Hi,

I am planning to appear for GMAT this year. I am a Mechanical Engineer. I have 2.4yrs of work-ex. in steel industry. I want to go for a full time one year MBA program majored in Finance. Can any body tell me the name of some medium graded B-Schools ( Course Fees- $30K-$40K ) in US having a record of providing full or partial scholarship?

Have you looked at Hult? I just had an email from them saying that they are offering an accelerated Master of Finance directly after their 1yr MBA program? There course fees are a bit higher than your range, but you may get a scholarship depending on your GMAT score (your work exp is right at the low end).

Hi Niklas_n,

Nice to hear from you.

I am having a closer look on the following:

1. Texas A & M
2. Texas @Dalllas
3. Texas @Austin
4. North-Texas
5. Cincinnati
6 Miami @ Ohio
7. Florida
8. Kelley
& 9. Texas @ Arlington.

What do you think? Howz the list dpending on my job-ex and career interest?

I heard the name of INSEAD and HULT for one-year MBA, But I thought that, they would be very expensive and competitive like Kellogs etc. I will check out Hult. Do they provide schol dpending on GMAT score?

I would focus on the qulity of the MBA rather than simply getting a specialism in finance. I am not sure that employers really care about whether your MBA has a specialism - since it is really a general management qualification.

I think Texas@Austin & Kelley are very good. Not sure about the rest. I think both would have good finance programs, particularly Austin which has great rankings in M finance + accounting.

But u hv to do your own research to decide. I have not looked at all these programs.

INSEAD is super expensive, excellent and very tough to get into. No doubt that their MBA is top-class and has excellent finance faculty.

Hult is not so expensive and definetly offer generous scholarships. Their email says 100% schol for the M finance. You can get an MBA + M finance in 18 months. I think employers may notice a M finance as a real specialsm.

I do agree with you about the quality of the MBA prgram to be taken into consideration as first priority. But the thing is to be very honest, with out the scholarship,it will be simply impossible for me to pursue MBA.

I am from India. There are lot of really world-class MBA collges in India as well, but none of them provide schol. My first decision to pursue an MBA abroad originated from mainly two reasons:

1. US University recognition through-out the world.

2. Financial Assistanceschip of the Universities to pursue higher studies.

Regarding MS degree and MBA degree in Finance, I would like to say something bcoz I have done a bit of research upon it. Initially I was also interested to pursue simply a MS/Finance degree from US Universities bcoz of the following reasons

1, Faster completion fo academics
2. More concentration on Finance
3. More concentration on specific areas of Finance rather than having a general conception.

I talked to the several university admission offices and Finance Prof including Teppper School of Business which is having a mind boggling 12 months course of computational finance, but I came to know this degree will help you to find jobs in Financial Institutions only. It will not help you to earn a better salary. It will not help you to serve in Corporate Finance or Finance Consultancy which are the two most popular areas of interast of all the Finance aspirants bcoz of its highest payment structure, though of late the scenario is a bit sadistic bcoz of the economic crisis.

So far it is evident from your post, you are interested in a dual degree MS.MBA. I think the MS.MBA course has been designed by the US Universities for a specific purpose. MS.MBA is good if course fees is not a barrier to you. But my suggestion will be, dont go for simply MS/Finance because it really does not help to get good salaried job even if you are from top 10 B-School. The current economic crisis will make the situation more worse.

You are totally correct that a M Finance will only get you into a finance career and the more interesting careers wont be open to you. That is why MBA is so popular. I thought the combination of the 2 may be interesting to you. Actually I am not interested in finance at all am and just doing an MBA in September.

Best of luck.

thanx for the fast response.where are you going to do your MBA?which country are you from?

would you like to be in touch through mail? i like to write mails to the new people i find in my life and try to maintain the relation as best as i can.

I am from Denmark, but live in Singapore at the moment. I have offers from INSEAD, HBS and Hult. I think i will go to HBS if i can raise the financing. Hult is my backup since the loan and scholarship i have from them should be doable. INSEAD is great but having lived in Singapore i dont think i will benefit much.

How much schol (in %) did u get frm HULT and How much is ur total program cost?

Which major will you like to follow?

Total program cost at Hult is ~$50000. I got a 15% scholarship & a 25% loan. So only need to pay $30k in total (still a lot of money but less than my other options).

INSEAD costs $66.5k. I applied for the Danish Council Scholarship, which could have given me up to $20k off. But didnt get it. :-(. As I said, without this scholarship I cant justify the extra cost even though INSEAD clearly a better school than Hult.

HBS will cost me $100k over 2 years. I have applied for an HBS fellowship which should significantly reduce the cost. However, will need to finance my living expenses for 2 years which could be quite high with flights home included. My family is helping me out with some of it and i have moved in with a friend to sleep on a couch so that i can save my current salary. But beyond that i need to find additional financing for these living costs. But i think the chance to go to HBS (the home of the MBA) is too good to pass up. The networking will be phenomenal. So fingers crossed i can pull it together!

hmmmm....all the best.

Hult is also not my cup of tea man. I will rather like to compromise quality and stick to my Texas options. Dont mind.

Then i would definitely advise Austin. It is by far the most international part of Texas. So believe you will feel most at home there.

Yes dude. Let me see.

Actually, I am worried about another concern as well. I am a Mechanical Engineer. I worked for a steel processing company. You might have heard the name of TATA GROUP. Mr. Ratan Tata, a Persi and Indian entrepreneur, is the chairman of the Tata Group. You might have heard the name of the steel manufacturing company of this group; Tata Steel. I used to work for a vendor company of Tata Steel, named Tata Ryerson Ltd.( 50:50 JV between Tata Steel and Ryerson Tull Inc. USA).

I resigned from the job in the last October 2008. Since then I am not working. I was just preparing for some entrance exams for the B-Schools in India untill I decided to go abroad. My total job experience is 2 years and 5 months. As I want to enter into the world of Finance, I dont feel to work for any steel company any more. I applied for some bank and investment consultancy firms, but couldnt get through, because of my manufacturing industry profile. The biggest fear, I am carrying with myself, is the discontinuity from work. It will be very tough for me to clarify in SOP to get the admission. I think, I should keep high hopes, only if, I manage to get an extraordinary GMAT and TOEFL score.

That little work experience with nearly 12 months of unemployment will definetly not look good for your MBA applications nor your post-graduation job prospects.

Can you not get some experience with an Indian bank (or better International bank in india) before your MBA? Even an unpaid internship would help signal your commitment to the FS industry.
Hopefully you could get a good GMAT score. That is probably essential to support your application.

yeah. m trying to find bank jobs these days. i will not apply for the universities before Feb'10, as i am targetting the fall'10 session. i will write for the exam on October'09. By that time, i hope i will be getting a job, so that i can add one more year of job experience in my resume before the beginning of fall session.

actually i got an interview call from ICICI Lombard Life Insurance one year back and they were so interested that i think i could get through it, if i had at least attended the interview. Then i turned down the option as I had no interest to pursue MBA that time. I liked to pursue a pure engineering career, as physics and mathematics were my favorite subjects in my school days and i really used to feel comfortable with these two.

as the time passed on, i realized it would be very tough to earn money in the world of pure science, engineering and technology, the professional business focus is really essential to earn money. from then on i started realizing the necessity of an MBA degree and i have ended up to this miserable situation these days. :)

But you please tell me where will you like to go finally. I will like to be in touch, if you want of course.

Have you looked at Hult? I just had an email from them saying that they are offering an accelerated Master of Finance directly after their 1yr MBA program? There course fees are a bit higher than your range, but you may get a scholarship depending on your GMAT score (your work exp is right at the low end).