Top foreign varsities in Nairobi to recruit MBA students

Six top-tier business schools from the US, Canada and Spain are set to pitch camp in Nairobi on Tuesday to recruit students for their Master of Business Administration (MBA) programmes.

The varsities – which include Ivy League Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business – are hoping to cash in on Kenyans’ preference for foreign MBAs.

Nairobi is one of the four African cities in the varsities’ global circuit dubbed The MBA Tour, that also includes Accra, Lagos and Johannesburg. This will be the second visit to Kenya by the group. The initial tour in October 2013 attracted 171 prospective MBA students.

“Kenya is one of the larger markets in Africa and the qualifications of students is high for the region,” said Peter von Loesecke, managing director of The MBA Tour, in an interview with the Business Daily.

“Foreign MBAs offer an international experience for African nationals that they might not receive in their home country,” said Mr Von Loesecke.

Other elite business schools coming to Nairobi include Vanderbilt University, Spain’s IE Business School, University of British Columbia and University of New Brunswick Saint John Campus.

Foreign business degrees, especially from topflight universities, are deemed superior when searching for a job or seeking promotions, analysts argue.

The one-day evening fair will advise prospective MBA students on how to prepare their admission applications, on financial aid and key requirements such as passing the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).

Tuition for the full time MBA at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business is Sh6.6 million ($63,980).

Bloomberg Businessweek in 2014 ranked Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in the first position, with Booth School of Business at position three, Columbia Business School (5) and MIT’s Sloan School of Management (14).

The planned MBA recruitment in Nairobi comes at a time when the number of Kenyans sitting for GMAT dropped marginally last year to 583 candidates from 585 students in 2013.