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Data Points from Alumni to Give You Confidence in Your B-School Investment

May 30, 2017 | Graduate Management Admission Council

You should have confidence in your decision to invest in a graduate management education.

There’s a lot to think about before making the decision to invest your time, energy, and money into a graduate management education. You can draw confidence from the fact that millions of people before you have taken the GMAT exam and found professional success through completing a graduate business degree. Each year, GMAC Research surveys thousands of business school alumni working around the world to gain their perspective on the value of their education and quantify their post-graduation career progression. Here are three data points from this year’s survey that should give you confidence in your decision to invest in a graduate management education.

Nearly all rate the value of their degree as good to outstanding

Of the nearly 11,000 alumni that responded to this year’s survey, 96 percent rate the value of their education as good to outstanding—a three or greater on a five-point scale. Nearly 4 in 5 alumni (79%) rate the value of their education as excellent or outstanding—a four or greater on a five-point scale.

More specifically, the vast majority of global alumni agree that their graduate management education was rewarding personally (94%) and professionally (89%)—a finding consistent across graduation years. Alumni perceptions of the financial value of their degree increases as they progress in their careers and earn greater salaries. Among alumni that graduated between 2011 and 2015, 71 percent agree their degree was financially rewarding, compared with 82 percent of alumni that graduated between 1991 and 2000.

Nearly all would recruit a student from their alma mater for a job

Overall, 95 percent of responding alumni indicate that they would recruit a student for a job opening from their alma mater. This should give you confidence in your decision to pursue a graduate management education not only because it demonstrates the value employers see in business school graduates, but because it demonstrates the power of network to drive your career progression. Being a part of a business school network can be an incredible resource as you navigate job opportunities in the future. Overall, 75 percent of alumni agree that their graduate management education developed their professional network. Interestingly, an even higher percentage of 2016 and 2017 graduates say the same (83%), an indication of the increasing emphasis business schools have placed on network development in recent years.

Nearly all would do it all again

Knowing all that they know now—considering everything they put into earning their degree and everything they got out of it—would business school alumni make the same decision again? The vast majority (93%) say that they would still make the same decision to earn their graduate business degree. Just shy of 3 in 4 (72%) say "definitely yes", and an additional 21 percent say "probably yes".

Will you be among the next generation of business school graduates to reap the benefits of a graduate management education? Start your journey to business school today by using the Program Finder to search for programs by location, degree type, program length, and format to find the programs that are the best fit for you and your goals.

Video: What can candidates do with an early career general master's degree like the MiM?

Full Video Transcript

At Fuqua, we have a couple of early career master's degrees. One is a master's of Management Studies and the other is a master's of Quantitative Management Business Analytics degree, and I would say in both of those types of programs, they are pre-experience students who are coming out of those programs. We find that employers are very interested in their analytic skills, so we find that they go into consulting roles, they go into business analyst roles, they go into marketing analyst roles. We have a student who just graduated and will be a data analyst for Rent the Runway, so they go into technology roles. They're also well suited for rotational programs, especially at technology firms, or kind of big blue-chip types of companies.

We also see them, especially on the quantitative side, depending on whether or not programs have various tracks, we have a forensics track, a finance track, marketing track, and strategy track. And depending on the tracks that students go into, they also could be appropriate for various types of employers. So, for instance, PWC hires many of our students into their forensics track. We have students in the strategy track doing all kinds of business analysis. We have the finance track folks going into private equity or investment banking.