The Vanderbilt Advantage
The Vanderbilt MBA offers a rigorous curriculum featuring a core foundation of general management skills, career-focused specializations, immersion learning and a seven-week modular calendar that provides a quick start, allowing students to make significant progress in their preferred areas of study before beginning summer internships. A trademark of the Vanderbilt MBA is the Leadership Development Program, which uses best-in-class tools to produce rigorous personalized development for each student focusing on the unique competencies that set high-potential leaders apart. In addition, Owen offers a personal approach to career management, ensuring that students receive the individual attention and access to the knowledge, resources and guidance required to achieve their career goals.
Here are 21 reasons why our students and alumni say they would recommend the Vanderbilt MBA. It adds up to one big advantage.
- You’ll earn a door-opening degree that carries a prestigious name.
- No part-time students or undergraduates will compete with you for resources and professors’ time. The emphasis here is on the full-time program.
- The rigorous curriculum—built around a strong foundation of general management skills and career concentrations and specializations—is carefully crafted with input from business professionals, so that your education is market-driven. The emphasis on immersion experiences and practical, hands-on education (not just case studies) allow you to apply what you’re learning to real companies.
- The unique seven-week modular calendar means you’ll complete significant study in your career field sooner than you would with more traditional programs—this is a real advantage as you interview for the first-year internships that will lead to the job you want after graduation.
- Because of the distinctive emphasis on personalized leadership development, you’ll gain the strategic, operating and interpersonal skills—highly valued by employers—to help differentiate you as a business leader.
- International study opportunities on six continents will give you a global perspective that’s critical in today’s business world.
- The whole program is focused on you—your interests, your needs, your goals—and you can shape your experience to suit them. While building a strong knowledge base grounded in business fundamentals, you’ll have a high degree of flexibility to choose electives (including courses from other schools within the university). Even your campus visit will be tailored to your interests.
- You’ll learn from world-renowned faculty who are leaders in their fields. They do more than impart knowledge. They are incredibly accessible and serve as mentors as well as teachers. Long after graduation, Owen alums often call on professors for ideas and advice.
- Compared to many schools, the Vanderbilt MBA program is small by design. That means smaller class sizes (10:1 ratio of students to faculty), which provides more opportunities for interaction and more individual attention.
- You’re not just part of a school. You’ll be part of a community of colleagues and friends who work hard, play hard and enjoy Owen’s rich social life together. Owen is competitive but it’s even more collegial, where students work collaboratively and help each other succeed. Students commonly say it’s an atmosphere they didn’t find when visiting other schools, but you’ll notice it from the first day you’re here.
Want to start a new club or initiative? Just ask! Administration and faculty here are incredibly open to new ideas. In fact, many of Owen’s most successful undertakings—from the Global Food Festival to hosting the international Net Impact conference to the multi-disciplinary Project Pyramid to alleviate global poverty—were developed and are led by students (with enthusiastic support from the school’s leadership).
- Owen is renowned for having one of the top Finance departments in the world and has a track record of job placement in the world’s leading financial organizations.
- Working together in project teams—an Owen hallmark—is great preparation for the world of business. And because you’ll be among a group of outstanding (and carefully chosen) peers, you’ll learn from your colleagues as well as from your professors, making for a richer educational experience.
- With a Vanderbilt MBA, you’ll be highly valued by recruiters. Students here are known not only for their knowledge, but also for their analytical skills and strategic thinking that help them make a difference in an organization from day one. Recruiters say that Owen students are the people they want to work with—determined, well-prepared, collaborative team players.
- You can expect to enjoy a salary that’s competitive with those of graduates of other top business schools. Bloomberg BusinessWeek ranks the Vanderbilt MBA #20 among top business schools for lifetime career pay.
- You’ll be among winners. Vanderbilt MBA students consistently excel in national case competitions, outperforming some of the top business schools.
- You’ll benefit from a highly supportive network of alumni who will help you while you’re in school and throughout your career.
- You’ll form relationships here that will not only enhance your career opportunities, but will also become lifelong friendships.
- Owen’s Career Management Center prepares you for success. It’s not just a two-year relationship. It’s for a lifetime.
- You’ll enjoy a diverse community, with students from all regions of the United States and 35 different countries. Three-fourths of the MBA students here come from outside the Southeast. You can broaden your experiences, your network and your world of possibilities.
- You’ll earn your degree in Nashville, a vibrant city that (much like Owen) is small enough to be accessible and friendly, yet diverse and cosmopolitan, with no shortage of things to do or see.