Hi Guys,

I have been made an offer from Durham Business School for its full time MBA course starting Sep-2011. Before accepting the offer would like to discuss the positive/negative aspects regarding the uni and the course.

All those who have already accepted the offer or having an offer are most welcome to share their opinions regarding the same.

My profile:
6 yrs exp in IT as of today.

Cheers,

Hi ,

I do have an offer for sept'11 .

Not decided as of now whether to join.

Cheers

Hi,

What other options you are having? I had got offers from Bath, Strathclyde and Durham, and had narrowed down to Durham.
Please share your views as I have to confirm in couple of weeks.

Thanks,

Hi,
In UK I had applied to Warwick and Durham. Got dinged from Warwick after interview .I got the offer for Durham in Oct and accepted . Didn't apply to any other school in UK . Particularly when I learned about the UK psw scenario and opp. Overall . True that I could have tried other tier 1 schools with a 14,years of quality exp and 660 gmat . So decided to look at one year prgrm else where . Applied to tiasnimbas , Holland and smurfit Ireland . Got offers from both with decent scholarship and at the end decided on smurfit .

Regarding Durham , no doubt a quality MBA at least per the rankings depiction with a decent reputation . Only drawbacks for me were,

1. Post study opp. in UK . I am sure I don't need to write any furthering this .

2. No scholarships as I could manage them at other equally reputed schools

3. Location . I don't know how imp. A factor it is to you .

So if point 1 and 2 are not imp. To you and you don't want to write your GMAT to apply to schools like cranfield. Oxbridge etc. then I think its the best one .

Hope this helps.

Cheers

I too have an offer from Durham and Henley Business School. I have decided for Henley since it is close to London and Campus is good. Its curriculum looks very good and I have more than 15 yrs. of work exp. more than 10 yrs in managerial capacity. Please share your thoughts on this.

Hi,
Henley is a good institute for people with over 10 yrs., of experience . I had initially thought of applying there but the cost factor of the programme deterred me and also I wanted to apply institutes where GMAT is considered .

In comparison, Durham ranks great in value for money ( 7,FT-2011) , a large and varied cohort giving you the required diveristy among participants , Work ex in Durham is 11 years on an average . Also though Henley ranks in EIU but does not rank in FT at all .

With regards to course content and quality I dont think there would be much difference in any of these schools offering 1 Yr. MBA .

So for me Durham scored above Henley .

Cheers

@advenal Just read all of your posts. Any inputs on best of Strathclyde, Bath and Durham? I have done a lot of research and almost narrowed down to Durham for now. Still its a huge decision so looking for more inputs.

Thanks,

Before I throw in any further opinion , if you can share your profile and your expectations from the MBA , It'd be of help to me .

Cheers

Sure..

I have 6 years of IT consulting exp (3 years in India and 3 years in US)
Wish to go for MBA for lot of reason and mainly because Technology Consulting -> Stratergic Consulting.
Require a 1 Year MBA - So opted for UK MBA.

Thanks

Assuming that you dont have a GMAT score , your best bet will be strathclyde if strategy is what you are looking for . The university is well know for strategy managment . But if it is consulting then , none of them are any different . Bath is known for its marketing followed by Durham and Strathclyde is known for strategy . You did not mention any other parameters like internationality of the cohort , job prospects etc.

If you want to purely rank these schools on FT/EIU ranking , strathclyde has been consistently ranked higher than the other two in FT And Bath has been ranked higher in the EIU ranking .
So at the end it all boils down to your personal preferences like location, cost , post study prospects etc. As I mentioned earlier the content /pedagogy is not much diferent in any of these .
All the best for your decision .
Cheers

Just to add to the above if you are looking at a better international cohort then Bath is the one you should look for . Asian Junta is too high on the other two .

Cheers

@advenal

good points mate! I too, a few days back received a very delayed response from Durham that my profile is accepted for fall 2011 but you see, from Durham, Aston, Strathclyde and Bradford, I chose Strathclyde. There are few reasons why I did what I did

First and foremost, no other school puts emphasis on strategic management as Strathclyde does and it matters a lot for someone like me who's still undecided on which field to enter post MBA. The options are really flexible out there and they don't boast about the number of electives as they only have a few n are well versed on the ones they provide which is also a positive. The alumni network and the school's partnerships with few MNCs like accenture, rolls royce and coca cola provide u an opportunity to network and know your connections well. And finally, the ranking has been consistently good and this shows that despite being in Glasgow, its alumni were able to provide a reasonable post MBA data to FT which is always refreshing.

@thread creator,
I wouldn't want to intimidate you but don't ignore SBS just because it's situated at Glasgow.

Thanks a lot for your inputs.
I think I would wait for changes in the visa rules and decide on if its gonna make any change. Since strathclyde was one in the list for HSMP till 2008.

Cheers.

You should consider Henley. Great location, close to London, Oxford and Reading. There are 32 people on the current 2010 full time MBA course and a real mix of nationalities - French, German, US, Russian, Indian, South African, Japanese - and about 35% women.

PS and a very strong Alumni network too