It is Fall. Business Week has just released their annual rating of business schools and thousands of people are wrestling with the decision of whether or not to get an MBA.

Consequently, I thought it was time I wrote a post about my MBA experience.

Why get an MBA?

Whether or not to get an MBA is a personal question that only you can answer for yourself. If your reason is to make a ton of money, there are plenty of cost-benefit analysis out there for you already. An MBA isnt about the money. At least not to me.

An MBA has several values. It is a one-time ticket for career change. It is knowledge that you cant get on the job. It opens doors for advancement through the alumni network. It is probably a few other things as well.

I went back to school because I wanted to change my career and because I am a curious SOB. I am fascinated by business and first started to think about a degree back in 1995. It took me almost a decade to pull the trigger and invest the time in a degree. I am glad I finally did it and I am glad I waited.

The unique thing about an MBA education is that for two years you get an intensive study of all sides of business. When you work at a company, you experience business but you only get to see it from the viewpoint of your department. In school, you get to see the show from every department - accounting, finance, management, strategy, marketing, operations. This 360-degree experience is what gives MBA's their unique value.

Each functional area sees the business from its own viewpoint. Each department sees itself as the sun and the other departments as planets. At work, it is exceptionally hard to get past this bias, often to even see the bias. At school, you get slammed from 3 or 4 departments at once and that is a wholly unique experience. I had a lot of job experience going into school and the MBA completely changed my view about business and how a company should run.

And that is the only real reason to get an MBA - the experience. The knowledge that you learn and can take with you to manage your career moving forward.

Pick a school that matches your goals

Although I have only attended a single business school, I have come to believe that picking the right school is essential. Whatever school you pick will determine both what you learn and what doors open when you graduate.

The first thing to keep in mind is that business school is itself a business, and a fast-paced, cutthroat one to boot. Business school isnt an altruistic charity; it is a money-maker, particularly the executive education programs. Spend at least a little time thinking about how a school makes itself look good and whether those things match your interests.

For instance, the MBA program is generally two years, even shorter at international schools. Be aware that that is a short time. Dont be surprised if they are telling you in the first week to start working on finding an internship or a job. If you are a career changer, bear in mind that some schools will see you as a risk to them moving you smoothly in and out. They dont have time for you to find yourself because they are ranked against other schools in part on how well their students get jobs. Every metric you might casually consider when picking schools has a real impact on how the program is run.

Thus it is critical that you do enough soul-searching up front to find a school whose product matches your goals. Even if you arent exactly sure what you want to do, the school you pick is the one thing you cannot change so you be choose wisely.

What to look for

You should judge a school by three things: their teaching strengths, their job placement, and their students.

If you want to work on Wall Street, you go to a school with strong connections in NYC. If you want to work in Hollywood, you go to school in LA. If you want marketing, you think about Northwestern. If you want a startup career, get your surfboard packed for the San Francisco Bay.

Even though we all look at rankings, schools have personalities and you need to do enough due diligence to pick one that matches you. We all want to look at rankings but there are a lot of rankings. Personal fit is a much better predictor of success than rankings.

Teaching strengths and job placement will determine the kind of jobs you are most likely to get later. The students will determine the personal connections you make and whether your time in class is comfortable. Another factor of the students is age. People with 10 years of experience have a lot more to say in class than someone with 2 years of experience and because of the importance of the case method, that difference will have a big impact on your learning experience. Big age differences will also have an impact on your social experience as will marriage and children.

the MBA is a unique degree

Ironically, much of the value of an MBA is the experience you bring into school. Business school is an odd bird in three ways. First, it is taught by the case method, second, almost all work is team-based, and third, the MBA is a totally general degree.

The case method is unlike most undergraduate training. You basically read a story about a business, do an analysis and a presentation, and then discuss it in class together. It sounds easy but dont expect to sleep much during school. Assignments are very open-ended and people are, shall I say, competitive.

A wrinkle in the competition story is that most classes are team-based. You work with a team of 4 or 5 other students, the same way you would in most jobs. The tension between individual performance, grades, and teamwork adds another dynamic to school as you knew it.

An odd thing about the MBA is that it is totally generic in many senses. The first year is a "core" program where every student takes the same classes and the same basic business material. However the second year is all electives. The important thing is that you are in a big University and a lot of (professional and academic) doors open for students that wont open when you graduate so school is your opportunity to pursue a totally unique, and individual study program. (Assuming you picked a school that allows it.)

Everyone gets the same three letters at the end, but each person has a very different MBA experience.

Fulltime vs evening = cost versus social return

One big topic of debate is whether to go full time or part-time. Part-time seems like it is easier financially and it does allow you to keep your job. But do you really want to keep it? School is your chance to make a big change. Think big!

One of the most important aspects of school is the social network. Once you graduate, all students are alumni on the same level but I would argue that the full-time students know each other better and have a stronger bond than the evening folks. Although you cannot know the answer, it is worth considering the future return of those personal connections.

Alumni Networks

Which brings up one of the most important factors in a school - the alumni network. You always hear stories about the connections people make at Harvard but its really true. When it comes to finding a job after school and advancing your career, it really is about who you know. More than any other degree, business school is about connections.

Picking a school with a strong alumni network in a place or field that interests you is probably one of the most important things about any school. I didnt really think about this issue when I started school but in hindsight I cant stress its importance enough.

Which gets back to the school identity and your goals. If you never want to leave your town (or want to relocate to a new town), pick a school with strong local connections. On the other hand, if you want a global corporate career, pick a school with that kind of network.

To make connections easier, pick a school where the students resemble you and make yourself spend (a lot of) time getting to know your fellow students. You are going to forget what your grades were and a lot of what you learned but the personal connections you make will open doors. On the other hand, if you are the only 42-year old with a bunch of 24-year olds, it may be harder to find common ground.

The University of Washington - rulez!

So that is my general advice. It should be enough to get you thinking about the decision and asking the right questions as you wade through the mountains of MBA guides and promotional material.

Let me conclude by saying that I loved my MBA experience and I loved the program I picked. In hindsight, I might have spent my time a little differently than I did but hey, that is hindsight. :)

I initially looked at the University of Washington because we had just moved to Seattle but after attending an open-house, I knew that I wanted to go there. It just fit.

The school (specifically Executive Director Dan Poston) impressed me with its attitude - excellence without attitude. I approached graduate school with more than a little trepidation because so many MBAs are, well, dicks. Arrogant, condescending, self-involved, vain. There is a reason that Fedex commercial about being "easy enough for an MBA" is funny. Literally from day 1, I could tell that UW was not that kind of MBA program.

The message from the open house was that they wanted us to be happy more than they wanted our money. Instead of the hard sell, the open house impressed on me to pick a school that matched my goals and personality. Two things that have little to do with rankings or B-school revenue.

UW is a small program with about 100 students per class. That means there are fewer possible connections but the experience is much more intimate. All of my professors knew exactly who I was and were happy to talk with me outside of class. Moreover, I knew every student in my class, which is not true at a lot of programs.

One thing I didn't appreciate until I got there was how flexible the UW was, at least in the business school. Everyone that works there, from the office people to the academic advisors to the faculty to the career advisors, was friendly and willing to go out of their way to help me. People were patient and flexible. My undergrad experience at Big 10 Universities was one of being told what I couldn't do; my UW experience was being advised how I could make it work.

Career placement is another huge perk of UW that few schools can match. Remember that all B-Schools are a business and their job is to move you in, get your money, and get you placed in a job that makes the school look good. There just isn't enough time to personalize things so most schools encourage people to take traditional, cookie-cutter tracks. UW's placement office, the BCC, was open, supportive and always willing to help me investigate something new. I pushed the limits and they delivered; I cannot say enough positive things about the BCC.

On the other hand, the UW is a regional school. Almost all the students live in Seattle and never want to leave. It is kind of a Seattle-thing which is fine if you share that view but less fine if you think nationally. Seattle only has a few top corporations (Microsoft, Microsoft, did I mention Microsoft?, Amazon and Starbucks) so keep that in mind. The alumni network is very strong but drops off steeper than Mount Ranier if you leave the area.

Another thing that I liked about UW (but not everyone did) was the large number of international students. Between 30 and 40% of the class is international students, mainly from Korea, China and Hong Kong. On one hand, this makes team projects harder due to culture and communications. On the other hand, work isnt any different and will only get more global in the future.

UW academic strengths were finance, marketing, entrepreneurship, real estate. This was great for me because I was interested in all of them but would have been a problem if my heart was set on operations or manufacturing. I thought the faculty was great and UW stressed projects for actual companies in the community, both for classes and extra-curriculars. I thought this was awesome and appreciated the chance to work on real problems not just hypothetical exercises.

That's about all I can think of. Best of luck to you on your own MBA-experience.