How to get Started on your MBA: Your MBA Checklist

Getting started on your Master of Business Administration can be as simple as clicking a mouse, calling a telephone number, or chatting live with a helpful representative online. The first two words of that sentence, though—getting started—are often a challenge. Not just for you, but for other people as well. If you find yourself being almost ready to begin thinking about planning to get around to starting on your MBA, take heart. We can help you get ready for your MBA.

The Stiglitz Box

George A. Akerlof is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. As outlined in his scholarly paper at The American Economic Review, Akerlof had a friend, Joseph Stiglitz, who came to visit him in India once. Ready to return stateside, Stiglitz had to leave behind a box of clothes (we can all relate to baggage restrictions, can’t we?) and asked Akerlof to mail them back to the U.S. for him.

Akerlof, long familiar with India’s genteel bureaucratic pace, estimated he would need one entire day to mail the box, and so kept putting off the task. He got up promising himself that tomorrow he would mail the box of clothes, but not today. Akerlof procrastinated for over eight months. You or I would simply tsk to ourselves and feel bad; Akerlof went on to create an entire field of study in behavioral economics. His Nobel Prize came in 2001.

The Journey of a Thousand Inches

If you find yourself overwhelmed by the vastness of a project, you can immobilize yourself with fear of failure. Start an MBA program? Whaa? So reduce your stress and break the big task into manageable chunks. Do not attempt a marathon when you need to start with a couple of laps around your living room.

Buy yourself a calendar, or install a calendar app, that takes you three years out. Use it to set goals—mileposts along the route to graduating with an MBA—and keep your eye on each small step.

Two Years Out

Sometime 24 to 18 months before you plan to start your MBA, create your own, personal MBA application checklist. Include steps you think you might need, but consider these as starters:

1. Research career paths
2. Determine your reasons for pursuing the MBA
3. Define short-term and long-term goals
4. Save three to five percent—more, like 10 to 15 percent, is better—of your current income for the lean times you will be facing

You can choose from several specializations with an MBA, so research your true bliss. What do you think you will be happy doing, every day, for three decades? At 18 none of us knows this, but we submit to pressures from high school guidance counselors and parents and blurt out something like, “I wanna be a Bingo manager,” or “I wanna be an orthotist.” By the time you finish undergraduate studies you really know if you are cut out for being a marketing manager or not.

Have a valid reason to pursue the MBA; "I have nothing better to do" does not qualify. Define where you want your MBA to take you. An MBA directing you toward information technology management may land you in a logistics job. The MBA for healthcare administration could get you into a research hospital.

Saving money now means you will have less student debt later, when you have to spend more time on studies and possibly less time at your current job.

A Year and a Half Out

With 18 to 12 months to go before starting your MBA program, compile a list of schools offering your target specialization. Other steps:

1. Make rough drafts of application essays—Have friends look them over if you are not facile with words (if, for example, you are not sure what facile means)
2. Gather all information needed for the people you ask to be writers of letters of recommendation, including due dates for their letters
3. Order unofficial and official, sealed transcripts from all your undergraduate schools—You open the unofficial ones to refresh your memory about your grades, so you know what the official ones contain
4. Reduce all debts, especially unsecured (credit card) debt

A Year Ahead

Now things are serious. Schedule your GMAT test date. More to do:

1. Proofread your applications thoroughly
2. Wait three days and proofread them again
3. Submit the applications following the schedules of your target schools.
4. First-round MBA application deadlines are usually in October
5. Second-round deadlines are in January
6. Third-round due dates are in April
7. Begin researching your financial aid options
8. Review your financial situation and plan accordingly—Shall it be mountains of macaroni and cheese or can you splurge for hot dogs and beans on occasion?

ECPI University

We know procrastinating is easy, and getting started is scary. At ECPI University we are here to help. We offer online MBA programs attuned to your needs. If you're still unsure, help yourself to a free download of our whitepaper, Is An MBA Worth It? If you've made up your mind, you can contact ECPI University to get...shall we say it together?...started today.

It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

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Gainful Employment Information – MBA (Master of Business Administration)

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