Dear people,

I have offers from Strathclyde, Aston, Bath and Nottingham.
Please help me decide which to choose for an MBA.

I know that scholarship and stuff doesn't really matter in the long run so I haven't mentioned any of that.

In terms of post MBA employability in UK, which one should I choose.
Product and operations ; middle management profiles.

I have mainly worked on client and operations/team management for 4 years for a project called Google ads as an on-site employee for them.

I know if I took the GMAT there would have been more and better options for me(Cranfield even told me to do so and apply) but I didn't, so that is that.

Thank you in advance to all the lovely people for your help.

Hi, the choice of university / program will depend on your career aspirations and which industry you would like to move on. The universities you have finalised are good but not the best ones. Ideally you need to be based in or around the industry hub in which you would like to progress. Majority of companies/recruiters are based in big cities like London, Manchester, Leeds etc so in order to maximise your opportunities you should consider universities located in these cities.

In a tiny country like England, it's mistaken to over-state location. Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Durham, Cranfield etc are all highly effective at placing MBAs. Picking a lower-ranked, or unranked, school in a bigger city would be a mistake. 

Thank you, Stuart so does that mean that Uni of Nottingham is not good at placing students in Nottingham or Strathclyde isn't successful in Glasgow ? I mean ofc Oxbridge and LBS will place people even on Mars. But if everyone could get into them then these institutes would lose value. All I want is to know which is the best university out of those that I have with me. Thinking of what would have happened had I given the GMAT and I had gone to this college is pointless at least for me. That is why I clearly mentioned please help me in deciding the universities and not that I should give GMAT etc. If the ones I mentioned are really not that good I can then try to give the GMAT.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude but if anyone felt that way again accept my apologies.


And as always, thank you everyone

If you are trying to set up a ridiculous straw doll then, yes, that seems rude. Strathclyde does place pretty across the UK, far better than Nottingham. 

Can you say more about "that is that"? Why not take the GMAT and then apply for a better business school later? 

When you talk about Oxford and Cambridge  obviously there is a brand value attached to it which helps in getting through recruitment process, but if you talk about semi decent universities and that too in a location like Durham which is more or less an isolated city, you can hardly get any opportunity. Recruitment process in the U.K. normally takes around 5-8 months, involving application, aptitude tests, series of interviews etc. All this needs to start during the course term not when the program is completed. Ideally you need to located in the hub of recruiters where you can easily attend interviews etc. 
England is a small country but does that mean an international student studying in Durham will  get similar exposure as student studying in London. 
I have seen situations where students moving  to london post study for jobs no matter which university they passed out from, unless they are from one of the top branded ones. 

The data suggest that your comments about location are largely mistaken. Durham's placement is pretty similar to Manchester and Imperial College, in London. Lancaster, arguably more isolated because of a rural location, performs better. In the 2020 FT ranking, Durham reported 94% placed within three months: much better than Edinburgh and London Business School. 

Clearly location is a factor, but evidently, other factors are more significant: macro-economic trends; students' changing interests; careers services and so on. Durham, as a parent university, attracts huge numbers of corporate recruiters. 

Of course, many students move to London after their degree. That's hardly a surprise: it's the capital. But location is much less important than whether the school you are targeting has the right relationships with HR teams and alumni in your target firms. 

Applicants should absolutely discount your advice on this topic, and instead look closely at data from the last several years. 

Yeah, even if you have to wait another year, take the GMAT. Your career will thank you for it.