If international experience is increasingly valuable, why not simply get your MBA abroad? You certainly wouldn’t be alone.
Last year, 65 percent of MBA programs in the United Kingdom and 67 percent of schools in other European countries reported increasing numbers of applicants from elsewhere, and many of them from the U.S., according to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s 2017 Applications Trends Survey.
European programs attract the most U.S. students. That’s because many are based in appealing business hubs like London, and several compress the two-year MBA curriculum into 18 months or a year. That, coupled with the dollar’s strength compared to European currencies, can greatly reduce the cost of getting an MBA.
Tuition costs range roughly from $73,000 to $95,000 for one-year programs in Europe to just over $100,000 for two-year programs, not counting room and board. In contrast, tuition and fees for a number of top-20 U.S. MBA programs in 2017 ranged from roughly $120,000 to $160,000.
[See photos of the top 20 full-time MBA programs.]
European degrees can also appeal to hiring managers. “The top U.S. companies are international themselves and need people who have the ability to work across borders,” says Caroline Diarte Edwards, an MBA admissions consultant based in Palo Alto, California.
She’s an alumna and former director of INSEAD Business School in France, one of the world’s leading business programs. “Going to a top international school will give you that insight into working with different cultures and teach you how things work in different parts of the world.”
Americans looking to study in Europe will find a range of options. HEC Paris attracts students interested in technology and entrepreneurship, for example, while Switzerland’s IMD — the Institute for Management Development — fosters tomorrow’s CEOs with its focus on leadership development.
Applying to these schools is similar to the process in the U.S. You’ll need to complete essays and submit your undergraduate transcript, plus GMAT or GRE scores. But the specifics and timing may differ depending on the school, so be sure to leave plenty of time to research your options.
Here are the distinctive features of four of the most popular choices for Americans who want to earn their MBAs in Europe.
[See three reasons to earn an MBA outside the U.S.]
University of Oxford Saïd Business School
When Californian Katie-Coral Sicora, 31, decided to go to Saïd for her MBA, her goal wasn’t just to study in London, one of the world’s premier financial centers. Sicora, who got her undergrad degree in political communications and advocacy from Emerson College in Boston, is passionate about climate change, so she wanted to go to a school that would allow her to explore that topic as well as accounting and finance.
Sicora is enrolled in the University of Oxford‘s 1 + 1 MBA, a two-year program that awards an additional master’s degree from one of 14 other departments, including medicine, history and music.
Sicora spent her first year earning a master’s from Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment — training that got her hired as an intern at Whirlpool, where she’ll work with executives in several parts of the business to hone her interest in developing environmentally friendly products.
“I’m intrigued by the challenge of rethinking how we make products so they meet the needs of consumers better and make a social impact,” she says.
The 1 + 1 program is one of several options that make Oxford a top choice for Americans, who account for 20 percent of the Class of 2018. Saïd also offers a one-year MBA program.
All students are offered a range of experiences, from consulting projects for large multinational companies like L’Oréal to advising financial-technology startups in Africa. Tuition for 2018-2019 is about $76,000 at early 2018 exchange rates and the school estimates that room and board would range from about $17,000 to $26,000.
Entrepreneurship is one of three broad themes that shape the MBA curriculum at Saïd, which admits about 320 MBA students a year. Everyone participates in an entrepreneurship module, teaming up to develop ideas for startups.
“We teach students to think broadly about entrepreneurship and how they can apply what they learn broadly across all organizations,” says MBA program director Ian Rogan.
All students are required to complete two additional modules as well: Global Rules of the Game, which focuses on laws and norms that govern business transactions, such as anticorruption agreements and trade laws; and Responsible Business, where students focus on ethical decision-making.
Another common experience is Global Opportunities and Threats Oxford, a project that brings together faculty and students from across the university to address a different international issue each year. The 2017-2018 class focused on health care, working in groups to identify business opportunities related to the global aging of the population.
“We do believe students should be prepared to be leaders in a world where the private sector has a huge influence on society above and beyond what people buy, and that we as a business school have a responsibility to address these larger issues,” Rogan says.
INSEAD
INSEAD calls itself “the business school for the world” — and not just because students can move between its flagship location in Fontainebleau, France, and its Singapore campus. Some participants also do a rotation at the school’s Abu Dhabi campus.
INSEAD is the only top European MBA program with a language requirement. All classes are taught in English, but students must have a basic working knowledge of two other languages by the time they graduate from the 10-month program.
Of the roughly 1,000 students who enter the program in one of two intakes per year, about 8 percent come from the U.S. University of Georgia grad Andrew Ward, who finishes this summer, had already mastered German while working for German companies.
He took Spanish classes at INSEAD. It has been daunting, he says. But “the languages are opening up regions of the world to me for work opportunities.”
The INSEAD curriculum is split into five two-month periods, accommodating core business classes, electives and a capstone project. The tuition cost for 2017-2018 was nearly $100,000, plus fees and living expenses.
INSEAD’s international campuses offer the opportunity to gain deep experience working with companies that are either based in those countries or that are trying to establish themselves in a region.
Google, for example, called upon INSEAD students in Abu Dhabi to create an open online platform for news organizations in Africa.
Participants generally pick their location of study based on their career goals, says Urs Peyer, associate professor of finance and dean of INSEAD’s master’s programs. “People who want to work in Asia will need to network there and look for job opportunities, so we recommend that during part of their program they are in Singapore.”
The INSEAD experience is highly customizable. Students who choose to enter the program in January have the option of completing eight-week summer internships with organizations ranging from the World Bank in Washington, D.C., to private equity firms in Dubai.
Ward, 32, decided to take four months of classes at the Singapore campus. That experience, he notes, “is allowing me to see how work gets done in various regions.”
[Here’s what to know about MBA programs outside the U.S.]
London Business School
During his second year at the London Business School, Californian Nolan Sardesai came back to New York to spend one term studying at Columbia Business School. LBS has exchange agreements with around 30 universities in a dozen countries, including China, Australia, Mexico and the U.S.
“I picked Columbia because I wanted to build my network in a part of the U.S. I hadn’t worked in before,” says Sardesai, who graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Southern California in 2011 and went on to earn a master’s in the field there.
LBS admits more students from the U.S. than any other country, and in 2017, Americans comprised 16 percent of the total student body of 431. Students who start the two-year program in August 2018 will pay about $108,000 in total tuition.
The exchange program is part of a larger mission at LBS to get students thinking about business challenges in a global context, says Gareth Howells, executive director of the MBA program.
During the second half of their studies, every student takes part in an immersive Global Business Experience in one of a number of other countries, including South Africa, Israel, China, Peru and Myanmar. The weeklong program includes faculty briefings, panels, workshops, company visits and project work.
In the fall of 2017, for example, 80 MBA students worked with small-business owners in South Africa to implement improvements that would boost their profits.
LBS’s program is somewhat similar to the typical two-year model that has long been popular in the U.S., with core courses like accounting and marketing taught in the first year, followed by electives. That being said, the school recognizes that taking time out of the workforce for two years isn’t feasible for every student, so programs can be tailored to be completed in 15, 18 or 21 months.
All students now have three possible options for their summer term: They can line up at least one paid internship, be one of a handful of top students to get hands-on experience in consulting or take advantage of the Entrepreneurship Summer School to work on a new business idea. Students who participate in the international exchange program also now have the option to shorten the length of their time overseas so they can fit that into a condensed curriculum.
Another distinctive element of the LBS MBA is that students are expected to participate in some of the 75 themed clubs on campus designed to help them prepare for their chosen careers. The choices include finance; retail and luxury goods; and technology and media.
Sardesai, 28, joined the entrepreneurship and health care clubs, both of which are preparing him to transition into a career in health care venture capital.
University of Navarra IESE Business School
Once a year in Barcelona, MBA students at the University of Navarra IESE Business School band together to stage an international conference called Doing Good Doing Well. The theme of the conference — responsible business practices — mirrors the MBA curriculum at IESE, which is designed to train students to make managerial decisions that positively impact the world.
The student-run showcase provides the opportunity “to share different models that are being used around the world for social-impact investing, alternative energy and many other ethical issues,” notes Julia Prats, associate dean of MBA programs.
“There’s a strong emphasis on social responsibility and service that I find really attractive,” says Thomas Atwell, 29, who will graduate from the program in May. Atwell, who got his undergrad degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, says he also likes the fact that the curriculum is mainly taught through case studies that build in a discussion of the ethical implications of strategies and “what the impact of a particular decision might be on workers or the environment.”
About 12 percent of IESE’s 710 students come from North America. They spend most of their 19 months in the program studying in Barcelona. IESE offers 133 electives, giving students multiple options to drill deeply into topics from wealth management and real estate finance to mergers and acquisitions.
Students who want to start their own businesses can spend the entire summer term in an entrepreneurship boot camp, developing a business plan for their startup. IESE also offers an exchange program; Atwell, for example, spent his second-to-last term taking business courses at Yale University.
IESE charges roughly $108,000 in tuition and fees for the program. The school advises students to budget about $2,468 per month for room and board off campus.
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Business Schools 2019” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
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