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How to Evaluate A School’s Marketing Program

Ah, marketing. Years ago, you’d just read some research and dash off some copy. Forget sales – and all the hand-holding and groveling it required. You’d stand above it all. The closest you’d get to a customer was a focus group. You’d uncork those big ideas – and everyone else would fall in line and fill in the blanks. What a sweet gig indeed!

Today, marketing has been turned upside down. Everyone is a salesperson – and every touch point is an opportunity. Creatives go by the title of “freelancer” these days. And the expectations for brand managers and marketing directors have skyrocketed. Product features and market psychology is only part of the equation. Now, you have P&L responsibility – and you’re expected to understand operations and finance. You preside over instruments that can measure performance in every grubby corner of your efforts. Analytics have replaced intuition. And hard data drives strategy more than ever.

“It’s an opportunity to manage a business,” Hillary Schubach, an HBS grad who worked as a brand manager at Kraft before moving into admissions consulting, tells U.S. News & World Report. “It’s a role in which you’re wearing a lot of hats.”

So which MBA programs offer the best marketing training for the times? According to U.S. News, the top MBA programs for marketing are (in order): Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford, Harvard, and Fuqua.  However, no MBA program is one-size-fits-all. Every school has its specific strengths, whether it is experiential learning or relationships with specific employers. So if you’re serious about focusing on marketing, you have plenty of legwork to do long before you step onto campus.

A recent column in U.S. News offered six criteria for choosing the right program for marketing.

First, prospective students should comb through school placement reports. That way, they can determine whether target employers hire new graduates from those schools. Hiring may reflect these employers’ views on the quality of the curriculum (and students) at these schools. What’s more, it could also be an indicator of the number of internships available, as well as recruiter presence on campus.

Clubs and activities are another belwether. For example, school-sponsored summits can expose students to new marketing technologies and practices, along with helping them network with leading practitioners. Team competitions are another way for students to sharpen their research, teamwork, and pitch skills. Alas, clubs often spearhead both of these. The more active the club is, the more students will learn and the better theirr experience will be.

Third, candidates must look at specific industries and marketing specialties. Are there electives for outlets like mobile marketing, eCommerce, or consultative selling (or are they integrated into the larger curriculum)? Are there any courses tailored specifically for markets like healthcare or energy? Similarly, students should research projects within the course, such as partnerships with area companies, to see if they’ll gain a hands-on opportunity to immediately apply what they learn.

Fourth, talk to students themselves. For example, Joseph DiAngelo, dean of the Haub School of Business at ​Saint Joseph’s University, encourages students to speak to alumni. “You’d want to ask them how they enjoyed the classes. Were they learning material that they can take back to their jobs the next day? Were the classes rigorous enough?” ​At the same time, prospective students can ask alumni to direct them to peers who are working where they want to be – and how to make themselves more appealing during the recruiting process.

Candidates should also review the faculty roster, to learn more about professors who teach marketing. In particular, they should focus on their work history and research to learn about their experience and expertise in areas that interest them.

Finally, prospective MBAs should come with an awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, Tuck’s Juan Giovaneli (’15) tells U.S. News that his program helped him address his quant gap.  “I didn’t have a strong background in quantitative courses…”I focused on those electives that were as quantitative as possible for me, in terms of marketing.”

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Source: U.S. News & World Report

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