The general MBA advice is go to the best school you can. For now, that would be INSEAD, though Judge has improved drastically in the last few years. On the other hand, Judge has made me a great offer, has a smaller cohort and has the advantage of being close to London. Cambridge also has better brand recognition outside of the business world. I am interested in doing an MBA as a way to move away from the political and bureaucratic work I have done so far and move towards the private sector ideally consulting. Any advice?

I think the advice is go to the best school you can **for your goal**. Insead is a school for consulting and IB. It rejects candidates that Cambridge actively seeks. Academically, you will clearly have a more rigorous education at Insead. Given that you are not already working in business, you will be lucky to be offered a place at Insead.

Thank you for the feedback!

What makes academics "more rigorous" at INSEAD?

More classroom time (30 versus 23 courses, because of the fifth term at INSEAD), more assessment, better-qualified classmates, a stronger faculty.

[Edited by Duncan on Mar 10, 2017]

Hmm, I'd probably look at percentage of non-passing grades, total hours of work needed etc.

Whether the faculty in one school is more rigorous than in another probably has more to do with their personality and style than with the school they happen to work for.

I think the advice is go to the best school you can **for your goal**. Insead is a school for consulting and IB. It rejects candidates that Cambridge actively seeks. Academically, you will clearly have a more rigorous education at Insead. Given that you are not already working in business, you will be lucky to be offered a place at Insead.

Regarding the quality of the cursus: there is no difference, even the teachers are used to move from one top school to the other. Then if you believe that business greatest ventures have been created thanks to a mix of diverse ideas, going to a real university where you can discuss with Nobel laureates might be a plus. But that is not the kind of diversity standalone business schools like INSEAD can offer so it is not advertised a lot.
INSEAD is very strong in other aspects such as consulting thanks to the impressive and profitable agreements it has with top consulting firms.

Regarding the Network, Cambridge University alumni will be willing to help as much as any INSEAD alumni would.

If you worry about your future career, as long as you go to a top business school that shows average salaries around 100.000 $ after graduation, it is more your personal feats that will be relevant for potential recruiters.
For instance, get a 99th percentile GMAT and you already beat most business school students on one very objective metric. Using the name of your school as a smokescreen will not save you from that: HR hire you, not the school.

Doriton is mistaken in thinking that the faculty differences are only down to personality. Insead is a much better research producer and staff have much less teaching and it's with different students (Judge is mostly a pre-experience school, with lots of undergraduates, while Insead is mostly post-experience). It also pays more. As for the alumni network, the difference in alumni fundraising between Judge and Insead says it all.

Judge fell from 5th to 13th in the recent FT MBA ranking: http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-ranking-2018 The salary gap between the two schools is wider.

That said, there are advantages to Judge. Cambridge sounds impressive, and the college system means that Judge students are tied to the university in the way that Insead students are not well connected to the other schools in the Sorbonne University which Insead is part of, although there are joint programmes like the LLM.

[Edited by Duncan on Feb 16, 2018]

HR hire you, not the school.

I actually got admitted to both Judge and INSEAD. I'm still undecided. But there are a few things to note from above.

1. Cambridge/Judge is a target school for McKinsey. Yes, INSEAD feeds tons of consultants to MBB, but Judge won't be perceived as being any less.

2. Cambridge name is much stronger beyond the business community. From my interview with an INSEAD alumni, he frankly admitted that INSEAD's brand only really raise eyebrows from C-suite level and MBB firms, so he can't pull the "I went to INSEAD" card as effectively as "I went to Cambridge" card. This can be generalised in his interactions as an MBB consultant so far, but particularly relevant in APAC.

3. Rankings fluctuate - Judge was 5th last year, beating LBS. And this time, Judge slipped a few places (but this is only ONE ranking). There are 5 or more rankings - which one do you really want to rely one.

4. Judge is heavily aligned to Tech (google, amazon companies). INSEAD in proportion is less. Also, Judge is very big on entrepreneurship, as its very closely associated with Silicon Fen (the biggest tech entrepreneurship cluster in Europe, and biggest outside silicon valley).

5. College system gives you a different experience - DRAMATICALLY. Been to both campuses, INSEAD doesn't give you a campus feel, and the lecture halls are named after the consulting firms. From the outset, you can already feel how "corporate" the school is. Judge is more quirky.

The learning in INSEAD is superior to Judge. You can exchange to Wharton or Northwestern or goes to Singapore.

If you have a first degree from a reputed college then why worry?

Collegiate experience is something 24 year-old from a formerly polytechnique would value we do MBA for career.

Monarchs and religious orders are the corporates of the past. If Cambridge was founded today then all its major buildings would be named after corporations, billionaires and foundations rather than kings and saints. That's why Oxbridge contains Kellogg College, Gates Fellows, Wolfson Colleges, Judge School, Said School, Templeton Green College and so on.

Rankings do fluctuate, but serious rankings never have Judge above Insead.

I'd go with Cambridge, because of the brand name. I think in other aspects the differences between these great schools are small - to the point it is hard to measure accurately

Razors Edge, you quoted a very small part of my post.
Few companies will fall for people using the name of their schools as a smokescreen. In the top 20 MBAs your resume will be read. That is the essential message of my post, but it seems I have left room for misinterpretation.
Then it comes down to your profile: Higher analytical skills than your other MBA competitors? Language skills? Soft skills? Business experience? Contacts in the sector you want to advise? Experience in this sector? Charisma?...

Duncan, "Doriton is mistaken in thinking that the faculty differences are only down to personality. " I did not mean that. I talked about Cursus as a set of courses taught by a pedagogic team. It was maybe not crystal clear, but the interpretation you made is not fair.
Using the same rhetorical device I could say:
"Duncan is mistaken thinking that averaged adjusted US$ PPP equivalent salaries (that can reach peaks thanks to people working in weak economies) reported by 38% of alumni is the only parameter considered by HR. Moreover, he believes that pedagogical skills equal research results." You simply never said that...

Your argument about postgraduate and undergraduate is controversial: Judge has undergraduates but not in the MBA classroom. The ranking argument is also controversial: if people willing to invest so much money in their education were simple sheep, the rankings would be sufficient and this discussion would not exist.

Again there is a minimum, you need something within the top 20 to be perceived as having received a great education. Then if you are looking for an MBA, start making decisions with your money like a real businessman would: discuss with Alumni, professors, and HR of your target sector. Ask how can they help you reach your goals. Then select the school most able to help you with your personal projects.

Your argument is really very frail. Disagreement is not proof of the objective lack of truth of a thing. If I say that I do not know if the world is flat, that does not make its flatness somehow more possible. Outcomes for MBA graduates are superior in almost every measure, and the research quality is better in almost ever measure, at Insead.

I encourage people ready to spend a fortune and one full year in a school to take 30 minutes of their time and contact the HR of their target sector (biggest deciding factor for career-oriented students), the alumni, and the school staff (smaller factors for career-focused people but still relevant). Especially when deciding on schools ranked high enough to create discussions. I do not encourage them to consider my opinion as "truth".

I do not know if that makes the world flat, but I believe that can help people make better decisions than self-reported information.

Regarding statistics, I also encourage people to take them with a pinch of salt even when they are presented as very complete: 50% of humanity have 2 testicles, 50% have 2 ovaries, that does not make the average human a hermaphrodite with 1 of each.

If you think 30 minutes on the phone are more effective at predicting outcomes from an MBA than the huge volume of already-existing data, then I really find that so terribly sad.

Pick whatever amount of time you need. There is $100,000+ investment on the other side of the scale.
Again that is just my 2 cents but I would easily trade a huge volume of self-reported data from various unknown profiles against a personal feedback issued by people who had a look at my profile and are working at my target companies.

Switching gears between big picture (finding respected schools) and personal interests (your needs) is essential.

[Edited by Doriton on Mar 09, 2018]

This is why people in behavioural finance get rich.