My Reasons

Unlike most people who torment themselves by taking the GMAT, I wasn't really sure I wanted to apply to business school. In fact, when I started studying over a year ago, it was out of a growing desire to shake up my career. While my two-and-a-half years as an IT consultant had kept me learning, busy, and well paid, a building dissatisfaction with my recent assignments had left me wanting more options.

As I imagine many people in my position do, I debated whether I ought to waste so much time, money, and agony taking a test I might never use. As I considered finding another way to satisfy my professional wanderlust, I happened along a quote by the great mountaineer, George Mallory. When asked why he was going to climb Mount Everest, he replied, "because it's there." While the GMAT isn't quite Mount Everest, Mallory's reason made a lot of sense to me, and I adopted it as my own.

For three months I climbed toward my goal one practice question at a time and, in the end, I scored a 720, outpacing my target by 20 points.

Flush with success and the feeling that I actually had a shot at a top school, I decided to feed this new possibility. I began researching programs in earnest and soon discovered that I might be making a big, fat, expensive mistake. While I had friends and colleagues with MBA's, I had never examined specific programs or visited schools. In fact, I realized that I'd spent a lot more time thinking about the GMAT than thinking about business school. A few "so you want to go to business school" books later, I decided that if I was going to spend a hundred thousand dollars, forgo two years of salary, and burn two years of my life getting a master’s degree in business administration, I had better have a great reason- or several.

Not long after I discovered my glaring lack of MBA-related forethought, fate chimed in. I had often thought about switching from IT to strategy consulting and in the months after I took my GMAT, a mentor of mine helped me secure an interview with a well known strategy consulting firm. I didn't get the job, but I loved the experience. I particularly enjoyed studying for the case interviews and I immediately wanted to master that way of thinking- that clean method of attacking a real problem. "Hey," I thought, "isn't that was business school teaches you?"

Happily, I’d discovered that strategy consulting (and, by proxy, b-school) is my kind of brain candy. I also took a very important piece of advice away from the experience: a top-tier MBA would make me a much more competitive candidate at the top strategy firms.

Making a cool career change seemed like an outstanding reason to get a business degree, and so did my love of strategic thinking. When I started listing the things I'd learned, I also couldn't help admiring the people that I'd encountered during my interview. All of them had a forthright confidence, an encyclopedic business vocabulary, and a fascinating work history. They had been consultants, yes, but they had also been entrepreneurs, world travelers, and- perhaps most importantly for me- leaders. The common denominator among them all was a top-tier MBA.

By that point, I'd come to a few very important realizations. First, my initial impetus for applying- my GMAT score- was foolishly misguided. Second, my newly found reasons- that I had truly wanted to become a strategy consultant, that I wanted to sharpen my way of thinking about problems, and that I admired the network of MBA grads- had promise.

Along the way, I'd pieced together another good reason to get an MBA: I needed to bone-up on my formal business education. As an unemployed soon-to-be liberal arts graduate during the 2003 recession, I saw the power of a business degree. While my dual Economics and English major eventually helped me land a part-consulting, part-clerical position with my current consulting firm, it took a year and a promotion to catch up to my business degree'd peers.

I still believe in the sterling quality of my education and I certainly don't regret attending a small, liberal arts university. Rather, I believe that fully realizing the worth of my degree means using it as a foundation for a specific field of study. Since I want to build my career in business, an MBA seems like solid next step.

No matter how good my reasons are, however, I still encounter those who vehemently oppose getting an MBA. Detractors often question the cost/benefit of an extremely expensive education that, they suggest, you can just as easily get by working. Doctors and lawyers, by comparison, can't simply become so without going to school, so the cost of their credentials seems justified. But a business person can find wild success without wasting the time and money on an MBA.

What's more, experts worry that the MBA has stopped providing students with top-notch business skills. In May 2005, the Harvard Business Review suggested that MBA programs had become more concerned with research than with teaching, and the quality of the education- particularly in the realm of leadership skills and ethics- had suffered. In the May 2007 issue, The Economist cited Yale as an example of MBA programs trying to change in the face of such criticism, but still questioned the validity of the reforms. Indeed, as recently as this year, a Duke MBA professor caught 32 students cheating.

Does a huge price tag, questions about the educational experience, and recent criticism and scandal make me think twice about my decision? Absolutely. Has it ultimately derailed my determination to apply for business school admission in Fall of 2008? No.

I believe that top business minds are, and will continue to be, drawn to top business school programs. As long as great business students walk the halls of the best schools, and progressive business thinkers do research at the top institutions, future business leaders of the world will emerge from these programs. Likewise, businesses will continue to seek ideas and talent where they grow freely, in top business schools, and the worth of the degree will remain.

Then again, I've come to see that my reasons for applying to business school reach beyond the cultural and economic trends facing MBA programs. Similarly, I no longer believe that I should go because I have a good test score or because I'm simply restless. Ultimately, I want to adjust the trajectory of my career and strengthen the experiences and knowledge I've gained so far. Business school seems like a great way to accomplish those goals.