MBA: An investment that can transform your career, The

Black Collegian, Oct 2002 by Patterson, P A

GRADUATE STUDY GUIDE

An MBA, or Masters in Business Administration, can be a great way to move up in a company, change careers or earn a more lucrative salary. Still, the number of racial minorities pursuing the degree lags that of other graduate programs. African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans represent just six percent of the student bodies at the top 50 MBA programs compared with 13% at the top 50 law schools and 12% at the top 50 medical schools, according to Management Leadership for Tomorrow. MLT is a New York Citybased organization that offers programs designed to increase the presence of qualified students of color in graduate business schools, corporations, non-profit organizations and entrepreneurial ventures.

"The MBA degree is valuable because it can help a person understand business and the issues businesses face," said Antoinette Malveaux, president and Chief Executive Officer of the National Black MBA Association, Inc. "For people who have been in the workforce for a while, it can also help them broaden their skills and discover new ways to use their skills and talents," she said.

The MBA is also a great way to switch careers, said Joe Fox, associate director of MBA Programs at the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University.

"People can build a bridge to make a significant change in careers," said Fox, who also sits on the board of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. "Someone who's been in engineering can go into marketing or a person who has worked in heath care can switch to finance."

There are many ways to earn an MBA. Part-time programs allow students to work full-time and go to school part-time. Executive MBA programs tend to be popular choices among people whose companies want to sponsor their studies. Students typically continue to work full-time, but take weekend classes. The fulltime MBA, which normally takes two years to complete, is probably the most popular choice and often the most daunting. Attending one of these programs usually means quitting a job and borrowing money in the form of student loans to pay tuition and living expenses. Most fulltime MBA programs admit few applicants without at least a few years of work experience after graduating from college.

No matter which option you choose, getting into a program that will further your goals and being ready for the challenges in the classroom take a lot of preparation and some serious cash. Just applying to school can take well over $1,000 in application, test preparation and test fees.

Most MBA programs require applicants to take the Graduate Management Admissions Test, which evaluates, math, verbal and critical reasoning skills. The tests, except in special situations, are computer-based and applicants must register to take the exam at a testing center. Fees vary by country. The cost of the test in the U.S. is currently $200. The test can only be taken once per month and test-takers are limited to taking the test five times in a 12-month period. Many students take the test more than once in hopes of getting a higher score to impress admissions committees and luckily for MBA candidates, most schools only pay attention to the highest score.

The majority of successful applicants to the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley score at least a 600 out of 800 on the test. "But, that doesn't mean that someone with a lower score won't get in," said Jett Pihakis, director of Domestic Admissions at the school. "We don't have cut-offs," Pihakis said. "There is a lot more to an application. The GMAT is not looked at in isolation."

Still, the test can be an important indicator of the strength of an applicant's quantitative skills, which are needed to get through finance, accounting and other business school courses. Also, business schools saw a jump in applications this year as the economy put many people out of work and gave people an incentive to make themselves more competitive. Berkeley, for example, saw a 37 percent increase in applications for spots in the class of 2004 over the previous year, Pihakis said.

People who haven't used math in a while might want to take a course at a community college to brush up and to increase their chances of a higher score on the GMAT. Test preparation courses are also available from companies such as Kaplan and Princeton Review. Classroom instruction can be pricey - Kaplan's classroom course costs nearly $1,200, with the Princeton Review class being about $100 less. Both companies offer less expensive options, such as online courses for about $500 and smaller "express courses" designed for people with limited time to prepare, such as $99 Express Online course offered by the Princeton Review. While the Kaplan and Princeton Review programs are the most popular, applicants who want to save money might try contacting local colleges to see if they offer test preparation classes or studying on their own from test preparation books and software available at most large bookstores.