I am Cranfield's 2011 MBA and currently in India - have started on my own after my MBA.

I sincerely appreciate your concerns and I do understand that job prospects, especially for us Indians, are really an important factor while choosing a business school. You may like to go through some of my earlier posts on this topic in this thread itself. I have cautioned that UK is no more the same job heaven that it used to be before the current government. There have been changes in the visa policies of the government and now no one gets a Post Study Work visa which used to give you the right to stay in the UK for two years after your studies even if you do not have a job. Now everyone who gets a job in the UK should either be a European or should hold sponsored visa from the employer. We are not Europeans so that option is out. Regarding sponsored visa, companies need to satisfy the authorities that they have selected a non-European because they could not find a suitable match from the European pool of applicants. Believe me, that's not easy for companies. PSW has been scrapped from this year onward (April to be precise). This development changes all equations, and any earlier stats on Indians' jobs may not be the right parameter to judge future job prospects in the UK for us. For this reason, all UK universities including Cranfield have faced a challenge in attracting applications from outside Europe.

I have said this before and reiterating here that if someone is going to Cranfield or for that matter any other business school in the UK with the impression that they will land a nice job given their UK degree then please change your perception - things are no more the same. I would however add some fact - as far as I know, barring 1 or 2, all Indians from my batch who stayed back in the UK after their MBA have a job. People got excellent opportunities such as in Jaguar, BP, Infosys, AT Kearney, Santander bank, Deloitte and similar other brands. These guys had to struggle but at the end they got good opportunities. Moreover, in some cases they had to wait because they wanted to get into a job of their liking rather than just a "job".

I am guilty of not giving you facts and figures because that will do no good to any of us given the new job environment. But I am really happy that so far I have not been blamed by anyone of giving wrong information to sell Cranfield. Like bharatemail, some more current students were in touch with me through PG, emails and phones. I have told them exactly the same stuff and they still went ahead with their decision of Cranfield MBA.

So what you gain if you still do an MBA from Cranfield (I cannot comment on other UK schools)? An excellent network of people whom you can approach anytime for any support. Just to give an example, I can expand my organisation beyond India and into all important geographies of the world sitting in India simply because I have personal contacts in all habitable geographies. Another example, one of my friends could pitch an idea for ÂŁ2 million funding to one of the UK's leading businessman because of my Cranfield contact. Access to this guy is not easy. And networking is just one aspect of this MBA - entrepreneurship, personal & professional development, confidence in venturing into uncertain terrain are some of the other aspects that make Cranfield experience a really worth living experience.

As bharatemail was mentioning, learning and personal development opportunities are immense in Cranfield. To take you back to the first line of this post - I always knew that I would come back to India to do something on my own but still went ahead with Cranfield. The decision was easy for me because I wanted to develop myself on various fronts and not just skills and job was not a major parameter for me. If you ask me I learnt more of new ways of looking at things, new perspectives, new cultures than new skills. And I am happy with that. Given the confidence I gained during my Cranfield experience (and it varies from person to person) I resisted any temptation of joining as the Country Head HR for one of world's largest pharmaceutical companies and went for the struggling yet exciting entrepreneurship way...

On concluding note I would advise you (what I have suggested to others) - don't go to Cranfield or any other UK b-school if you have just the job opportunities as the decision parameter; you will do a lot better with any good Indian b-school.

By the way, during my days at Cranfield I had discussions with the dean as to why they do not market Cranfield in India as I never saw any attempt from the SoM in this direction. So I can assure you that there are no Cranfield recruitment agents flocking PG.

Hope this helps and please feel free to ask anything regarding Cranfield and I will be happy to share...

Cheers!

Great news! I remember similar messages on PG two years back when I was leaving for Cranfield Feeling of nostalgia. I bet you will enjoy every day at Cranfield, and don't forget to get spoiled by various flavours of tea / coffee and cold drinks at SoM provided free of cost

By the way, I have applied to be an MBA Alumni Buddy to support future applicants - something I loved doing on PG will now be formalised by Cranfield.

Cheers!

I would recommend you stay at campus itself, if possible - at lest the first two terms will be too stretched and hectic to the extent that you would stay back in the campus till late in night, many a time even the whole night, working with your team members on various projects. Staying at campus helps in managing your time. You also develop deep relations with other batch mates and broader Cranfield community when you are on campus. All hostels are just a walking distance from SoM building.