previous intake is not necessarily true for your intake.
2. Posting your profile in forums and blogs and asking if your profile is ok to apply to school A, B or C is not the most effective use of your time.
   As there's not a lot of detail or personality that you can show in those posts, consultants can only offer the more obvious advice. Plus even if your profile is great for a school, how you write your essays and present yourself will be the deal-breaker.
3. Be confident in your accomplishments and achievements - especially for those who fall in the humble category, myself included.
   Everyone applying to the top business schools who post their profiles always seem so much more fantastic. However, if you actually start thinking and writing down your accomplishments, big and small, you'll discover you're actually great too. It's all about how you present it.
4. Start with the application with the most number of and most thought-provoking essays first.
   This was the INSEAD application in my case - 4 job essays and 5 motivational essays. Planning and writing those essays helped me solidify what I wanted to do, my thought processes, and gave me the material that I could then tweak to suit applications for other schools.
5. Enlisting the aid of someone who knows you (and preferably is good at writing and understands business) to help proof-read your essays is extremely helpful.
   For me, this was my brother, who was subject to reading many essay drafts (9 application drafts just for INSEAD!), and whose feedback I could not have done without. If you haven't already noticed, I like writing long sentences and I certainly struggled with word counts. My brother helped me cut to the chase and get my point across in a more succinct manner. I was also able to view my "stories" from his different perspective, and uncovered some strengths and weaknesses I was previously unaware of.

What I can say about the essay writing process is that it's labour intensive and highly reflective. I definitely obtained a better sense of myself at the end of it and gained more self-confidence too!

School Applications Part 1: Picking Schools

MBA applications take a lot of work and each application carries a cost (especially with the exchange rates) so to work out which ones are worth investing in, I found you really needed to have a clear idea of the following:

• Your short term and long term goals
• Why you are really doing an MBA and what you want out of it
• Where you want to work post-MBA
• Your strengths and your weaknesses
• Your personality and learning style
• Your priorities
• How you'd like people to perceive you 

By understanding yourself and what you want, selecting which schools to apply to becomes much easier too.

I started off my journey thinking an MBA would be a great way to get a boost into the next career level. Tons of research, discussion and reflection later, I finally came to the conclusion that

• I wanted to move into consulting and somewhere in future I wanted to start my own company
• I wanted to work in a new country - New Zealand was starting to feel too small, but not work in the US
• I wanted a really international business school that was good at developing soft skills not just hard skills

From there I found myself leaning towards the European schools - INSEAD and London Business School in particular. INSEAD because it was a 10-month program; is a well-known top school in both Europe and Asia; and is famous for placing graduates in consulting. Plus, as an added bonus, since I have family in Singapore, I could save on accommodation costs for the time that I spend on INSEAD's Singapore campus. LBS was attractive because it offered Global Business Experiences; is a well-known top school in Europe; and is located in London where I do eventually think I'll end up working.

I also considered HEC Paris and IMD but ended up planning to apply to HEC Paris as an option if I didn't get into INSEAD or LBS. IE was attractive, but the Jan 2016 intake would've been too soon for me and the Jan 2017 intake was later than I wanted to start. Thus IMD, like HEC Paris wound up as an alternative for if I didn't get into INSEAD or LBS in Round 1.

As for US schools, I did consider applying to Harvard initially just because it is the top business school in the world. I didn't in the end though because Harvard uses predominantly the case study method of teaching, which makes it more challenging for my less outspoken personality. Also, other than its name, there wasn't really anything in particular that jumped out at me. The only US school that caught my attention was Yale and that was due to its integrated curriculum. I liked that its thinking was quite different from other business schools. So I applied to Yale even though it is known as a predominantly NGO school, whereas I have a preference for working in for-profit organisations.

Perhaps I would have chosen schools differently if I had the opportunity to visit various business schools. However, being located in NZ made travelling a major challenge. On hindsight, if I started looking into doing the MBA 2-3 years ago I would have had the luxury of time to plan a visit to 1-2 schools each year. As it is I ended up basing my decisions on school sites, videos, webminars (mostly middle of the night/extremely early mornings in NZ), MBA student blogs and speaking to current students and alumni where I could.