Customer Reviews

Barron's Guide to Graduate Business Schools

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Barron's collectively assembles the information you are looking for in an easy-to-read format that makes the scary idea of going to business school a little less intimidating. The book breaks down each school, discussing the programs available, admissions info and general data regarding the campuses.

The Barron's Guide also has a helpful section on financial aid and what programs various schools excel in. The Barron academic profiles are comprehensive and are sure to help an prospective student in making a decision that is sure to be one of the biggest of their lives!

If you are certain that you have no interest in studying outside the U.S. or Canada, then this book provides a good amount of information on the business schools on which you will be focusing. It also provides a nice summary table of these schools as well as a short section dedicated to the GMAT exam. This is the perfect book if you need to narrow down or even just select the business schools in which you may be interested. It can be particularly useful in assuring you don't accidentally overlook a program for which you are well suited. The financial aid section is also pretty helpful. Beware that, if you are applying to a competitive business school, you will want to do additional research for your "Why I want to attend your business school" essay beyond what is covered in this book.

This guide to graduate business schools is barely more than a list of statistics for each school. If that's what you're looking for, nearly all these statistics can be found on the schools' websites.
Most of the data is prefaced by "In a recent year", so a lot of the time you don't even know what year Barron's is talking about. It offers the barest description of programs and doesn't analyze them at all. Why are certain programs better than others? It really doesn't say.
Unlike many undergraduate guides which give you an idea about the quality of life, quality of academics, and quality of social life, this book leaves you with nothing more than statistics, and no way to judge each school. That is, unless you know you want to attend a school where "in a recent year" most graduating students were placed into jobs immediately (which are nearly all the schools listed) and make your decision based on that.
Additionally, the book is filled with the teeniest tiniest business schools whose graduate enrollment, I'm not kidding, include 2 men and 2 women. These entries take up space which could be better dedicated to a more in depth look at schools that you're more likely to attend.
Overall, I don't think this book helped me narrow down my choices at all, because it's a whole lot of statistics and no real analysis of the schools or programs. However, if you're looking for an exhaustive list of every single MBA program in the U.S., this would be it.

I found this to be a poor source of info on graduate business programs. It appears incomplete, out-of-date, and too often self contradictory. Examples: If you're headed for California, don't look for Cal State San Marcos--their program isn't mentioned. And if you're looking for the cost of a UC Riverside MBA you'll be extra confused: in the summary at the top of the section it says tuition is $23,455 in state and $$35,700 for out of state. Then later under "cost" it says "residents pay no tuition." The schools' web sites were a much more complete and up-to-date source for free! The one section I found useful was "schools at a glance" with a comparison of specialization areas. But even that didn't list programs that offer study abroad.

This book was not as helpful as I expected.