Welcome to MBA Podcaster—the only source for cutting-edge information and advice on the MBA application process. I’m Janet Nakano. With the growing global market, business schools are anxiously reaching out to overseas candidates; filling the increased need for people with an international education. Applicants around the world are also hearing the call. According to the Graduate Management Admission Council, last year nearly 40% of those who took the GMAT were from outside the US, while 85% sent their scores to US business schools. If you have dreams of earning a business degree in the US, we’ll find out what you should know from researching schools to getting your visa to finding a job after you graduate; we’ll hear from admissions directors from top MBA programs as well as the CEO of the MBA tour.

Business schools in the US and all across the globe actively recruit overseas candidates. Schools frequently send representatives to MBA events in different countries. Monica Gray is Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “We are there with our peers from other schools, and it provides the greatest benefit to the prospective student. They can meet with representatives from business schools all around the world as well as alumni and, in some cases, current students depending on what time of year it is. And it gives them an opportunity to collect a great deal of information from the programs, as well as speak to the representatives and get a sense of what their expectations of candidates are and also speak to individuals who may have gone through those particular programs and get a sense of what those individuals’ experiences are. In general, it’s just a great opportunity for candidates to gather as much information in one setting as possible. There are often information sessions within MBA forums. Sometimes they focus on career issues; sometimes they focus on the admissions process; other times there are alumni panels. Candidates will talk about their experience as a student or an international student, in many cases, at the different programs that are represented. Generally, schools post their recruitment travel schedule in July or August, and a student can determine whether or not their home country will be visited.”

The MBA Tour is one organization that puts together international recruiting events—quite possibly in your country. Peter von Loesecke is the MBA Tour’s CEO and Managing Director. “The MBA Tour is one of the oldest organizations for connecting students with admissions representatives from North America and European Business schools. Many times, these schools that travel with us will follow up their visit with another visit two or three months later where they will interview specific students that they identify as top candidates. So our events are an opportunity for students to get on the high priority list for admissions.”

Kim Killingsworth is Associate Director of International Admissions at Cornell University’s The Johnson School of Business. She says at Johnson, International students make up nearly a third of an incoming class and many MBA programs admit just as many. Killingsworth says foreign students play an important role. “They bring diversity—and not only diversity of culture, but also of professional experience—and they typically bring a non-US work experience perspective to the classroom that many domestic students who have never worked outside the US have never been exposed to.”

Christopher Lozano is MBA Director of Student Recruitment and Admissions at the University of the Pacific’s Eberhardt School of Business. Eberhardt has a closely-knit program with only 60 students, but the school still actively recruits overseas candidates. Foreign nationals make up to a quarter of their student body. Lozano says one of the advantages of a small program is that he can spend time advising international students as well as work through some of their challenges. For example, he finds that the American style of teaching can be difficult to adjust to. “I think they need to make sure they have an understanding of the US educational system and the style of education. They need to know that they will be participating in projects in class and expressing their ideas even if they don’t agree with the professor. For some of our international students, it has been difficult for them to make that adjustment. They may be challenged in front of their classmates. They may not be used to that. And presentations are an integral part of sharing information.”

Lozano says that for non-native English speakers, communicating in English can be another challenge. With heavy reading material and active class discussions, he says building a solid foundation of English is essential. “Many US schools—(we don’t)—offer intensive language programs which are usually about eight to ten weeks. And they usually focus on business English at either the intermediate or advanced levels. So, I think that those programs can really help. My observation is that some of the best international students have completed English-based degree programs. I have one that I can think of from Japan who did his undergraduate at a university in the South, and he was just so well prepared. And his English wasn’t as strong when he first came here, but by the time he came to us he did very well. Another thing is that when students have studied abroad for even a semester or so, it can make a major difference in kind of perfecting or increasing those levels of skills. In our case, we only require a 550 TOEFL. So, some of the students do run into those issues, and what we’ve done for them is allowed them to take some traditional ESL courses and slowed their pace down a little bit to make sure they were comfortable and were building up their English skills.”

With the events of 9/11, getting visas became more challenging. McDonough’s Monica Gray says have an understanding of US immigration policies and leave yourself plenty of time to apply for that visa. “We encourage international students to apply as early as possible to allow themselves to get a decision as early as possible, and then make their own decision about what program they’re going to pursue so that they can move through the process as quickly and efficiently as possible. Interviews are required as part of the process for obtaining a student visa, and it varies widely from country to country in terms of how long it takes to get a student visa. In some countries, it can be as much as six weeks to get an interview for a student visa and then two weeks afterward. In other countries, you can walk into the consulate and the same day be interviewed for a student visa. So, we encourage international students to find out what the averages are in their country by contacting the US Embassy or the US Consulate, and then planning accordingly. International students are required to have a student visa that is issued specifically for the institution that they are attending. So, they wouldn’t be able to get a student visa to attend one university and, at the last minute, decide to attend another university with that same student visa. They would have to cancel it, and then re-apply for a second visa. So it’s also important that once a candidate has made a decision that they recognize that it’s important that they maintain their commitment to that institution, or recognize that their will be some time delays if they need to apply for another student visa for another institution.”

If you plan to work in the US after you get your MBA, Kim Killingsworth says it’s important to learn and be comfortable with American culture. “For example, networking is not something that’s familiar to all cultures and may feel very awkward to international students. But it’s something that we really rely on in this culture, and it’s essential that students network in order to fulfill their job search.”

An H-1B visa is a term you’ll likely become familiar with if you plan to land a job in the US. It’s a work permit that allows immigrants, including those that have received advanced degrees, to work in the US for up to six years. The federal government has set a cap of H-1B visas that can be issued. Currently, it stands at 65,000 a year. There is legislation; however, to raise the visa cap to 115,000 for 2007, but that reform bill has yet to be passed. Monica Grays says here are some more things you should know about getting a work permit.

“In order for a company to hire someone who is not a US citizen or a US permanent resident, they have to sponsor them. And they have to sponsor them using a special type of work visa for which they have to apply. Because that number is limited, many companies either have a limited number of international candidates that they can hire, or simply don’t hire international candidates at all. So it’s important for students to know coming in that there are some restrictions on even how many international candidates a company can hire; regardless of how many they would like to hire. In general, the best way to prepare themselves to find a job in the US is to look at the types of companies that hire international students—it’s generally the major, multi-national organizations who are headquartered in the US—and find out what types of candidates they are looking for. Companies are generally willing to sponsor candidates who offer unique skill sets in very highly-specialized areas, depending on what the companies needs are. So a candidate should look at the types of skills they have, the type of professional background they have, and how it most closely matches the types of companies that are most likely to hire international candidates. And then, understand that it’s important that they also start the career management process very early. For us, it actually begins before the candidates come to the US, and then moves rather quickly once the academic year starts. So, the formal process for finding summer internships with on-campus recruiting doesn’t start until January on most campuses, but the preparation begins in August and September. So students start going to corporate presentations; in some cases, they’ll actually set up informational interviews—frequently with alumni at the companies where the alumni work and get as much information as possible on how to best prepare themselves for pursuing opportunities with companies that hire international students for their US operation. It’s also important that they understand that, in addition to having a unique skill set that’s in high demand, it’s important that the candidate has extremely strong spoken English language skills. We find that that’s one of the primary factors in having students struggle to find both internships as well as full-time jobs in the US is that if their English language skills aren’t strong, they often don’t fare well in the interview process. So, they find themselves without the types of opportunities that they’re really seeking. So, we encourage students who are even thinking about pursuing opportunities in the US to work on their spoken language skills and get as much practice as possible prior to starting their MBA program because then the contact with corporate recruiters and so forth begins relatively quickly once school starts.”

It’s not an easy feat to pursue an MBA in the US—or in any foreign country for that matter—but with enough foresight Kim Killingsworth says you can be well-prepared. “I always tell applicants to make sure they research, network, and prepare. And research of schools is especially important if they can’t visit the schools in person. They can do this by attending recruiting fairs and info-sessions that the schools put on in their countries; by thoroughly searching the Web; by meeting alumni of the schools and current students. By doing so, they’ll be able to get a feel for the schools and whether or not they would be a good fit because fit is very important. The personality of the school and the learning style of the school need to match with the needs of the student. And as far as preparation, I would say the number-one point for preparation is to make sure their finances are in order, and they shouldn’t assume that they can rely on scholarships. They should be prepared language-wise. And if they’re a career-switcher, they need to research industries and functions to get a sense of what types of jobs are available and what they entail. And I recommend they look at sites such as vault.com or wetfeet.com to start their research there.”

The MBA tour’s Peter von Loesecke says an international degree can seem appealing, but is it really for you? “Well, the first question is whether they’re really suited for education outside their country of origin. And that’s an important question to ask yourself—whether you really have the personality for going to another country to study in another culture—because your ultimate fate will be an international fate. The other major issue, of course, is cost and can you afford the United States? And if you can’t afford the United States, then looking at alternatives in Europe and Canada would be less expensive options. And, finally, one of the most important questions to ask yourself is: What kind of program is appropriate for you? Each student should do homework on themselves and really examine their own career aspirations, and decide on a program that’s best suited for where they ultimately want to be in five to ten years. Too many students focus on school rankings and not enough on the actual program content and, in some cases, how that program content is presented to them in a course of study for two years.”

So what’s left after you’ve gone through that painstaking process of applying and finally getting accepted to a US business school? Monica Gray says pack your bags and move as soon as you can. “We encourage international students in terms of managing their personal transition into a setting in the US to move to the location where their MBA program is located as early as possible. The US government allows international candidates to move to the US thirty days prior to the start of their academic year as is specified by the university. And we strongly suggest that international students try to move at least three weeks before the start of the school year to give themselves time to become familiar with the area, to become accustomed to working in the US, and go through all of the requirements—sort of setting up your household—everything from getting a US driver’s license if that’s something they like to do; getting telephone service turned on, Internet service; finding an apartment if they’ve not already done so; just becoming familiar with the transportation system if they’re using public transportation; learning where the grocery stores are. In many major cities, for instance, here in Washington, D.C. we have an enormous variety of international grocery stores that target specific communities. There are Korean grocery stores, Indian grocery stores, Latin American grocery stores and so forth. In addition in major cities, many countries have consulates. Obviously, in Washington, D.C. we have all the embassies. And we, generally, encourage our international students to at least visit their home country embassy and find out what types of services they provide for the residents from their country living here in the US. So there are a lot of activities we encourage international students to take advantage of and just making sure that they have as much time as possible to become accustomed to life here in the states. The pace can be different—fairly dramatically from their home country. And also, most programs have special activities; special orientations for international students that are several days before the start of the school year that talk to them about keeping all of their student information accurate and current. It talks to them about any restrictions that they may have coming and going from the country. It varies from country to country. They get information about what is required of them if they’re interested in doing a summer internship and working here in the US, or if they’re planning to work overseas, what effects that might have on their student visa status; information about obtaining a US social security card and so forth. So there are many services that are also provided to them, and the earlier they move to the city in which they’re going to study, the sooner they can move through all of those processes.”

Stay tuned to hear more about the MBA Tour. I’ll be talking with Peter von Loesecke to understand how the MBA Tour can help international applicants connect with business school representatives. I’ll also have a chance to speak with the Associate Director about how to fully utilize the event from evaluating schools to asking good questions. Be sure to join us next time when we discuss if an MBA is necessary for an all-ready-successful business person. And this coming week—a week before our regularly-scheduled show—we’ll be featuring the second part in a special three-part series co-produced by The Graduate Management Admission Council. GMAT brought together recruiters from the world’s leading technology firms to better understand the opportunities that are available to MBA’s in the industry. In this upcoming segment, the recruiters will be discussing how to break into the high-tech world and get a job offer. Stay tuned next week or listen to the entire three-part series on our website mbapodcaster.com.

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Click here to read about The MBA Tour. The MBA Tour organizes events in cities throughout the world to help introduce future MBA students to the world's best business schools. Their events are designed to provide the information necessary to choose the best MBA program for a person's objectives and to learn good strategies to apply successfully. MBA Tour events offer different meetings and panels to encourage informal and personal interaction with participating business school representatives. Special Considerations For International MBA Applicants MBA Podcaster has teamed up with The MBA Tour to bring you a special series of shows for international MBA applicants thinking of attending U.S. business schools. Each show focuses on the special considerations that applicants from various teritories should consider when applying to U.S. business schools. The MBA Tour Series: Download The MBA Tour's dedicated podcast Download Special Considerations For Applicants From Asia Download Special Considerations For Applicants From Canada Download Special Considerations For Applicants From India Download Special Considerations For Applicants From Latin America