<p>I recently received my MBA. I returned to school with (at the time) about 15 years of professional experience.</p>
<p>I agree that an MBA is more valuable and more meaningful with professional experience and there are more than a few schools that will not accept you into their MBA program without a minimum number of years of professional experience. An MBA is just such a high level overview - you get 1 managerial accounting course, 1 marketing course, 1 finance course, 1 business law class, etc… that without some background and prior comprehension of the material you’re not going to get as much out of it. Also most MBA programs are designed around an EXTENSIVE amount of group assignments. The theory being that if you do group work, you learn not only from your instructor, but from your classmates. That is greatly helped by having classmates with practical experience in a variety of areas.</p>
<p>Another argument to consider, is that when I first learned about the STEM MBA option I was looking into it, I read here on CC in the engineering forum, that some employers are reluctant to consider entry level candidates with MBAs because they are viewed as being less committed to engineering and only using the position transitionally so that they can move into management. Of course that won’t be true in all cases, but it was something that made me stop and reflect.</p>
<p>I don’t know that you necessarily need to go to a top 20 program. It would depend on the employer. When I considered returning to school, I specificially asked my supervisor and her supervisor for their input on whether I should go to a well respected, but more expensive program at our state flagship or a less demanding, but less expensive program at a smaller, local school. I was told it made no difference, that to them having an MBA or not is just a checkbox they consider when evaluating applicants and unless you are being interviewed by someone with ties to a specific school, they don’t really care where it’s from. But even being told that, I still opted to go with the more expensive program at the state flagship knowing that right now there are so many MBA programs churning out so many MBAs that MBAs are really becoming ‘a dime a dozen’ and if I ever chose to relocate, I preferred having the name recognition of the state flagship. Of course, if you go to a full time MBA program being at a higher ranked school will provide a few more opportunities and increased networking, but many, many MBA programs are part time or distance programs that employers reimburse for, so if you have a job and are getting your MBA on a part time basis, then it’s not going to matter much to your current employer where you get it from. (And honestly, once you get your first opportunity after getting a degree, your professional experience matters far more on a resume than where you attended school. Companies care about where you worked, how long your worked there, what you accomplished… the school your degree came from becomes a footnote down on the bottom of the page).</p>
<p>So, after giving it significant thought I encouraged my S to pursue the University Scholars route so he can get his BS/MS, then to go to work for a few years, and then if he wanted to return for his MBA to do so and let his company pay his way.</p>
<p>But others may choose a different route and be just as or even more successful.</p>