Question

Topic: Career/Training

Experience And Input On Marketing Management Mba

Posted by Anonymous on 8/31/2005 at 8:59 PM ET 300 Points
Dear Marketing Profs:

I am presently researching and studying for my MBA. I have reached using various sources including:

1) Businessweek.com
2) Usnews.com
3) Reading schools websites I am interested
4) Reading student surveys on the vault.com

What I have gathered is that I have a very good chance next September to attend a school that is ranked out of the top 25.

I want to pursue my career as a brand manager or marketing manager/product manager.

I want to develop my career in one of the following areas:

New York area
Arizona/California
Maryland/Florida/Carolinas

Please elaborate as to which schools I might have missed or should be ranked higher on my list.

* I want to go the best school possible for marketing. I want a strong employment/recruiting program as well as good alumni network.

With all this being said here is my list so far.

Tier 1

1) Arizona State
2) University of Maryland
3) Penn State
4) University of South Carolina
5) Fordham

Tier 2

1) Wake Forest
2) University of Miami
3) University of Arizona
4) University of Southern California
5) University of North Carolina

Some other schools I have researched but that are not listed on my top ten are University of Virginia, NYU, Thunderbird, University of California Irvine and University of Texas. These schools I believe would be too much of stretch for me to get into.

My background by this January, which is when I will be applying, is:

3 year post college experience in marketing mostly coordinator level activities involving tradeshows, direct mail, business writing, collateral creation and PR.

GMAT score range (practice test at home) 540 – 600

College GPA. Overall 3.1 but I hear a lot schools look at your major G.P.A, which for me is a 3.8

I am looking to go full time for the September 2006 semester. Your feedback is appreciated.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by SRyan ;] on 8/31/2005 at 9:25 PM Accepted
    I just read a good article in the current issue of Business 2.0 magazine:

    The ROI on Your MBA: We survey the country's top business schools to tell you how good an investment they really are.


    Check it out -- maybe it will give you some insight.
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 8/31/2005 at 10:03 PM Accepted
    I advise taking a class or otherwise doing what you can to get your GMAT up a bit.

    I advise choosing a school where you want to start your career. Most schools have the best networking possibilities local to the school (or at the largest main city). My MBA alma mater is University at Buffalo, so there are few (no?) people for me to network with out here in Silicon Valley. But if I stayed in Buffalo, there would be many for me to network with. Even NYC, as the nearest main city, has many that could help me.

    In breaking down location further - you mention brand manager as one of the positions you would be interested in. Brand managers are primarily consumer products focused. If you want to go consumer products, choose an area that is known for consumer products or a school that has good connections with companies of interest.
  • Posted by mgoodman on 8/31/2005 at 10:24 PM Accepted
    I agree with the geographic location comment. For some reason employers in the East tend to favor schools in the East, and employers in the West tend to favor schools in the West.

    When you tell people in the East you did graduate work at Stanford, they look at you like some kind of freak. In the Northeast, Harvard and UPenn are "the" b-schools. On the West Coast, they really value the Stanford credential and wonder why anyone would waste time going to Harvard.

    In the mid-west, they tend to place highest value on Big 10 schools and don't understand either Harvard or Stanford (or most of the others).

    The point of all this is to suggest that you look for schools in the same general area as your target employers will be when you graduate. Chances are there are more legitimate brand manager positions (in consumer packaged goods) in the East than elsewhere, so you might want to concentrate on schools in the East.

    If there's any way to shoot for one of the top-25 b-schools, it's worth it, of course.
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 9/1/2005 at 2:48 AM Accepted
    >Most CPG's are located in NYC Area, California and >Midwest (Chicago). I have read the fortune 500 list a >few times. Am I missing any other states/areas to >consider?

    On California, San Francisco and LA are predominant (very few in Silicon Valley, except tech based products like computer games and MP3 players).

    Branding is not my specialty (I am much more of a B2B geek). So I don't know why schools are best known for branding. But why not contact the college recruiting departments for some of these Fortune 500 CPG companies that would be of interest and ask where they recruit at?
  • Posted by mgoodman on 9/4/2005 at 7:29 PM Accepted
    Check out this article in the current Business 2.0:

    Let the MBA Buyer Beware
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