Choosing a B-School: How Flexible Are You?

By Jeremy Shinewald, mbaMission

We present part three of our nine-part series, Selecting Your Target MBA Program. This week, we discuss the importance of the flexibility of an MBA program’s curriculum and how this can influence your path in business school and beyond. Next week: Pedagogy.

Imagine having to choose all of your MBA classes so that you have a full and effective schedule on day one of your academic experience. Now, imagine the opposite—not having any choice at all throughout your entire first year. One must appeal to you more than the other. Do you know at which school you would encounter the first scenario and at which you would encounter the second? Chicago Booth has a totally flexible curriculum, wherein students choose all their classes from the very first day of the program, and HBS has a rigid curriculum, wherein students have no say in which classes they must take until year two. As always, we want to emphasize that neither system is better than the other—each simply appeals to a different constituency. READ MORE