Earlier this month, the New York Times Magazine took the appointment of a new Dean at the Yale School of Management as an opportunity to muse on the value of graduate management programs and the value of elite graduate management programs in particular. While Yale enjoys a premier status among the world’s leading Universities across a multitude of programs, to date that premier status has eluded Yale’s School of Management. While the new Dean has some challenging work ahead, the questions posed in the New York Times Magazine will continue to be debated in the public domain about the value of an MBA relative to all its alternatives, and what makes some MBA programs special and other MBA programs a mere commodity. For individuals beginning their business careers, the answers to these questions are significant. Here are some guidelines on how to answer them for your own circumstance.
