Indian IT Male MBA applicants: Choosing the Right MBA

Choosing the right B-school is critical

Carrying on from the first part, in the second part of this series on the MBA application journey of an Indian IT Male, we look at school selection as an important criteria for application success. This post assumes that as an IT professional looking to add business skills to your profile, you would be interested in taking up a specialization / major / focus area related to Information Technology or Information Systems. There are a few people who may be exceptions to this notion, and for them the B-school world is wide open as there selection criteria will depend on a number of factors not related to IT.

Which will it be – IT or IS?

For those focusing on IT or IS, it is important to be able to draw out a distinction between the two up-front.

While IT will focus on the operational aspects of technology (such as service delivery, product design, and project management), IS will focus on the use of information technology as a business services tool (think CRM, ERP, business analytics, and MIS).

No school really offers both concentrations, and courses offered within the ambit of one area (i.e. either IT or IS) may well overlap with the definition of another area.

The two areas can, and often do, feed into fairly different positions post the program, so it is important to be able to distinguish between them and match one’s interests to each closely.

B-schools for the Indian IT Male applicant

Next, we arrive at the question of school selection. A lot of applicants (not all of them from the Indian IT sector) tend to feel that school selection is best done based on two major factors: chances of gaining admission and the average salary of graduates.

While these are no doubt important, they are not the only ones to keep in mind.  It is equally important to look at parameters such as your future peer group, the courses offered as part of the program, internship and project opportunities, and geographic location and influence of the school, among others.

GyanOne’s brief guide to B-school selection will help to further explain the process. From the IT perspective, three factors are of particular importance:

• What is the IT/IS focus offered by the school? Is it a major focus of the school’s offering or an inclusion made just for the sake of completing the offering portfolio (this point may well need substantial research beyond just looking at the school website) 
• What is the nature of firms recruiting from the school / companies where graduates usually find jobs? Do you clearly see some names from your own sector there? Are these known names?
• What is the level of involvement of students and faculty in activities related to your area of interest (i.e. IT or IS in this case)? Do you see a research center / frequent events on topics related to the area / an active student club ?

Keeping the factors above in mind, the Indian IT applicant would also do well to look closely at names of schools that are known to have strong focus on IT.

Remember again that just because a school has an IT major as part of its MBA offering does not mean it is an automatic choice for IT applicants.

Similarly, GMAT and GPA averages put across by schools are just that – averages – and may not indicate certain acceptance / denial based just on those numbers. Contact us for a free profile evaluation or discussion session to understand parameters that may be relevant for your profile.

A brief list of top MBA programs with an IT/IS focus option

Here a list of top global MBA schools offering a major or concentration in IT or IS. This list is not exhaustive, and also does not include some of the lower ranked programs. We will keep adding to this list and refining it further with time.

In the next part of this series, we will look at the how the IT MBA applicant should prepare to apply.

Want to check out more on MBA IT?

Indian IT Male MBA Applicants: Part 1 – Thinking About an MBA