“To be recognized nationally as a great value is an honor,” said Bethany Cooper, director of corporate relations and MBA services. “We hope this recognition attracts students from around the country who may not have thought of the University of Mississippi otherwise.”

The 36-semester-hour MBA program is entirely online and taught by top research faculty with the flexibility to meet working professionals’ needs. Students may enter in the spring, summer or fall. Mississippi residents pay just over $12,500 for the program, while nonresidents pay just under $23,500.

By comparison, the least expensive distance MBA, at Southeast Missouri State University, costs between $8,234 and $14,174. The most expensive, from Duke University, costs about $119,000.

If you’ve ever felt your career has suffered because you don’t have a graduate degree… If you want the university on your resume to be one whose reputation is built on a century and a half of providing outstanding education… but you can’t shut down your life for a year or two to go back to school.. then we have a solution for you.

The Professional MBA program is geared toward the working business person. It can be completed in as little as two years, or longer depending on the student’s desires. Courses are delivered primarily in an on-line format — giving you the most flexibility possible to allow you to fit coursework into any work schedule.

In just four regular semesters and two summer sessions, you can earn an MBA from an accredited business school at the widely respected, historic University of Mississippi. The Ole Miss Professional MBA curriculum covers the same ground as the on-campus program and is taught by the same faculty. The difference is that you don’t have to leave your job or uproot your family to get your MBA – and you don’t have to settle for a less prestigious school. Select a category below for more information.

Admission Requirements

The admission requirements listed below are the minimum required for consideration for admission. Meeting all of these requirements does not guarantee admission. Admission is competitive with limited space available. To be considered for admission, applicants must:

• Hold a bachelor’s degree in any field from a regionally accredited institution.
• Have a GPA in excess of 3.0 on the most recent 60 semester hours of course work.
• Complete the course equivalents of Principles of Accounting I and Business Finance I with a grade of “C” or better. These courses can be completed as part of an undergraduate program or can be taken after earning an undergraduate degree at any accredited institution.
• Submit an official GMAT score that indicates sufficient preparation for a rigorous graduate business program. 550+ score is preferred.
• Submit an official TOEFL score (international student only).

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To reschedule your test appointment by phone, please use the following numbers based on your location. You may not reschedule your appointment by mail or fax.

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Cancel your GMAT appointment by phone

To cancel your test appointment by phone, please use the following numbers based on your location:

Americas
Telephone (toll-free within the U.S & Canada only):
1-800-717-GMAT (4628), 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Central Time
Telephone:  1-952-681-3680, 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Central Time

Asia Pacific
Telephone:  +603 8318-9961, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. AEST
In India: +91 (0) 120 439 7830, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Indian Standard Time

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You may reschedule or cancel your appointment at any time. An appointment may be rescheduled to an available slot during a test center’s standard business hours. Rescheduled exams are subject to all retest policies described in the GMAT® Information Bulletin.

Based on local law, keep in mind that the following fees may apply based on when you reschedule or cancel. If you cancel your appointment—

• 7 calendar days or more before the scheduled test date and time: US$80.00 refund
• Fewer than 7 calendar days before the scheduled test date and time: No refund

If you are testing in South Korea, the following cancellation fees apply—

• 7 calendar days or more before the scheduled test date and time: US$150.00 refund
• Fewer than 7 calendar days before the scheduled test date and time: US$50.00 refund

The problem is that these days it doesn’t work like that. Rather, more and more students are finding the promise of business schools to be hollow. The return on investment on an MBA has gone the way of Greek public debt. If you have a decent job in your mid- to late- 20s, unless you have the backing of a corporate sponsor, leaving it to get an MBA is a higher risk than ever. If you are getting good business experience already, the best strategy is to keep on getting it, thereby making yourself ever more useful rather than groping for the evanescent brass rings of business school.

Business schools argue that a recession is the best time to invest in oneself. What they won’t say is that they also need your money. There are business academics right now panting for your cheque. They need it to pad their sinecures and fund their threadbare research. There is surely no more oxymoronic profession than the tenured business-school professor, and yet these job-squatting apostles of the free market are rife and desperate.

When you look at today’s most evolved business organisms, it is obvious that an MBA is not required for business success. Apple, which recently usurped Microsoft as the world’s largest technology firm (by market capitalisation), has hardly any MBAs among its top ranks. Most of the world’s top hedge funds prefer seasoned traders, engineers and mathematicians, people with insight and programming skills, to MBAs brandishing spreadsheets, the latest two-by-twos and the guilt induced by some watery ethics course.

In the BRIC economies, one sees fortunes being made in the robust manner of the 19th-century American robber barons, with scarcely a nod to the niceties of MBA programmes. The cute stratagems and frameworks taught at business schools become quickly redundant in the hurly-burly of economic change. I’ve often wondered what Li Ka-Shing of Hong Kong or Stanely Ho of Macao, or Rupert Murdoch, for that matter, would make of an MBA programme. They would probably see it for what it is: a business opportunity. And as such, they would focus on the value of investing in it.

They would look at the high cost, and note the tables which show that financial rewards are not evenly distributed among MBAs but tilt heavily to those from the very top programmes who tend to go into finance and consulting. Successful entrepreneurs are as rare among MBAs as they are in the general population.

They would think to themselves that business is fundamentally about two things, innovating and selling, and that most MBA programmes teach neither. They might wonder about the realities of the MBA network. There is no point acquiring a global network of randomly assembled business students if you just want to work in your home town. Also, they will recall that the most effective way to build a network is not to go to school, but to be successful. That way you will have all the MBA friends you could ever want.

They might even meet a few business academics and wonder. Then they would take their application and do with it what most potential applicants should: toss it away.

2 As you begin to approach essay-writing time, consider putting together a “brag sheet�. Write down all of the things about you that would not necessarily appear on a résumé: languages you speak, all extracurricular involvements, family traditions and more. This can also be mined for essay content.

3 Once you have the essay questions in hand, there may still be a few stumpers. Even with lots of content, when you are faced with answering a question such as “What matters most to you?� it is difficult to decide. Here is an exercise that stops you from over-thinking: set your alarm clock for 3am. When you wake up, ask yourself the question. The first thing that comes to mind might surprise you. Do this for a couple of nights and you may come up with a few options or find that you are building a consensus around a certain topic.

4 Before you actually write the essays, take the final step of mapping out the general topics you will cover in each essay. As you map a topic to a question, check it off on a master list of stories you want to cover. This way, you can make sure that a given school is receiving all of your key stories, and that you are spreading out different stories across an application and not being repetitive.

5 Everyone works in different ways: some work best first thing in the morning, others are night owls. Some need to outline concepts on paper, others go straight to computer. So develop a plan that supports your individual style. Many find that the first application can take around 40 hours of work—brainstorming, drafting, editing, refining. As you approach this process, make sure you have the time. Tackle one application at a go. Do not take work leave or attempt it in a single week. Essays require time to gel. Therefore make sure that you have plenty of time to do it right. You may require six weeks, or you may even want 12.

6 Many applicants are inhibited by perfectionism. They can sit at the computer for hours, unable to generate that “perfect� essay, rewriting so furiously that they don’t get past the first few sentences. It is often easier to edit than to write. So just type. A page full of so-so text is less intimidating than that blank page.

7 It is essential that you research your target schools and understand how to appeal to each of them. Each will have a slightly different ethos and look for something different in their students. But…

8 …you can also save yourself a bit of work. There are certain qualities that all business schools want to see in a successful applicant:

* leadership
* team skills
* ethics
* communication skills

Just saying “I am a strong leader� is not enough. Every claim you make must have supporting stories that help the reader believe you. You do not need to check off every quality on the list. Select a few that apply to you and reinforce those in an honest and compelling way.

9 Nobody is perfect. The schools know this and you need to show them that you are realistic and self-aware. Revealing your humanity—in the form of quirks, weaknesses and flaws—can often help the admissions committee to like you. A story about how you learned from a failure, improved upon a weakness or struggled with challenges can be compelling. The other side of this is the ability to demonstrate that you can really benefit from the MBA degree. If you know everything already, an admissions committee may wonder why you want to return to school.

10 Get some help. Even the most meticulous writers benefit from a second or third set of eyes. Ask someone to review your essays, look for typos and tell you if you are hitting all of the points in the right way. Is your attempt at humour coming off correctly? Do you seem too humble, too cocky, too serious, not serious enough? After you have been buried with your essays for weeks, a fresh perspective can often help you see the application as an admissions-committee member does: for the first time. Enlist someone who knows about the application process and make sure they are not just reassuring you that all is well, but are actually giving you some quality feedback.

Schools in The Economist’s ranking of MBA programmes insist that they can help boost students’ career opportunities and open new areas of expertise and mobility. Indeed, surely the degree is worth pursuing only if it brings with it a sufficient level of professional advancement and personal development. But can an MBA still be considered a gateway to the top table? Do programmes really produce confident, self-aware graduates who can build exciting careers? What is more, if, as is often claimed, what is taught varies little between schools—if an MBA has become nothing more than a commodity—does it matter where you end up?

The answer is yes: it still matters. The market is tougher, the degree is under scrutiny, but for many professions, getting an MBA from the right school is a way of landing a better job and of accelerating a career.  Getting a degree from the wrong school, however, is not. Finding the right school is not just about looking at rankings, or choosing one considered as “prestigious�. The key to making the right choice is understanding why you want to take an MBA, and what you expect it to do for you. So let’s look at some of the key reasons for going to business school and what direction each might point you in:

“I want to change career direction�

The great majority of MBA graduates, and certainly the bulk of the most successful ones, use the qualification to build on skills and experience they already have. “Very few employers will recruit you to do something you have never done before, simply because you have three new letters after your name�, says Graeme Read of Antal, an executive-recruitment firm. If you are really set on a complete change of direction you will need to aim for one of the very top schools, where organisations are often buying future potential rather than current abilities. However, remember that wherever you study, an MBA will always be just part of a process, not a guaranteed ticket to the boardroom table.

“I want to set up my own business�

No serious business school will tell you that they can create entrepreneurs out of thin air. But what they can do is develop any entrepreneurial skills that you already have. The schools with the best records in this area tend to have a faculty which combines traditional academics with those from the “coal face� who have developed their own successful businesses. It’s also worth looking for a school which draws students from a wide range of cultures and nationalities. As Patrice Houdayer, dean of EMLYON in France, puts it: “Start-up businesses can go global almost immediately these days, so it’s essential to get first-hand knowledge of how business is conducted in key markets around the globe.�

“I want to develop international experience�

An increasing number of students are opting to take their MBA abroad. But if you decide to follow them, don’t just be won over by such immediate attractions as a good climate and pleasant surroundings. “The international opportunities that my MBA offered were a huge draw, beyond the obvious attractions of studying in the Bay Area,� says Alex Pitt, a British national whose global career has so far taken in an MBA at Stanford in California, a management consultancy in New York and a business-development company in Dubai. During his time at Stanford he also helped to organise a study trip to India and Pakistan and complete an internship with a media start-up in South Africa. You can check an MBA’s international credentials by looking at things such as the availability of international exchanges or study trips, and the number of countries in which students get jobs when they graduate.

You might also consider which languages could be of use to you in the future. Nearly all top-ranked programmes are taught in English, but simply living somewhere like France, Germany or China for a year and interning with a local company will leave you with a degree of fluency that could prove invaluable later on.

“I want to build a network of contacts�

Many veteran MBA graduates will tell you that the most useful thing they got out of business school was an address book. Consider what sort of network will benefit you most. Many of the highly ranked schools have invested heavily in creating diverse classes that will generate contacts around the globe. Great if you are planning an international business career, less useful, however, if you are going to focus on the public sector in your own country.

“I want earn more money/get a better job/ be more mobile�

You’ll be hard pressed to find an MBA graduate who actually lost money (or perhaps more accurately, will admit to having lost money) on the business-school experience. However, the days of eye-watering starting salaries and signing-on bonuses are over, or at least on hiatus. The real value of the qualification often only manifests itself over time, so look for a school that is going to help you develop the skills and capabilities you will need in the long run, not just the day after the graduation ceremony. A school’s location also matters, so give some serious thought to where you want to be based in the long term. Many schools have strong regional ties with a particular industry or recruiter, but only a handful enjoy a global reputation and influence.

“I want to develop my knowledge and experience but I don’t want to break the bank�

As we have seen, an MBA is expensive. But if you are willing to look beyond of the obvious big names and consider one of the up-and-coming players, there are some attractive deals available. A number of schools have kept fees relatively low. Furthermore, in the wake of the credit crunch, schools are developing new financing options for international applicants. While Harvard has drawn on credit union    s, Duke (Fuqua) has agreed to underwrite loans itself. In Europe, insead and Vlerick Leuven have opted for a low-interest loan scheme based on a student’s future earning potential rather than their financial history, and gives them up to seven year after graduation to clear their debt. Most schools will offer scholarships, sometimes covering the entire cost of the programme, to the right students.

Other considerations

It might sound obvious, but a school’s location should be a key evaluation, and not just because you might want a job in a particular region. It is no surprise that the business schools at Chicago, New York and London all have excellent reputations in the field of finance. They are right next to the financial markets and can more easily attract guest speakers from financial institutions, or offer a strong network for summer internships and post-MBA careers. Schools on America’s west coast can similarly benefit from ties to Silicon Valley, while other regions offer a gateway to areas of expertise, such as aerospace, luxury brand management or bio-tech.

You might also evaluate a school based on specialization. Beyond the generalist nature of the MBA qualification, schools have carved reputations in certain areas such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, nonprofit, real-estate, it management or health care. The schools not only work hand in hand with the related industry, but also have faculty who have developed an area of expertise. They might have an incubator to attract venture capital for entrepreneurial business plans, or offer work-study programmes that give students a hands-on experience of working with ngos.

So beyond The Economist’s ranking, think of the criteria that matter to you before drawing up a list of potential MBA programmes. You then may also find that you are not just limited to a handful of schools that dominate the top of the b-school rankings. Research the characteristics of the schools, find out more about the student experience, and how students are achieving their personal and professional goals. Ultimately it is in both schools’ and candidates’ best interests to find the right fit.

Business schools have long sold the promise that, like an F1 driver zipping into the pits for fresh tyres, it just takes a short hiatus on an MBA programme and you will come roaring back into the career race primed to win. After all, it signals to companies that you were good enough to be accepted by a decent business school (so must be good enough for them); it plugs you into a network of fellow MBAs; and, to a much lesser extent, there’s the actual classroom education. Why not just pay the bill, sign here and reap the rewards?

The problem is that these days it doesn’t work like that. Rather, more and more students are finding the promise of business schools to be hollow. The return on investment on an MBA has gone the way of Greek public debt. If you have a decent job in your mid- to late- 20s, unless you have the backing of a corporate sponsor, leaving it to get an MBA is a higher risk than ever. If you are getting good business experience already, the best strategy is to keep on getting it, thereby making yourself ever more useful rather than groping for the evanescent brass rings of business school.

Business schools argue that a recession is the best time to invest in oneself. What they won’t say is that they also need your money. There are business academics right now panting for your cheque. They need it to pad their sinecures and fund their threadbare research. There is surely no more oxymoronic profession than the tenured business-school professor, and yet these job-squatting apostles of the free market are rife and desperate. Potential students should take note: if taking a professional risk were as marvellous as they say, why do these role models so assiduously avoid it?

Harvard Business School recently chose a new dean, Nitin Nohria, an expert in ethics and leadership. He was asked by Bloomberg Businessweek if he had watched the Congressional hearings on Goldman Sachs. He replied: “The events in the financial sector are something that we have watched closely at Harvard Business School. We teach by the case method, and one of the things we’ll do through this experience is study these cases deeply as information is revealed over time so we can understand what happened at all these financial firms. I’m sure that at some point we’ll write cases about Goldman Sachs because that’s how we learn.� He could have stood up for Goldman or criticised it. Instead he punted on one of the singular business issues of our time. It is indicative of the cringing attitude of business schools before the business world they purport to study.

When you look at today’s most evolved business organisms, it is obvious that an MBA is not required for business success. Apple, which recently usurped Microsoft as the world’s largest technology firm (by market capitalisation), has hardly any MBAs among its top ranks. Most of the world’s top hedge funds prefer seasoned traders, engineers and mathematicians, people with insight and programming skills, to MBAs brandishing spreadsheets, the latest two-by-twos and the guilt induced by some watery ethics course.

In the BRIC economies, one sees fortunes being made in the robust manner of the 19th-century American robber barons, with scarcely a nod to the niceties of MBA programmes. The cute stratagems and frameworks taught at business schools become quickly redundant in the hurly-burly of economic change. I’ve often wondered what Li Ka-Shing of Hong Kong or Stanely Ho of Macao, or Rupert Murdoch, for that matter, would make of an MBA programme. They would probably see it for what it is: a business opportunity. And as such, they would focus on the value of investing in it.

They would look at the high cost, and note the tables which show that financial rewards are not evenly distributed among MBAs but tilt heavily to those from the very top programmes who tend to go into finance and consulting. Successful entrepreneurs are as rare among MBAs as they are in the general population. They would think to themselves that business is fundamentally about two things, innovating and selling, and that most MBA programmes teach neither. They might wonder about the realities of the MBA network. There is no point acquiring a global network of randomly assembled business students if you just want to work in your home town. Also, they will recall that the most effective way to build a network is not to go to school, but to be successful. That way you will have all the MBA friends you could ever want.

They might even meet a few business academics and wonder. Then they would take their application and do with it what most potential applicants should: toss it away.

“I’m a sophomore in college; what classes should I take in my junior year to impress MBA admissions committees?�

“I’m planning to apply in round one, but would it be better to delay to round two so that I can use the next three months to add some community service to my resume?�

“I’m an older-than-average applicant because I spent four years doing ______________; what should I tell the adcomm about why I’m applying so late?�

With the possible exception of Hollywood singles bars, twentysomething young professionals worry about concocting impressive backstories more in the realm of MBA admissions than anywhere on earth. But at least the actors in Hollywood have an excuse; they play make-believe for a living. As an MBA applicant, it’s much easier than it appears to tell the MBA admissions committee what it wants to hear.

What do MBA admissions committees want to hear?

What may seem like incredible cliche ends up more than often being pure truth – the end result of the MBA admissions process should be that you have a much stronger sense of what you want to do with an MBA. And while this provides incredible value to an admissions committee in filling out a class of students who will thrive in that program, add value to one another’s experiences, and fully value the process, it may well provide even more practical utility to you. While your primary goal is “to get in�, think about this – business school is quite likely a six-figure and two-year investment for you, yet many prospective applicants spend more time shopping for a laptop or for new jeans than they do selecting their target schools. By forcing you to honestly assess what type of classroom environment you seek, what kind of curriculum you’d like to pursue, and how an MBA education will help you to transition your current skills, abilities, and interests to a fulfilling career, schools are doing you a favor. If you’re struggling to justify why you’d like to attend that school or how that program will help you to pursue your goals, it may not be the wisest investment of your time and money to do so. And as you are forced to question yourself – your goals, your background, and what you want out of the MBA experience – you’re much more likely to fully take advantage of the opportunities that await you once you are admitted; the MBA admissions process provides you with an itinerary of what you want to do once you do finally reach campus.

All told, this process suggests what your parents have told you all along: honesty is the best policy. As any CEO, politician, or admissions consultant can tell you, there are certainly ways to best position the truth for public consumption, but more importantly business school admissions committees want to know the truth. Business schools make decisions based not only on achievement but also on potential. After all, most applicants have fewer than 10 years of work experience, and those who have already ascended into the stratosphere have little incentive to spend two years learning how to get there. One (unintentionally) well-kept secret of MBA admissions is that “being qualified� is only part of the process, and is often overvalued by applicants. Having a compelling career vision and a thorough understanding of how an MBA – and that particular MBA program – will help you achieve it is a crucial and often-overlooked part of the process.

What do MBA admissions officers want to hear? They want to know that you’ve taken time to assess your strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities that await you, and the role that their MBA program would take in your career should you attend. To give the admissions officers what they want, you first need to be honest with yourself about what you want. The truth shall set you free.

“Think about how the degree will advance your career, the job you’d like to have, and your lifestyle. Then consider your preferences of location, personality of the school, the kind of alumni it produces.”

After some introspection, an applicant can start talking to others. Informational interviews with those who have the jobs you’re seeking is a great way to confirm choices and find out about schools that specialize in those areas, says Edwards.

“Really explore your career goals,” she says. “It will help you in the application process, but also down the road in the job search.”

Job Placement Info

One mistake many applicants make is failing to look at the list of recruiters and job placement statistics of particular schools before applying. Then, when they enroll in the business school, they are disappointed by the job opportunities presented to them, says Scott Shrum, director of MBA admissions research at Veritas Prep, a Malibu (Calif.)-based provider of GMAT test prep and admissions consulting services. This is particularly hard on international applicants, who attend U.S. business schools in the hopes that the MBA program will help them land a job stateside and are disappointed when they wind up back home.

To get a handle on recruiting and job placement, applicants can consult the detailed information on many schools available at sites like MBA.com or the schools’ profiles on Businessweek.com, where a comparator tool allows applicants to compare placement stats, and even top recruiters, at various schools.Many schools also post placement data online, including Harvard Business School, but not everyone is as forthcoming.

Questions for Alumni

Another great source of information about prospective MBA programs is the program’s alumni. Most schools will connect applicants with alumni in their chosen fields, but there are other sources, including LinkedIn and similar social networks, that allow for sophisticated searches by industry, company, even job title.

When talking with MBA alumni, applicants should ask them about the recruiters they met on campus and how the school helped with the job search. These initial encounters with respected professionals will help applicants develop a network and could lead them to potential recommenders, says Sara E. Neher, assistant dean for MBA admissions at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Once applicants have spoken with alumni and have a clearer sense of what they’d like their post-MBA life to look like, they should head to the Internet. Distinguishing between legitimate sources and garbage is more difficult than it seems, if for no other reason than the sheer amount of content.

Brand names are usually a safe bet. For example, organizations such as the National Society of Hispanic MBAs, the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the GMAT, internationally recognized publications, and the business schools themselves have built up their expertise and reputation.

Opinions on the Web

“Admissions officers are a great source of information for the admissions process, but not necessarily for the experience of the school,” says Shrum. “They’ll give you O.K. answers, but students and recent alumni are better for those questions.”

Still, students and alumni are sometimes trained by the school on what to say or write, says Neher. That is why, she says, it is best to ask sources if the business school is limiting what they share with prospective students in any way. It doesn’t hurt to ask pointed questions designed to elicit a negative answer—such as “What’s the biggest problem with the career services department?”—and to pursue alumni contacts who may be off the school’s radar and willing to offer another perspective, such as an unemployed graduate.

B-School Rankings

One of the biggest and most influential sources of business school information are the various business school rankings, such as those published by the Financial Times, The Economist, and Bloomberg Businessweek’s Best Business Schools. Although most admissions experts agree that the rankings are a good starting point, they want applicants to keep these lists in perspective.

Wise applicants, says DelMonico, use the rankings as one tool to get them started in making a broad list of attractive business schools and to determine what their chances are at each. As they continue their research, they should use the funnel approach to whittle down their list until they have the four to six programs to which they will apply. What applicants never want to do is limit their options or be close-minded to all the possibilities. Considering a wider set of schools, at least to start, is the best way to find the right business school.

Firsthand Experiences

Face-to-face meetings and school-sponsored events can help applicants better understand the nuances of each program. Most business schools host events in various regions and provide online videos and photos. These are suitable ways to bolster your business school research to make informed decisions about admissions, says Neher.

A campus visit allows for more opportunities to talk with students and administrators, to get a firsthand look at what everyday life would be, and to sit in on a class.Even though no school requires a visit, Shrum says admissions committees are impressed when applicants make the extra effort and incorporate in their application essays and interview answers specifics about the school’s culture or offerings that they gleaned from a visit.

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1. Connect your aspirations to the country’s offerings

   • Immigration rules of the country abroad

   An MBA degree from a Business school abroad will ensure you good job prospects and help you settle abroad. But a word of caution in this case – Immigration rules for foreign nationals vary from place to place. Only the United States, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia make it possible for foreign nationals to gradually settle down permanently.
   Economic and Political conditions of the country abroad
   A booming economy would always have jobs in abundance. Stable political conditions give a sense of security.

   • Occupation prospects in the country abroad

   Since every country abroad doesn’t have the same economic growth levels, the opportunities vary. The occupation you are interested in, necessarily wouldn’t be flourishing in the chosen country abroad. For example, construction engineers are for more in demand in Canada than in the US.

   • Environment of the country abroad

   Choosing to do an MBA abroad gives you the chance to spend one to two years in a new country. Further, you can only settle, if you are able to adjust to the new atmosphere abroad. Geographic locations, Climatic conditions, ease of communication and social-cultural environment (a broad minded culture with a focus on diversity) influence the comfort while staying abroad

What do rankings of the Business schools abroad mean to you? A means of short listing a Business school abroad, right? Rankings primarily aid in selecting the top Business school. After the MBA programme abroad, you it is very likely that you might settle down in a particular country abroad and not in the Business school abroad. Therefore, it is a prudent act to choose a particular country abroad to settle down in and then use the rankings to choose the right Business school abroad. An MBA in a top Business school abroad should finally be the means to an end – a successful, rewarding career and stable settlement in the country where you have built your network! After the completion of your MBA abroad, the country should continue to appeal to you. Here is a quick checklist on evaluating the abroad country’s offerings

2. Type of M.B.A offered abroad

   Classes in MBA abroad tend to have a more diverse population in terms of nationalities, backgrounds (educational and professional), genders, etc, which enhances the quality of the environment and the learning. MBA courses in Business schools abroad tend to have a more global coverage of topics in their syllabus. Top MBA schools abroad also offer variety within their programs, giving experienced students the opportunity to enroll in an Executive MBA program, a fast-track MBA program, or special concentrations within a traditional MBA program. In a top MBA Business school abroad, the chance to specialize in a certain business area — like accounting, international business, or marketing — can help you find a specific job. General MBA programs in Business schools abroad may not be that helpful.

3. Financials to be invested in the Business School abroad

   You may start with the assumption that a scholarship might not be immediately possible. Then, look at the resources at your disposal. Procedures, availability, and types of funding for foreign students at Business schools abroad vary tremendously. Consider whether or not you would financially be able to support yourself abroad in that chosen country. While studying for an MBA in a foreign country; you also need to factor in insurance, transportation expenses and restricted employment options. The exchange rates play a crucial role in determining your financial conditions while pursuing your MBA in a business school abroad and your earnings after settling down.

4. Long term Perspective of the Business School abroad

   Many a times Business schools abroad have local or country-specific fame only. Hence, choose a Business school abroad with a possibility of settling out there.
   An experience abroad in a top Business school is one that will stay with you for life. Then why invest in a wrong place abroad? While an MBA abroad will open you to a new canvass of opportunities, make sure that these opportunities give you a new lease of professional and personal life too.

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