Your goal with a graduate degree in business is most likely to take on a more advanced management level job. Getting a degree from a reputable, highly respected MBA degree program is critical. That’s where high quality MBA rankings come in handy.

Unfortunately, just like not all MBA programs are created equal, not all MBA rankings are created equal. But it does pay to consult the most well-respected rankings when making your decision, and below we’ve collected a list of both traditional MBA rankings and online MBA rankings to help you make your decision.

Traditional Rankings

US News MBA Rankings
BusinessWeek MBA Rankings
Financial Times Global MBA Rankings

Online Rankings

“Smart Choice” Awards Online MBA Rankings
BusinessWeek Distance MBA Rankings
BusinessMBA Online MBA Rankings

There is a reputation in the public at large that advanced degrees are for professional students. That they are mostly a waste of time. However, we’ve always known that most of the best paying jobs in the Western world require education beyond the Bachelor’s degree.

The obvious was proven correct in a recent article highlighting the top paying, widely available jobs. If you check out SuperScholar’s list of the 25 Best Paying Jobs In America, many of the highest paying careers are those that require an advanced graduate degree.

Not all graduate education is created equal. Graduate degrees in engineering, health, law and management seem to have biggest payoffs. So if you’re considering a graduate education, don’t waste your money on a degree in a field where you don’t need one. Instead, determine whether your graduate degree will allow you to substantially increase your earning power. All the evidence suggests that if you make a smart choice, it will pay off.

One interesting development over the last year is that a lot of traditional schools have started competing for students in the online space. What used to be a market completely dominated by for-profit institutions is clearly getting taken over by some of the best universities and colleges in the country. That’s good news for everyone, as it shows that online education is maturing.

There have been a slew of rankings that have come out for online colleges over the last few years and here we’re listing the best of the bunch:

OEDb Rankings – The most authoritative
25 Best Online Colleges – states it’s ranking system
Low-cost tuition rankings – online schools ranked by best value
10 Best Online Business Schools – Ranks both traditional and business schools

There are hundreds of rankings out there for the best online colleges but these are four of the best we’ve found. We’ll keep this list updated as we find more. Let us know in the rankings that you use in the comment section.

In terms of the college application essay, choose a topic that is simple yet interesting and informative about the type of person you are or a personality trait that you are or that you possess. Use the application essay as an opportunity to describe the qualities and accomplishments you would bring to a potential college or university. Base your answer upon legitimate life experiences, (from the mundane to the extraordinary), an important event (like a trip abroad), or a teacher, coach, relative, friend, or even person in history. Specifically indicate how that person or event changed your perspective, enhanced your life, altered your viewpoint, or allowed you to learn something about yourself. Avoid topics like “what my room says about me” as it’s been done too many times and focus upon captivating the reader with essentially what makes you you.

Prospective colleges want to know the type of person they will or will not be admitting into their programs. Don’t be afraid to get personal, share your opinions, and be genuine. Your application will reveal all of their scholarly and extracurricular activities so utilize the essay to expand upon an event or particular aspect of your “self” that makes you different from others. Steer clear of controversial topics as “hot” issues (abortion, gay marriage, politics, teen pregnancy, etc…) as they often meet opposition and can be off-putting to those who don’t necessarily agree.

In writing your application essay, formulate and follow a well organized thesis. Determine one characteristic of yourself or a significant moment in your life that illustrates precisely what quality makes you a good candidate for a prospective college and get straight to the point. Be certain to follow the directions of the application essay question as well as offer details and examples which support your original thesis. Also answer only the application question and stay focused while adhering to word and space limitations as indicated. Be concise and carefully review your essay, focusing beyond spell check to ensure grammatical correctness. After you have completed your first draft, perhaps run it by a friend, teacher, or advisor for additional input. You might even consider using a paid service that specializes in editing college admission essays. Be open to criticism, as it is often constructive and an integral aspect of perfecting your work. Be certain to refine your essay until it is a complete representation of what you are, what you have learned, or what you hope to become.

Prospective colleges are seeking creative, sincere, and intellectual students who will contribute positively to their campuses and student population. Use your application essay to exemplify precisely what your values, principles, personality, and character would enhance student life on campus.

Because graduate programs are so specialized these days, it’s hard to say whether a general ranking system like U.S. News & World Report’s is helpful to prospective grad students. Our suggestion in this regard is to consider the general reputation of the university you plan to research at but also seek out more specialized rankings within the discipline.

For more commentary: U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges 2011

The Best Degrees has put out a list of their top 10 online business degree programs, four of which are graduate programs. Rather than rehash the entire list, we’ll just show you what they consider the top four programs online business degrees.

- MBA (The University of Scranton)
- MBA (Sacred Heart University)
- MBA (Quinnipiac University)
- MBA (Arizona State University)

So if you’re considering an online MBA, it might be worth checking these four programs out as your best bets.

US News & World Report is typically considered the best of the bunch when it comes to college rankings so if you are considering grad school, make sure to take a look at their rankings of the best graduate programs in your field of study.

Here are their rankings

- The Best Business Graduate Schools
- The Best Education Graduate Schools
- The Best Engineering Graduate Schools
- The Best Law Schools
- The Best Medical Schools

For more grad school rankings, go here.

There are reasons for this. Institutes of higher learning have a mandate to not only foster discovery but to preserve and conserve knowledge that has been learned in the past. There is an inherent suspicion of challenges to established doctrine. For the most part, this is good, because to become established, new information needs to pass through a very high hurdle.

However, there are also many pressures to conform to ideologies that are just taken for granted and not justified. When writing a thesis, advisers tend to apply pressure to favor their pet theories. This inhibits the freedom to really explore the full scope of ideas because typically one is encouraged to just make a minor adjustment to the current system, not a complete overhaul.

Anyway, the reason the topic of this post came up in the first place was that I read this new article this morning called 14 Examples of Revolutionary Students and it made me realize how prone most of us are to just play the game the way we are told to play it. Sometimes I wish more of us (including myself) had the guts to seek real change.

• The Best Online Research Apps
• Free College Software Guide
• Top 10 Research Tools
• Free alternatives to proprietary software
• Top Web Tools for College Students
• 69 Free or Open Source Tools For Students
• Top Online & Research Tools
• Wikipedia’s List of Open Source Software
• 15 Open Source Tools For Art & Design Students
• 12 Tools For Researchers
• Lifehacker’s Guide to Free Software and Webapps
• 60+ Free Programming Tools
• Run Your Life With Your Cell Phones SMS

According to US News & World Report, schools  like MIT and Duke saw application increases of anywhere from 15-33% – a remarkable figure.

We advise people to be smart about their graduate school decisions.  Don’t invest the money to go to graduate school unless you’ve done the research and know that the grad degree will increase your marketability in your field.  Going to grad school in a bad economy can backfire:  you could easily rack up debt and find yourself still without a job when you get done.

Just be careful and be smart.  Don’t assume that grad school will solve all your problems.