Hello Everybody,

After I went through the whole "lets get an mba" application process, i now find myself at the crucial choice moment and i would love to get some objective insights !
I was recently accepted to HEC, IE and Imperial for their international MBA's, I am a French/Lebanese/Moroccan IT engineer, I studied and worked in Paris, and my goal is to create a start up that will provide marketing services through web platforms.

While i have already crossed-off the imperial college, i have been been changing my mind a LOT between HEC and IE (I also regularly ask myself if an MBA is a good thing). I now only have a few more days to decide and i am trying to make the most rational choice. Some help would be greatly appreciated !

To sum up, here are the pros and cons i have weighted until now:

HEC paris:
- duration of 16 months, so a bit more time to ingest all the new knowledge
- Bigger campus and smaller class size (200) but located in Jouy en Josas so not really in Paris
- Great for marketing
- New mba curriculum since last year developed following the intervention of Bain & co
- Strong network in France

IE :
- duration of 13 months
- Great location in Madrid, but smaller campus and bigger class size (more than 400)
- Great for entrepreneurship
- Rankings usually place it higher
- Could learn a new language and gain perspective from spending over a year in a different country

In terms of diversity, both seem to be quite good. I know its a lot of data but i keep on changing my mind, so i though the objective point of view that you might have could help !

Thanx a lot

HEC is the safe choice. If you want to work in France, then it's the obvious choice.

Thank you Duncan, I guess that is the rational choice.
I have another question, even though its scope is a bit out of the first one, does an MBA in a "safe" environment enrich your path as much as the other option ?

That's an existential question. If you reason for doing an MBA is to position yourself as well as possible to do this start-up, then you might want to develop an idea about where you want your customers and investors to come from... But if you want to enrich your path, then perhaps that's about knowing yourself...

I'm afraid you're quite right, but isn't it always a bit about self knowledge? Anyway, to get back to our point, with an equal education, wouldn't investors tend to trust more someone with broader international experience that graduated from a better ranked school? As for customers, i don't think it matters as much

Investors want people they can work with. Investors will prefer an HEC alum over an IE graduate, if the equity, team or customers are French. And vice versa.