Does It Matter Where You Get Your MBA?

UCLA Anderson School of Management.

I decided to apply for the MBA when I was four years into my career and while I was working in healthcare project management at Kaiser Permanente. My role was to spearhead patient safety initiatives across the organization of hospitals and physicians.

I was at a crossroads in my professional path. I knew I wanted the rigorous education and analytical exposure that an MBA education offers; the grad degree was essential to advancing my career to the next level from the project management function.

Also, four years of work tenure was the recommended average for MBA applicants, and I wanted to ensure I was optimizing my admit success with work tenure that was in line with the admissions process.

Finally, I wanted to attain my grad degree before my focus pivoted to family life. I was newly married before applying to the MBA and wanted to attain the MBA admit and start the program well before starting a family.

Yes, I opted for a healthcare specialization and added a second grad degree, the MPH, to my education.

I chose healthcare because it reflects my career interests and has a double-bottom-line mission, where I could advocate for a company's business priorities and also for impact (e.g., the greater community good of effective healthcare).

The foundation coursework of the MBA degree covered essential business principles -- such as strategy, operations, marketing, economics -- while the healthcare electives had an entirely different paradigm focus around community and societal priorities.

For the last 12 years in my role as principal for Stacy Blackman Consulting, I have dedicated my career to supporting young professionals, domestic and international, in advancing their own MBA aspirations.

I advise about 900 applicants each year on ways to increase their MBA admissions chances to the top MBA programs, US and international, and also specialized programs, such as deferred admission (college senior 2+2), joint degree, and executive MBA programs.

I also work closely with our company's founder, Stacy Blackman; leaders within the top MBA programs; and industry influencers across MBA-focused media sites to identify and disseminate key trends on higher education and MBA admissions.

I'd advise MBA-aspiring professionals to meet with career mentors and research online about the value of the MBA to ascertain their conviction for the business education and rough ideas for short- and long-term career goals. That research upfront, even if plans may change in the future, will help a young professional to not only get admitted to MBA programs but also to ensure that the student will get the most of the education from the start.

It's ok to not have all the answers; career paths are constantly in flux even for those who think they are certain about their path ahead. Go easy on yourself.

A recent Stanford MBA admit, who we guided through our MBA admissions consultant services, shared with me, "I think I am just most drawn to the personal development I'll get out of the degree. As with many type-A students and high-achievers, we never stop to evaluate the reason why we work so hard. The MBA program will be a great time to reflect on my sense of purpose and motivation for why I do things. Hopefully, that will also help me refine longer-term career goals."

Similarly, I had no idea that I would fall into my current career of MBA admissions when I attended my MBA program. Be open to what lies ahead!

The MBA program brand and location were the two factors for me. I wanted to remain in Los Angeles because I was newly married with extended family nearby, and my significant other needed to stay local. I knew that post-MBA career opportunities would be best coming from UCLA Anderson because the networks would be shifted to the West Coast, where I intended to live long term.

I would have tried to apply to the top seven MBA programs inclusive of Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton, just so I had the opportunity to know whether I would have been accepted.

Also, I would have tried to negotiate scholarship from UCLA Anderson; I did not know asking for scholarship was an option for me, but I now know through my MBA admissions work that it is quite possible, especially as I could have leveraged the full-ride scholarship offer I did receive (and declined) from USC Marshall.

I had multiple blindspots in the MBA admissions process that I could have resolved through hiring a consultant or searching for the information.

Yes, the brand of the degree usually predicts the type of student peer group, recruiting opportunities, and overall return on the investment, inclusive of salary potential and MBA networks.

At the same time, this absolutely varies by MBA student. The MBA's worth depends on the candidate's professional profile, career aspirations, and what [they do] once at the program. Fit with and performance at the program are essential.

Brand/reputation is the most important, followed closely by location preferences. MBA brand predicts rigor of student peer group, enhanced legitimacy of the degree, and long-term professional networks. Brand and reputation can change over time, often driven by year-on-year patterns of ranking by the major institutions, such as US News.

MBA applicants tend to underestimate the value of location, which often predicts regional recruiting, because applicants tend to instead hyperfocus on brand. Both location and brand are important.

We have scrutinized career placement data for all the top programs and always see a heavy skew toward the local regional area for employment recruiting. Post-MBA career preferences should drive MBA program selection. For example, a professional who wants to work in the US should focus on US MBA programs. Likewise, an applicant interested in the EU for post-MBA work should look into INSEAD and LBS.

I remember feeling overwhelmed by the analytical expectations because my pre-MBA career path wasn't numbers-driven or traditional (not finance or consulting). I felt that so many of my MBA student peers had already been exposed to number-heavy business frameworks and case studies before arriving at the business program.

I did enroll in a basic Excel and math workshop at UCLA Anderson just before I started the program, but I don't think those mini workshops were enough to give me a comfort level with some of the case studies and class discussions within the MBA program. I wish I had been exposed to more of that in my professional years beforehand or that I took a more robust 'Math for Management' course before the MBA degree.

Much of the MBA experience is team-driven though, so I relied heavily on my peers to compensate for my gaps. I think I would have learned even more if I hadn't dodged the topics and areas that were hard for me to grasp!