A master’s in finance class at MIT Sloan

While the MBA has been the most popular graduate degree in America for many years, the most explosive growth in graduate management education has been in specialty master’s degrees. More often than not, these are so-called pre-experience degrees, meaning you don’t have to bring years of full-time work experience to get into one of these programs.

They allow deep dives into finance, accounting, business analytics, marketing, management, supply chain management, and many other fields. And they are especially popular with students who majored in the liberal arts during their undergraduate years and find themselves less job-ready.

Truth is, years ago far more companies scooped up students who majored in English, political science and philosophy and put them into training programs. The cutbacks in management layers of the 1980s did away with many of those entry-level jobs. Today, companies expect newly hired employees to make a contribution from the start. A business master’s degree jump starts a graduate into a corporate job.

Poets&Quants with Matt Symonds hosted the first CentreCourt admissions event for these programs in October of 2020, bringing together deans, admission directors, career management officials, and alumni of the programs for a series of panel discussions, fireside chats and interviews. The sessions provide a unique opportunity to learn everything possible about these programs. You’ll gain practical insights into what the schools are looking for from the admission officials of the programs, what career doors these programs open for graduates from career management directors, and how these degrees impacted the careers of alumni.

Here’s our handy guide to those compelling conversations: