domingo, março 09, 2008

MBA@Chigaco


Chicago tops the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest ranking of full-time MBA programmes. For all that a top-notch faculty and a hefty post graduation salary are important, it is a brilliant careers office that sets the best schools apart.


"They are horrible, and the worst at trying to find you a job. If you want one, you've got to find one yourself." So says a student at a middle-ranked UK business school when asked to rate his careers service for the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2007 full-time MBA ranking. It is perhaps the most common complaint among MBA students.


When we asked potential MBA students why they had decided to study the degree, the most popular reason given was "to open new career opportunities". This shouldn't be surprising: the MBA is still at heart a degree designed for those looking to change from functional specialists to general managers. But with students now putting as much emphasis on this aspect of an MBA as they do on the academic experience, it has become a key battleground for business schools.


Take Chicago, for example. Top of our new ranking, it is also rated first by students for its careers services. Within three months of graduation 97% of its students are in jobs, the vast majority of them facilitated by the careers office. Students wax lyrical about the support that they receive. "It goes way beyond anything I expected in preparing us for recruiting," says one. "I had no idea how big this was here."

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