Try: How to use LinkedIn to find the best school www.find-mba.com/board/33571 and Why you should take the GMAT http://www.find-mba.com/board/38939

Dear everyone,

I've just got the admissions from Tias (Netherland), Henley and Lancaster. I am now in need of your advice about which of them I should choose? I do not plan to work in the UK after my MBA and my career path is in management consulting industry. One more point is that Tias offerred my the biggest scholarship among the three.

Hope to see your reply soon. Thank you!

Go for Henley because of its location and close proximity to London.

So, you are not planning on working in the UK - are you planning on working in the Netherlands? Or somewhere else?

Just FYI, none of these schools are really great choices for careers in management consulting. But from the spotty statistics on the FT MBA ranking, it seems like there's a bigger proportion of Lancaster alum working in consultancies than Tias alumn. (Henley of course is not currently ranked in the FT...)

Thank you Duncan for you information. I used LinkedIn as your suggestion and saw that Lancaster has a wider network of alumni working in management consulting. Given the fact that Lancaster has triple accreditation while Tias only has double one and the remaining tuition fees payable to Lancaster after taking into account the scholarship is less than that to Tias, I guess Lancaster is a better choice. Do you think so Duncan?

Henley offers me a scholarship of 25% less than Lancaster's & Tias's do so that I will eliminate this school from my wishlist even though Henley has the geographic advantage.

@Razors Edge: Thank you for kind advice :)
@davidsmart: Because I do not plan to work in the UK or EU, (I intend to return to my country in South East Asia), studying close to/far from London is not really a big deal to me. However, thank you for yout post :)

You can see from the FT ranking that neither school has above average placement: only 76% at Tias and a shocking 61% at Lancaster. This makes them both rather easy to enter. Since you don't want to work in the EU, it's not a disadvantage for you.

I think you should not base your decisions on costs, but on outcomes. Lancaster is clearly the better programme: better scores for aims achieved and more alumni recommendations. It's certainly a reflective and integrated school with a strong emphasis on general management. If you wanted hard, functional skills then a GMAT-requiring school would be better.

Actually both Tias and Lancaster require GMAT for their MBA courses, but yes not too difficult to satisfy this requirement, only 600+. I re-checked the employment rate and did get suprised by the low rate of Lancaster :( Do you any explanation for this fact while Lancaster's ranking is quite good (#77 FT2014) and as you said, the school has a reputation for its high-teaching quality in MBA? Is it due to the deteriorated labour market in recent years?

Lancaster requires the GMAT only for international students from an unrecognised university. I think its low employment rate reflects the changes in work visa rules.

Thank you Duncan for your explanation. I will go for Lancaster as the school offers some really compelling practical activities such as 1-week overseas study in EU or Asia and 2-month consulting project in London. Hope that everything will go well in next 1 year :)