Hi gays,

Please help me decide which is the best MBA program for me.
Profile: Bulgarian 31y, GMAT 640 (messed up the Verbal) and 7 years work exp in Finance/Banking - sales manager Sme in top 5 bank in Bulgaria;
Plan: to change career in UK or Europe and from banking and finance to consulting
Best choices:
- LBS - N1 but I have low GMAT and too expensive for me
- Manchester Business School - good structure but don't know whether is reputable in UK and Europe
- IE and IESE (Spain) - good ranking but with Spain unemployment problem, it probably be very hard to find a decent job afterward and don't know whether are reputable in UK.
Other choices: Oxford Said and Judge Cambridge - well known names but expensive and probably not so good in consulting.
I know that good MBA is not just rankings and networking and I would like to receive quality for the money i invest. Please help me with advice.

Please help me with advice on a program that fits my plans.

Only Manchester is within your reach. I shall say forget about Oxbridge altogether if you dont mind.

You only have a chance if your GMAT is above 690

Can you retake your GMAT? If you think you messed up on the verbal, and could do better, then by all means you should try to retake - especially if you're looking at LBS.

To your point about unemployment in Spain. I wouldn't worry so much about that. An MBA from IE or IESE would be known throughout Europe and the UK.

Check out these schools too:

INSEAD (you might have a chance with your GMAT, but you'd be on the low end.)
SDA Bocconi
Cass
Rotterdam School of Management

Thanks for the advice and the info. Yes I plan to apply to IE or IESE together with MBS and LBS - three schools altogether. LBS - just in case if they would accept me..:) Manchester - i already started communication with the adcom and I really thing that i have chances. IE and IESE are unknown to me, but have wonderful recommendations. Please, tell me which MBA full time program you consider that fits better for me (financial background and plans to work in UK in finance or consulting) - IE or IESE?
Thanks again for the advice.

May I suggest a very different option? If you want to work in the UK then don't study in Spain. British organisations which recruit in Spain do so for roles in Spain and Latin America, not for the UK.

Also, changing both sector and country is hard. It may be easier for you to move first into UK financial services and then from financial services into consulting after a year or two.

Unless there's something amazing about you which you have not mentioned, you would not be a competitive candidate at IESE, Insead or LBS. Focus your energies more productively.

For *financial services*, the stretch school for you would be Cass, as Erza suggested. Look also at Warwick, Manchester and Edinburgh.

For *consulting* the 'stretch' school for you would be Cranfield. Also look at Manchester, Warwick and Imperial.

Either way, a safety school for you might be Strathclyde or Durham, if you apply early.

PS Ezra, IE is known through-out Europe? In the UK, it has a very small alumni base.

Thanks Duncan,
I see that you have studied in Manchester and LBS. Can you advise me which are the main difference in teaching methods or quality of the MBA Full Time of both programs except the reputation of LBS, of course. If you were on my position which school would you choose? MBS,Warwick or Cass ( somebody mentioned in that forum that Cass rely mainly on location rather on quality). Thanks in advance.

Hi there. Well, teaching methods will be broadly similar. MBS has been well known for its emphasis on project work; LBS is known for its emphasis on group work. Both programmes do very well because the internship and the volume of elective really allows people to hit the ground running, and the international exchange programme brings a lot of value.

Because of those strengths, I would personally chose MBS over Cass or Warwick if I was changing either career or country. I'd also look at Cranfield, with its four rather than three terms of teaching.

The quality of the LBS experience is peerless, and that is because of many reasons: primarily the best students and faculty are drawn there (by a combination of London and LBS's quality) and that means that what happens in the class is really impressive. With an average GMAT over 700, the students can quickly move as a cohort to a very high level in the first term, when a few other schools are still struggling to bring some students back to the mathematical level of 17-year olds. LBS is also, by European standards, a massive MBA programme and that gives a vast elective programme, which also includes some of the PhD and masters in finance courses.

Just a few notes:
1) at Cranfield you can go through the Cranfield's test if you think that your GMAT is not enough. By the way they ask GMAT over 600. They have lots of podcast on their website, very interesting!
2) Manchester requires TOEFL > 90 and GMAT is considerably low compared to LSB or even Cranfield!

Mauro, only exceptional candidates have the leisure of looking at minimum scores: most candidates need to focus on the average scores. I think the average GMAT at Cranfield will be around 670 or 680 next year so, unless there's something else in his application that more than compensates for that, it is still a stretch school for him. Their own test is just as rigourous as the GMAT, so I don't think there's a particular advantage in taking that instead.

Duncan,
when I talked with Cranfield they told me not to worry that much about GMAT.. that they know that italian guys normally have some problems with GMAT and that, eventually, I have a chance with the Cranfield test (which, she told, is a little easier than GMAT). She added that GMAT is valued on Regional basis

Now this is the Cranfield class composition:
UK 23%
Europe (non-UK) 23%
Middle East 3%
Africa 4%
Latin America 7%
North America 3%
Asia 32%
Australasia 5%
UK + Asia (how many from India or ex colonies??) + North America + Australasia makes more than 50%.
I expect that those guys perform very well on GMAT having an avg of around 700. On the other side, there is a 50% having lower GMAT with an avg of 660. Am I wrong?

What I meant is that a 650 for a Bulgarian is not totally bad even if avg is 680.
Of course I would never applied here with 600...


About those private tests ... IE asks at least 680 to entry the Global MBA. Every students I talked with suggest to take their private test which is considerably easier.

Hi Mauro, of course you are right that half the students will be below 680 and half will be above. The point I was trying to make is that the ones below 680 have to be stronger on other aspects. Above all else, they have to be the sort of candidate that have better work history, more of a capacity to contribute in class and will be more attractive to recruiters from the school than the average candidate.

Without going into your background too much, I should just point out that you're a highly attractive candidate on all those grounds. Schools will trade that off against the GMAT score. So while *you* might not need to worry about the GMAT so much, most other candidates do.

Cranfield is one of the top 4 schools in the UK when it comes to salary, and is the top UK school in terms of careers progress, and that comes by picking a great range of students who are fairly easy to place with employers. The Bulgarian questioner in this thread is not in your position: they have less work experience than you, and it may be less highly valued by some future employers, and are also trying to move from one side of Europe to the other at the same time as changing industries. You are quite right that his GMAT score is not terrible, but to get into an excellent school, at least one part of the application has to be excellent.

Yes, I know that my GMAT is not what i expected ( 690 -700 was my real target) but I accept the result and unfortunately I don't have time and effort to retake the GMAT for second time. I'll try to make the best of the situation. Well, INSEAD and LBS are not within my reach. My professional experience is quite good for Bulgaria but unfortunately I don't have international experience and obviously my Eastern Europe career would not impress the adcoms..:) So the result is - average GMAT and nothing special about my CV. Making the calculus and reading your posts I will put my effort to MBS and Cranfield. I hope that I have chances...

I don't know if you care but :
1) at Edhec, with your gmat, you automatically obtain a 40% discount
2) You have some chances at Lyon (and his 20% early bird discount)
3) You are in line for RSM
4) Vlerick admission manager spent 10 minutes to talk me about 2 people from Georgia they could admit... (and avg gmat here is 640). If they appreciate so much eastern people... :-)

All those options are, IMO, under Manchester or Cranfield but .... they could be back up option!


By the way you are Bulgarian... I have been in the betting world for years and I admin that you are the best tipsters of the world! So ... bet smart on your application :-)

P.S: Cranfield has some beta tests in its website.. If you feel that your GMAT is understimate you can try their test

Sorry for this question but in this period I ve been receiving a couple of invitations from Skolkovo ... I know that several bulgarian speak russian: do you know something about this school? it costs 65000e; I don't know what they offer for such sum

Russia's top MBA. Take a look at http://skolkovo.blogspot.com/2011/03/interview-with-yuri-kovalev-skolkovo.html (and, in particular, see the graduation robe!). But would you want to work in Russia?

Years ago I took some russian class ... but if german is hard, russian is worse! :-)
More.. no way to convince my romanian girlfriend to move to Moscow or S. Petersbourgh.
By the way Skolkovo costs more than Insead or LSB .... (I can see that accomodations are offered within the 65000e but for a school not even ranked...)

I have never even thought to follow MBA in Russia..though i know a few people on my age who decided to go to Moskow University.

Mauro, you can scare her by saying that you have decided to attend the best value-for-money MBA in Europe: http://www.bsm-mba.ro/en/mba_program/

SKOLKOVO will, I'm sure, not have any trouble filling its classrooms. Many Russians will pay a premium to stay in Russia, and many foreigners (especially second or third generation Russians) will want to go there. The salaries and lifestyle can be attractive for some (other) people. Also the programme is very distinctive: you apply by video (!) and there's no GMAT. The course is almost all project work. It seems to be the very acme of a premium vanity degree.

Mauro, you can scare her by saying that you have decided to attend the best value-for-money MBA in Europe: http://www.bsm-mba.ro/en/mba_program/

It's the same situation in Bulgaria. Low salaries and high prices. Senior Management wages are 50% of the wage of a dutch or belgian manager on the same position. That pattern would not change quickly. Probably in 20-30 years,,,who knows.