Master’s in Management (MiM) programs have grown in popularity as recent college graduates seek to launch their business career. Unlike MBA programs, which draw from early to mid-career professionals, MiM cohorts tend to attract recent college graduates with a range of undergraduate majors and career interests.
Walk into any MiM classroom and you’re likely to find engineering majors next to English majors, pre-law students alongside graphic designers and students preparing to take over a family business studying alongside future consultants.
The diversity is intentional, admissions officers say. Schools design MiM programs to attract students who are still shaping their career interests, want a solid foundation in business fundamentals or hope to accelerate into fields like consulting, finance or operations strategy.
Across top programs, that pattern repeats: MiM students aren’t defined by a single academic major or professional trajectory. Instead, they share a common desire to strengthen their business acumen and position themselves for the next stage of their education or career. Most arrive with less than three years of work experience and are looking for a program that teaches core business skills quickly and immersively.
If you’re considering an MiM program, here are some things to consider about what your typical cohort might look like.
Small Cohorts, Big Variety
MiM programs tend to be much smaller than full-time MBA programs, creating an intimate environment that supports early-career students. For example, the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, launched its MiM program last year with an inaugural cohort of 116 students. Now in its second year, the program has grown to 132 students — numbers the school hopes to maintain.
Meanwhile, Booth’s full-time MBA program enrolls around 635 students. The contrast in size makes a meaningful difference in the classroom dynamic and the overall experience, says Wynne Strugatch, associate director of student recruitment and admissions at Booth.
“It’s a smaller subset of business students that are here,” she says, “but I would say just the career goals are going to differ because of the types of roles they’re seeking.”
Some MiM programs, like at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, are even smaller. Tepper launched its MiM program last year with a cohort consisting of just 17 students. The smaller size gives MiM students closer access to faculty and more personalized support as they explore their interests, admissions officers say.
While they can participate in many of the same clubs and activities as MBA students, some organizations — especially those tied closely to MBA recruiting pipelines — remain MBA-only. Still, MiM students often find robust opportunities for involvement, leadership and networking.
A Wide Range of Academic Backgrounds
One of the defining features of MiM programs is the diversity of undergraduate majors represented. The MiM program is intentionally accessible to students from almost any academic discipline.
Having said this, MiM programs like Booth will not admit students who already hold a bachelor’s in business administration.
“We found that tends to be redundant to our curriculum,” Strugatch says.
Outside of that, academic backgrounds vary widely. University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business regularly admits students with undergraduate majors ranging from engineering to English, kinesiology, art and music, graphic design and other non-business majors. Some are pre-law or pre-med students planning to continue on those paths after earning their master’s in management.
“They want a business skill set and see value in it, so that when they do ultimately go get their J.D. or M.D., they also have that piece to go with it,” says Julia Hoffert, director of admissions and recruitment at Ross. “There isn’t a one-size-fits-all in terms of the background for the students. It’s hugely varied.”
This diversity of backgrounds and perspectives is part of why these programs are valuable, Hoffert says.
“In any good business program, regardless of MBA to MiM, you want to have people in the room that are going to enrich the conversation,” she says. “If you’ve got people that all come from the same background, all have the same goal, you’re going to have OK conversations, but it’ll be more interesting when there are people that are coming from completely different backgrounds and maybe have different goals.”
Career Goals Still Taking Shape
Because MiM students enter the MiM program earlier in their careers, admissions committees look less at professional accomplishments and more at motivation, involvement and clarity about the kinds of work they want to do with the understanding that goals will naturally evolve during the program.
“When students come into the master’s in management program, we want them to have a strong sense of their goals — what types of work organizations and fields they want to go into,” Strugatch says. “But we also know that’s going to change as they go through our program and up to graduation, maybe even beyond.”
She notes that application reviewers focus heavily on a student’s aspirations and preparation.
“In terms of the application review, we’re looking more at aspirations of short-term and long-term goals than we are with the MBA students, where we’re looking at your professional experience,” she says. “We are focused on activities, involvement and preparation.”
At Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, students often enroll because they want a deeper business foundation to complement their undergraduate degree.
“They might have a great undergraduate major that they learned a lot from, but they’re just looking to level up a little more on getting an understanding that dives deeper into business,” says Grady Arnao, Fuqua’s Master’s in Management Studies program director of admissions.
The MiM-to-MBA Pathway
Most Tepper MiM students have three years of work experience or less. Some plan to pursue an MBA later, while others are simply looking to gain foundational business skills to “level up for whatever their next steps are,” says Dunya Khoury-Schultz, assistant director of Masters admissions at Tepper.
But as MiM programs grow in popularity, many students are seeing it as a valuable steppingstone to an MBA, especially at schools that offer accelerated options or count MiM coursework toward an MBA degree.
At Tepper, for example, MiM graduates can work for two years and then apply to the accelerated MBA program, which is about a semester shorter than the full-time MBA. Because MiM students take many of the same core classes as MBA students — especially during the first half of the program — the transition is smooth.
Out of Tepper’s first MiM cohort, several graduates pursued doctoral degrees while others pursued MBAs. That range mirrors the flexibility built into the degree itself, Khoury-Schultz says.
Intensive, Focused, and Fast-Paced
Across programs, the MiM academic experience is often described as rigorous and highly concentrated. MiM students typically take only business coursework, meaning no coursework outside the business school.
Through the degree, students receive “a hyper-focused business education” that goes deeper into business fundamentals than they likely encountered as undergrads, Arnao says.
“Even if you have that business undergrad, this is going to be even more focused on that and taught in a fast-paced manner,” he says. “Most students are looking to come in, get this degree and go into a business function.”
