MBAs Say That This Is The Most Useful Thing You'll Get Out Of Business School

Ask a group of MBAs what they think is the most valuable asset provided by a business school, and you're bound to get different answers.

At least, that's what we found in our fifth annual survey to determine the World's Best Business Schools. For this survey, we asked readers to rate the reputation of the graduates from top business schools around the world.

Nearly 10,000 readers took our survey, and of that number, over 3,200 people said that they have MBAs. We filtered the data to only include responses from people who have MBAs and people who said that they have experience hiring candidates with an MBA at least half the time.

In addition to asking respondents to rank the business schools, we also asked them more general questions about business school, including the question: "In your opinion, what is the most valuable asset a business school provides?"

When we looked only at the answers of respondents with MBAs, 43% said that "skills and knowledge" is the most valuable asset, and 37% said "network of contacts":

While MBAs agree that a network of contacts is an important takeaway from business school, the majority believe that skills and knowledge is the most useful thing they got out of their degree. Individual survey-takers also emphasize being given the ability "to think and analyze," and gaining "practical application of theory from real business and research into the lecture room."

The winning response to this question changed when we factored in all respondents, including people who did not have MBAs: 42% of all respondents said that a network of contacts is the most valuable asset of business school, while 36% said it's "skills and knowledge":

What do you think is the most valuable asset business school offers? Tell us in the comments section below.