An MBA, or Masters in Business Administration, can be a great way to move up in a company, change careers or earn a more lucrative salary. Still, the number of racial minorities pursuing the degree lags that of other graduate programs. African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans represent just six percent of the student bodies at the top 50 MBA programs compared with 13% at the top 50 law schools and 12% at the top 50 medical schools, according to Management Leadership for Tomorrow. MLT is a New York City-based organization that offers programs designed to increase the presence of qualified students of color in graduate business schools, corporations, non-profit organizations and entrepreneurial ventures.

"The MBA degree is valuable because it can help a person understand business and the issues businesses face," said Antoinette Malveaux, president and Chief Executive Officer of the National Black MBA Association, Inc. "For people who have been in the workforce for a while, it can also help them broaden their skills and discover new ways to use their skills and talents," she said.

The MBA is also a great way to switch careers, said Joe Fox, associate director of MBA Programs at the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University.

"People can build a bridge to make a significant change in careers,'' said Fox, who also sits on the board of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. "Someone who's been in engineering can go into marketing or a person who has worked in heath care can switch to finance."

There are many ways to earn an MBA. Part-time programs allow students to work full-time and go to school part-time. Executive MBA programs tend to be popular choices among people whose companies want to sponsor their studies. Students typically continue to work full-time, but take weekend classes. The full-time MBA, which normally takes two years to complete, is probably the most popular choice and often the most daunting. Attending one of these programs usually means quitting a job and borrowing money in the form of student loans to pay tuition and living expenses. Most full-time MBA programs admit few applicants without at least a few years of work experience after graduating from college.

No matter which option you choose, getting into a program that will further your goals and being ready for the challenges in the classroom take a lot of preparation and some serious cash. Just applying to school can take well over $1,000 in application, test preparation and test fees.

Most MBA programs require applicants to take the Graduate Management Admissions Test, which evaluates, math, verbal and critical reasoning skills. The tests, except in special situations, are computer-based and applicants must register to take the exam at a testing center. Fees vary by country. The cost of the test in the U.S. is currently $200. The test can only be taken once per month and test-takers are limited to taking the test five times in a 12-month period. Many students take the test more than once in hopes of getting a higher score to impress admissions committees and luckily for MBA candidates, most schools only pay attention to the highest score.

The majority of successful applicants to the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley score at least a 600 out of 800 on the test. "But, that doesn't mean that someone with a lower score won't get in," said Jett Pihakis, director of Domestic Admissions at the school. "We don't have cut-offs,'' Pihakis said. "There is a lot more to an application. The GMAT is not looked at in isolation."

Still, the test can be an important indicator of the strength of an applicant's quantitative skills, which are needed to get through finance, accounting and other business school courses. Also, business schools saw a jump in applications this year as the economy put many people out of work and gave people an incentive to make themselves more competitive. Berkeley, for example, saw a 37 percent increase in applications for spots in the class of 2004 over the previous year, Pihakis said.

People who haven't used math in a while might want to take a course at a community college to brush up and to increase their chances of a higher score on the GMAT. Test preparation courses are also available from companies such as Kaplan and Princeton Review. Classroom instruction can be pricey – Kaplan's classroom course costs nearly $1,200, with the Princeton Review class being about $100 less. Both companies offer less expensive options, such as online courses for about $500 and smaller "express courses" designed for people with limited time to prepare, such as $99 Express Online course offered by the Princeton Review. While the Kaplan and Princeton Review programs are the most popular, applicants who want to save money might try contacting local colleges to see if they offer test preparation classes or studying on their own from test preparation books and software available at most large bookstores.

"Business school applications should tell a story about what brought you to the point of wanting to go to business school and what you expect the degree to help you accomplish," said Carla Booker, a vice president at credit card issuer First USA Bank in Wilmington, Delaware. Her application to the highly-ranked Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania told a story of an engineer who was moved by the community-based work of some of her fellow students in a sociology class she took as a graduate engineering student. She explained in her essays that she began to think seriously about a career working for non-profits and policy management – one of many areas for which Wharton has a good reputation.

In addition to good grades, applications should also show that a person made good choices in his/her undergraduate school and major or has had a deliberate progression in a career path that makes sense.

"Did the undergraduate school fit? Did they make the right choice about their major? These are some of the questions admissions committees look to answer when reviewing applications," said Fox of Washington University. "We also like to see that they weren't avoiding the tough courses in their senior year."

Participation in extra-curricular activities and volunteer work are also important. "We want to see the breadth of involvement and we like to see people who have taken leadership roles,'' said Pihakis of Berkeley. "However, students who had to work their way through school shouldn't worry too much if they didn't have time to participate in a lot of activities," he added. "If they have to work part-time that is time they are spending outside the classroom. The admissions committee will look at all demands on their time."

Students should be prepared to pay for several copies of official transcripts from every college they attended and to pay sometimes-hefty application fees, especially at the highly competitive schools. Harvard Business School charges $190 to apply, the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University charges $185 and the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin charges $125. There are some less expensive application fees out there – the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University charges just $30 for U.S. applicants.

Prospective business school applicants should also prepare themselves for the high cost of attending. Tuition at Harvard is about $31,800 a year. That doesn't include fees, books and living expenses, which bring the total cost of one year to $58,400. That also doesn't even include the computer that Harvard says you will need which could cost as much as $3,500, according to a sample budget on Harvard's Web site. There are some business school bargains out there. For example, tuition at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana costs just $12,104 for Illinois residents and $20,218 for non-residents, not including fees or living expenses.

Often, the cost of business school correlates with how highly the schools are ranked in magazines such as BusinessWeek and U.S. News & World Report. "The rankings are important, but aren't really a measure of how good of an education you will get," Malveaux warned. "The rankings do, however, provide a good idea of which schools corporations will focus on when they are looking to recruit students," she said.

Kiery Jackson, who graduated from the University of Michigan Business School in 2000, chose his business school based partly on rankings. He applied to six schools, five of them through the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, which allows students to apply to several participating schools at a lower cost and awards scholarships. When he got into Michigan, which was the most highly ranked school he applied to, he knew it was the right choice for him. "It's a risk-reward proposition," Jackson said. "If I'm going to take the risk of quitting my job to go back to school, I want to have a good idea that I am going to get a job when I get out."

Prospective students should think of the high cost of getting into and attending business school as an investment, say admissions directors and former students. "I like to think of it as a high-value investment," said Fox of Washington University. "It's true that it's a high cash flow for two years, but it could lead to much higher salaries."

Compensation for people with MBA's can be lucrative. The median starting salary of 2001 graduates of the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business was $85,000, according to the school's 2001 MBA employment report. Signing bonuses ranged from $4,000 in the software industry to $30,000 in finance areas such as investment research and sales and trading. If potential salary is an important part of your decision about where to apply, look deeper into a school's employment report to get an idea of the average offers for particular industries, Pihakis of Berkeley advised.

In addition to signing bonuses, some employers will pay the tuition of the people they hire. First USA paid for one year of Booker's tuition at Wharton and she used her substantial signing bonus to pay for the other year. She still has about $18,000 in outstanding loans that covered living expenses.

If she had returned to her previous employer, her tuition would have been paid anyway. When that company found out about her plans to go to business school, it entered into a contract with her to pay her tuition with the condition that if she didn't return, she would have to repay the money, which she has done, with the money from First USA. The arrangement wasn't part of any pre-existing program. "We made it up," Booker said. "I signed a one-page contract that we made up." She advises anyone planning to go to business school to check to see if their current employer will foot all or part of the bill.

Although Booker, who graduated from Wharton in 2000, hasn't yet followed up on her goal to work in the non-profit or public policy arenas, it is something she continues to consider and believes her Wharton education will have laid a good foundation and exposed her to valuable contacts. "I got a foundation in how companies make money and how non-profits make money," Booker said. "I also got to know a lot of people who may want to contribute to non-profits."

Getting an MBA isn't a guaranteed path to success. The hard work doesn't end with the last final exam. "There's a misconception that the MBA is a magic wand to becoming an excellent manager and leader," said Malveaux of the National Black MBA Association, who is also a Wharton graduate. "There's a belief that as you finish, all will be right with the world and your career. The MBA does not bring perfect knowledge."

In Booker's case, she was hired as a vice president at First USA, but found the position somewhat overwhelming because she was new to banking, other than a summer internship with the company. Since being hired, she has requested and gotten time to get more training to learn the nuts and bolts of the business. "I came with zero banking and zero marketing experience,'' she said. "I'm actually taking a step back to learn the guts of the business."

When Jackson graduated from Michigan, the former engineer took a job with a consulting firm in Boston. After a while, he could see that the company was having problems. When the company started laying people off, he already had a job offer waiting for him at Abbott Laboratories. He is currently in the company's management training program, which includes rotations in market research, sales and product management. What he learned in business school helped him see that it would be a good idea to start looking for something else. At Abbott, he found people who were genuinely interested in working with him, he said.

The MBA does offer the chance to further develop critical thinking skills as well as tangible skills such as valuing companies. One of the most valuable aspects of the MBA is the relationship developed with professors and other students. "The people you go to school with are often the people that you work with or are there to provide assistance and contacts later on," Malveaux said.

"The degree really gives you a foot in the door," Jackson said. "The school didn't fundamentally change who I was."

Minority candidates should be sure to look into as many scholarship opportunities as possible. The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management has a number of scholarships that pay tuition and fees for African-American, Latino and Native-American students at participating schools, such as Washington University, New York University, Emory University and USC. The Consortium also offers other programming that gives students access to recruiters before they even start business school. Some students have had summer internship offers before they even start school.

The Robert Toigo Foundation offers fellowships for business school applicants who are planning careers in finance at several schools including Wharton, Harvard, Clark Atlanta University and the University of Michigan. The National Black MBA Association also sponsors a scholarship competition.