Hi guys,

I'm seeking for advice in a (very) common question, but still I want to listen to your opinions in this specific situation. Considering all the factors and my financial status, I think an MSc in Management or Market Research at a business school would be a nice choice for me. However, I'm still lingering over the thought that the opportunities that an MBA can offer are much better.

So, here's a brief summary of my profile:
- Age: 26
- Gender: Female
- Nationality: Vietnamese
- Undergrad degree: BBA, Marketing - GPA 3.55 / 4.0 from a university in Top 50 of Japan (my degree was 100% in English but I also use Japanese at business communication level, just thinking whether it would add any bonus to diversity in the application)
- Work experience: 3.5 years in Vietnam, focusing on market research (at a Japanese corporation) and marketing management (at an American tech startup)
- IELTS: 8.0 (re-taking soon as this one is going to expire, aiming for 8.5)
- GMAT: 710 (I'm leaning towards MSc due to a few factors that I'm going to explain down here. The main reasons I took GMAT instead of GRE were that verbal is not my strongest strength, and that I did consider getting an MBA.)

Long story made short, I wanted to go for MBA when I was a fresh graduate and had not yet figured out what my strengths and witnesses were. After several years of working on real stuff with some experienced, inspiring people, I learned a few things:
- My biggest weakness is networking skill. I don't have any interest in networking as well. Big problem if I am to take MBA, I suppose.
- I'm good at interpersonal relationships, cross-cultural communication (perhaps it's partly due to my background), research, analysis and human development. These are the comments from my bosses at two companies I have worked for.
- My current boss supports me to go for higher education, but recommends taking a PhD instead. I'm personally not ready for a pure research approach.

Although my main question is MSc or MBA, I would highly appreciate if you can provide your insight into which school is appropriate for me. My main criteria are English-speaking and international mobility, and therefore, a choice of a good school is vital, and I suppose it's easier to be accepted into MSc than into MBA of such a school, isn't it? Again, it looks like an MBA holder is able to gain more down the career (salary, practical skills and experiences during the course, recognition by employers, etc.)

Imperial and Cass in the UK seem to be great, but I'm afraid my profile is not good enough. And although FT ranking doesn't list schools in the US, I do like UT in Austin and UT in Arlington.

So, what do you think? Is MSc or MBA better for me? Thanks in advance for any opinion.

[Edited by yuu on Jan 28, 2015]

Your work experience makes you more suitable for an MBA or a specialist MSc. Most general management MBAs will not, in practise, admit a candidate who is better suited for an MBA. You are a strong candidate, especially at schools with few women or few international students.

The FT does have US MBA schools: add in the fields for international students and women students, export the view to Excel, then add those percentages, and sort the sheet on the product and consider those schools. http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-ranking-2015

Thanks for your advice, Duncan. I've always been thinking about focusing on a particular subject no matter whether I choose to take MSc or MBA, so yes, a specialist MSc makes much more sense than a general management MSc.

The dilemma is that I'm afraid MSc courses create hedgehogs and MBA courses create foxes - "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing". I haven't yet figured out which one I want to be, or which one is more beneficial to be. I know both questions can only be answered by myself though.

Anyway, I took your suggestion to look at MBAs with few women and few international students. The filtered list sort of disappointed me at first, showing those schools also have low international mobility ranking. Then I realized that these schools don't have that many international students to get a higher rank, so I just leave this ranking aside.

So here's my current MBA shortlist for Fall 2016 matriculation, though it might be shorter to add in 1-2 specialist MSc after I finish looking into the MSc information research.
1. Emory University, Goizueta
2. Indiana University, Kelley
3. University of Minnesota
4. Vanderbilt University
5. University of Minnesota, Carlson
(All are either famous for marketing concentration, or low in female / international student ratio, together with some more criteria I've considered. Deleting schools in Texas as their concentrations don't fit.)

Again, thanks for your encouragement. Recently I've seen many female students in my country getting admitted to great schools, which is a positive trend but simultaneously makes my league more competitive, but I'll give it my best shot.

[Edited by yuu on Jan 31, 2015]

Also try the Georgia Terry MS in marketing research.