Dear friends,

I have 7+ years of experience within the area of Finance and consulting. For the last 4 years I have been into Corporate Finance consulting which included M&A, valuation, capital market and CFO consulting. Worked with US based financial advisory firm (private wealth management), McKinsey and EY consulting. With respect to academics, I have Master in Commerce and CFA from CFA Institute, USA.

My long term goal is to get into a capital market role. These roles can be of various forms and should be available with an IB, PE/VC, investment management, corporate strategy (M&A) group. All these roles are available in the market but it gets really competetive without an MBA/relevant indept industry level experience.

In order to pursue my long term aspiration now I feel it is imperative for me to do an MBA. Given my situation I would highly appreciate if you could best suggest me which MBA schools should I focus because I will be 30 years of age with 8 years of work ex by the time I am able to secure admission. I am currently based in India but do not have any limitation on changing my location.

Below mentioned are few schools which I have shortlisted (in order of ranking):
1. LBS - MiF
2. INSEAD
3. IMD
4. Cornell accelerated MBA - 1 year
5. Cambridge - JBS (last option)

Regards
ak

Hi AK,

Thanks for writing in -- you certainly seem to have an impressive range of large-firm experience and yet I do understand the need for an MBA to break into the competitive field of PE, or the others you listed.

For one, check out our blog post on "older applicants":

http://www.mbamission.com/blog/2009/12/ ... m-too-old/

I actually think you selected a solid range of programs here. International programs are typically more open to older candidates than their top-tier U.S. counterparts, especially INSEAD and IMD. And the Cornell accelerated option could work as well, as you can easily frame your essays around why you need to get back into the job market as quickly as possible.

Best of luck,

Daniel Richards
http://www.mbamission.com

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