MBA's for Engineers? Definitely. And You've Got a Choice

Some of you - those of the engineering ilk - have asked us whether or not an MBA make sense. To answer the question, I’ve been working on an upcoming MBA Podcaster show. Rest assured - the answer is yes. In the podcast, we’ll explore why that is as well as many other questions such as:

What are schools looking for from an engineer to be admitted and then succeed in business school?
What should applicants with engineering backgrounds emphasize on their applications?
How do schools look upon applicants with low verbal scores, but strong quant scores?

I’ll be asking these questions of my guests and keeping you posted along the way with blog updates.


Engineers have more than one graduate degree option. Engineers can get a regular MBA or because of their technical background they can apply to a dual MBA-Masters in Engineering program. Not surprising, one of the best of those dual programs can be found at M.I.T. and the Sloan School of Management.


I spoke with Don Rosenfield, the director of the dual-degree M.I.T. Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program about the ingredients for a successful application to either program. Rosenfield says that M.I.T. looks for academic performance and achievement and leadership qualities for both their regular MBA programs and the specialized LGO program.


Academic performance is self explanatory. Rosenfield says for leadership qualities, M.I.T. looks for the following:

“Ability to work in teams, ability to work with ambiguous data - you look for things like can they deal with difficult situations. Do they have independence of thoughts and action?”

The LGO requires that a student have a commitment to operations, for example, how do you make decisions about outsourcing, supply chains and capacity management. Rosenfield says they look at what the applicant has done since he or she graduated from undergrad.

“What kinds of jobs, what kinds of issues they’ve worked on - they don’t necessarily have to be working directly in operations or manufacturing, but they have to show in their interviews and their essays that they are very interested in that area.”

Learn more of what Rosenfield and the other guests have to say about MBA engineers in our upcoming show that will be in a couple of weeks. Other guests on the show include:

• Beth Flye, assistant dean and director of admissions and financial aid, Kellogg School of Management, who will talk about what engineers need to know when applying to business school;
• Betsy Massar, Founder and CEO of Master Admissions, who explains which schools like engineers and why;
• Margo Villadelgado, student, Kellogg School of Management, who will share her experiences as an engineering student crossing over to the business world;
• Iker Marcaide, student, MIT Leaders for Global Operations program, who will talk about why he chose to take the path he did and where he expects it to lead; and
• Karla Krause, student, MIT Leaders for Global Operations program, who talks about the benefits work experience brings to an MBA.

Updated! Listen to the full show here.