Whether you’ve just graduated high school or you’re thinking of a career change, business school can be a lucrative career option, especially considering that almost every company is looking for a marketing specialist or business development consultant. Having a business degree can not only offer you insights into business processes and market trends but also give you the skills and know-how required to stand out in a vast pool of candidates. To increase the odds of getting accepted, here’s how to prepare yourself for business school.
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Make a List of Priorities
Source: opportunitiescorners
Understand the trade-off that you’re going to make as a crucial exercise in decision-making. Even though you want to do everything on time, it’s going to be hard. Spend some time before school starts and see what’s most important for you. To help you create an idea about it, make sure you do your research before you apply for a business school, which often accepts either a GMAT score or a GRE score. Click here to find out how you can prepare yourself for the GMAT or GRE test. Making a list of priorities including take a GMAT prep GRE prep course will help you see which step is most important to begin with.
Create a Budget
Source: sciencemag
Before applying, make sure you create a budget of all costs and see if you can handle it. That has to include travel, moving, and other monthly expenses. Compare this to your income, such as scholarships, savings, loans, etc. That will help you determine exactly how much money you’ll need. If it’s necessary, you can take a student loan and help yourself out. Although it’s a good idea to take a loan, don’t take more than needed. Paying back loans can be difficult for students.
Research Classes and Professors
Source: prepadviser
You don’t have to go to every class of study in business schools, so make sure you research classes and professors that are highly recommended. If there is a particular specialization that you’re interested in, do your research about it and sign in early on. Some schools offer prerequisites to business schools to help you refresh your math skills. These courses can help you to prepare to get back to the academic mentality.
Attend the Welcome Events
Source: samford
Business school is not all about accounting, human resources, and project management; it’s also about creating friendships and making connections with different people. The relationships you’ll create at the business school will help you thrive interpersonally. That is an excellent opportunity to meet a future business partner.
De-stress Yourself
Source: prepadviser
Going through this process of transitioning away from work and back to school can be overwhelming. Spending time with the students who also want to socialize is perfect for allowing yourself to de-stress. Exercising, watching movies, or just socializing with them is excellent and will help you feel relaxed.
Be Confident
Source: business
Going to business school can sometimes give you a feeling of worry. Once you do get accepted, it’s important to remind yourself that you were chosen for a reason and that you truly deserve to be there. It’ll be hard to get there, but over the years, when you’ll look back on your MBA years, you’ll thank yourself. With some proper research and careful planning, you can make a great experience out of it. And if you need to get a student loan, learn what’s the best way to pay it back in a short time.
Eight tips to know how to choose a business school
Source: prepadviser
Choosing a business school is not as simple as checking number one in a ranking and signing up there. It is about finding the right institution for each applicant. It is not a dilemma with a universal answer, and that there are more than 8,000 business schools globally does not make things easier. However, the advantage is that this sea of options means more possibilities for finding “our” school. The one to which we can give our time and unconditional dedication. Although there is not a perfect program for everyone, there are guidelines that we can follow to check schools and make the best choice:
1 – Do not make the decision alone: you should get advice, inform yourself, and not decide until you have all the background of the case. Therefore, he thinks that it takes at least six months of research before deciding on which business school to study.
2 – What do you want from it? Project yourself for another 5 or 10 years: what position, country, and industry are you seeking to achieve.
3 – Check international rankings: “it is important to choose schools in good ranking positions because the school not only influences the present, but we depend on its prestige in the future,” says one of the successful MBA students. “That will allow us to be certain about what value our title will have in 10 or 20 years from now,” he adds. It is beneficial to check the different dimensions that were considered in the completion of each ranking to make a more delicate evaluation of each school. And then create a personalized list of our choices, including both high-income schools that we like, and other high-level but more achievable to our profile—compulsory reading: the America Economics MBA ranking.
4 – Budget: You should consider whether you have enough savings to leave your job and study full time or if the best option is part-time or online to continue working. You should also compare your budget with the cost of the business schools you have in mind and check their scholarship possibilities. When seeking financial aid, we should not limit ourselves geographically, since sometimes the best options are not the closest, as shown by Asian scholarships for Latin Americans.
Source: prepadviser
5 – Compare the profile of each school: although an MBA is not a specialization, some schools focus more on subjects such as marketing, finance, international business, or the law. These nuances can either be valuable or not. It depends on whether or not they are aligned with our interests. Also, the schools carry out research certifies that they have a production of knowledge that will come to us first hand. Therefore, checking the percentage of ISI paper production is a good indicator.
6 – Visit business schools: it is necessary to review websites and – if we are geographically close – visit schools and talk to teachers, students, and graduates. “People are very open to telling their experiences, and there is much to learn there,” says one of our sources. “I must ask myself: can I imagine living here? Do I feel identified with the people and the place?” the source adds.
7- Evaluate multiculturalism: it is not the same to have classmates from our same country, practically our elementary school classmates than to share with people from Europe, Asia, or Africa. The possibility of knowing new points of view is one of the significant advantages of taking an MBA. There is a reason why lawyers with engineers, doctors with architects mix among the students. The presence of students from various cultures in the classroom is not only achieved by traveling. We can also check the multiculturalism of the schools in our city.
8 – Profile and quality of teachers and graduates: having a notion of the profiles associated with the school is useful to imagine what the MBA can do for us. Resumes can be researched on LinkedIn, check the number of full-time doctors of each school, and, incidentally, know the industries related to each business school.
