Hello everyone,

I am French and I am planning to do an MBA in California in 2009 or 2010. I would be grateful if you could give me answers to the following answers:

- salary expectations: are the FT / BusinessWeek figures reliable ? They mention around 110 000 / 120 000 USD on average. From what I heard, actual figures are lower. Do you examples for remuneration package for non-finance people?

- GMAT: I have always been an excellet student but I hate this type of exam. What if I score 550-600? Can I still apply to these two MBAs? All schools claim that the average GMAT score is 700+. This may be true for the best MBAs but I doubt this is true for a school like USC. What do you think?

- Selection process: how do they recruit international students? do you have any info about this?

I thank you in advance for your valuable answers.

Regards,

Laurent

PS: My personal mail is [email protected]

Hi Laurent,

Thanks for posting your questions here. I think you have chosen two excellent school's.

I think that you can only use the FT figures for salary expectations as a general guide. Naturally, this also depends on the experience you bring to the MBA, and your skills once completed. However, I think they offer a fair guide.

Choosing between the school's is something only you can do. Rankings are one way to start, and both rank pretty high,(USLA is ranked by the FT at around 11th in the top American schools. While USC Marshall School of Business moved into 10th place among nationally ranked U.S. business schools in a survey of corporate recruiters conducted by The Wall Street Journal (2005) and Harris Interactive (2005). US News and World Report ranks Marshall's international business, accounting, entrepreneurship, EMBA and evening MBA in its Top 10 amongst U.S. business schools. Business Week ranked Marshall's Career Resource Center in its top 10 for 'services provided' to MBA recruiters in 2002. While the FT UCLA

In terms of the GMAT score, well obviously applying to top business school's is competitive, so the better the score, the greater the chance of a successful application. USC's IBEAR's MBA GMAT average ranges from 610 to 630 each year. The average TOEFL score ranges from 600-610 each year. While at UCLA, last year's mean GMAT score was 700, but with a range of 560 ? 790. This means 550 would be on the low side, but 600 might be fine. Its important to remember that the GMAT isn't everything. Work experience, references, other grades, and an excellent application are all just as crucial.

In terms of international students, both school's actively recruit a wide range student population. For example, last year's UCLA class was incredibly diverse, with 28% international students, and 21% ethnic minorities. Both school's will have many strategies in terms of international recruitment and admission, and make many concessions for the specific application processes undertaken by international students.

I would have a detailed look at both school's websites and especially at the class profiles and application processes.

Good luck!