Hi,
I am from India and have 6yrs of work experience in oil and gas industry (upstream) - project management and execution. However, I scored only 650 in GMAT.

Which country should I prefer for Full time MBA among France, Germany and Netherlands considering -
1) work visa policy post MBA
2) Job prospects in oil and Gas industry/consultancy

I have shortlisted following colleges -
1) ESMT and WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management - Germany
2) EDHEC - France (cannot apply for HEC or INSEAD)
3) RSM & Maastricht School of Management - Netherlands

Looking forward to your response and guidance.

Thanks

Sanket

Well, these are all pretty good schools [with the exception of MSM, which is an export brand and not especially selective]. I am a big fan of EDHEC (and an alum) but surely ESSEC would be a better choice in France? For Germany, I would also look at MSc programmes in engineering/project/resources/energy management at the top technical universities: RWTH, TU Munich and KIT, and at TU Delft in the Netherlands.

Take a look at How to use LinkedIn to find the best school www.find-mba.com/board/33571

[Edited by Duncan on Oct 09, 2015]

Dear Duncan,

Thanks for your response. I missed the deadline for ESSEC. I have started application to EDHEC and RSM.
My worry about France is student visa duration and what if I am not allowed to stay back after course and search for jobs in Europe. It will be a financial setback for me considering that I also have a housing loan (which I ll keep on standby for a year) in addition to funding for the course.

Can you please guide me on job prospects with EDHEC and visa policy in France.

Thanks

Sanket

The first round has not even started at ESSEC: it's November 1st. Are you limiting yourself to programmes with January start dates for some reason? If you speak neither French, Dutch nor German then I suggest you focus on September intakes, and start learning your target language as soon as possible.

EDHEC's admissions team can guide you on outcomes and visa policy better than I can.

Considering you don't speak any of these languages, why not consider an MBA in the UK?

@Duncan - Thanks for advice. Will surely consider the same.
With reference to Netherlands, I feel they are quite open to English language as a means for communication.

@badux - UK has stringent visa regulations making it difficult to continue after course.

Take a look at Do you need to speak the local language? www.find-mba.com/board/34713
While many Dutch people can speak English to clients happily, they would prefer to speak Dutch to their suppliers and colleagues. You need to supervise people in the national language.

The UK visa rules are not especially stringent: there are time limits, but top UK schools are better at international placements than top Dutch schools. See Best schools for international students' placement http://www.find-mba.com/board/41143

Thanks a lot Duncan for guidance. All the three links are really useful.

The UK visa rules are not especially stringent: there are time limits, but top UK schools are better at international placements than top Dutch schools. See Best schools for international students' placement http://www.find-mba.com/board/41143

Has anybody heard anything about Amsterdam Business School? I am thinking about doing their MBA that's got an analytics focus. I would be interested to hear any reports about the quality of the school and other feedback.

I think that ABS is one of the few schools in mainland Europe to offer a specialized MBA in analytics.

It's not the best school in the world but you could certainly do a lot worse.

Perhaps, depending on your goals, you should consider doing a general MBA from a ranked school and then supplementing that with analytics electives. It depends on what you're looking for, in terms of post-MBA career goals and geographic location.

Also see Specialisations often don't matter http://bit.ly/speMBA

That's not the really the case. ESSEC has three full-time MBA tracks: luxury, hospitality and global. Global is certainly the newest of these (founded in 2011) and that track is kept small (21 people in the class of 2014 http://bit.ly/1RADYx7 when I visited) and it's very highly qualified with excellent placement. It is also, needless to say, the Executive MBA partner of your own school at Mannheim). Considering the very limited demand in France, and especially in the network of a grand ecole, for MBAs who don't typically speak fluent French I don't understand why the limited scale of the programme is a bad thing. As for 'what more do you expect'.... what do you mean?

I'm sorry, are you evaulating the effectiveness of the ESSEC MBA by its ability to place students in Germany, or do you think that it should have placed most of its exchange students (i.e. not the graduates, not those who are those concerned about rapidly finding work) before they go on exchange?