If the brochure claims a good international mix of students, ask for a precise breakdown of last year’s intake. The cultural diversity of the student body can be the most important element of any programme. At Oxford Said Business School, for example, there are 32 nationalities on the full-time MBA.While schools insist their graduates are receiving good job offers, prospects, particularly in the traditional MBA-friendly fields of finance and consulting, have continued to weaken in the last year. It therefore becomes more important than ever for MBAs to have access to a wide network of business contacts when job-hunting.

Find out what the schools you are considering do to encourage the growth of alumni networks. Lancaster University Business School has accelerated the launch of a new Alumni Association precisely to address this need.First things first. The Association of MBAs recommends that you ask yourself if this is the right stage in your career to be doing an MBA. Good business schools will require several years’ relevant work experience.

If you don’t have this under your belt, you can either defer until you have acquired it, or you could consider an equivalent degree course to the MBA, such as a Masters in Management, which does not rely on the input of students with years of business experience behind them.’The degree is well respected by business’ Yvonne Iwaniuk left her London job in marketing and PR and is now studying for a full-time MBA at the Instituto de Empresa in MadridI had reached a crossroads in my career and decided to take a year or so out to gain greater knowledge of strategy, business development and finance. I’ve worked in Spain and have a real affinity with the country. I planned to study for my MBA there at an international school where I could improve my Spanish in the process.After touring the International MBA Fair and talking to friends in the know, I narrowed the choice down to two Spanish schools.I chose the Instituto de Empresa for its international reputation and the fact that it offers a genuinely bilingual MBA where you have a chance to mix with non-English speakers, unlike some schools in Spain. I was also attracted by its emphasis on entrepreneurship.Other factors I took into account included the average age of the Empresa students (29) and the fact that their breadth of experience largely matched mine.