International and diverse mean very different things to stateside business schools and their foreign counterparts. According to Josh Kobb, development manager at HEC, "In the U.S., internationalization is about integration. The focus is on how the U.S. does business with foreign countries. In Europe, the focus is on leveraging the value of diversity. Schools outside the States concentrate on how business is conducted around the world." For this reason, Kobb explains, a foreign MBA provides training you can't get in the U.S.

So when is it right to do the entire MBA overseas? Where are the best programs, and what do you need to know? It all depends on what your goals are. Here are the questions you need to ask yourself to determine whether you should go abroad for your business degree, and what to do once you've made the decision to do it.

Where do I want to work?
Going to school overseas is a good way to gain the international experience necessary to land a plum job in Geneva or Hong Kong. "Studying abroad is an attractive option for students considering future employment with multinational firms," says Alan Follmar, a recent European B-school grad from Arizona. "Except for students with extensive international exposure and foreign language skills, it should be considered a requirement for those wishing to establish an overseas career." Before attending business school, Follmar worked at GE, testing aircraft engines; he now works in structured finance at Barclays Capital in Paris. His MBA abroad was "an essential element in allowing [him] to change sector, function, and country," he says.

Washington, D.C., native Andrew Howell attended INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France for similar reasons. "I've always been interested in Europe, and I saw INSEAD as a great opportunity to relaunch my career in a more international context," he says. "Multinationals and global corporations recognize that they need to reach across borders in their recruiting efforts. The type of international educational focus at INSEAD is a real asset to these companies."

Equally distinctive is the makeup of the student body in overseas B-schools. Even in a diverse U.S. MBA program, only about 30 to 40 percent of the students are from outside the country. At Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, for instance, international students make up 33 percent of the class of 2002. Even at the exceptionally diverse Kellogg School at Northwestern, slightly fewer than half of this year's entering class hail from outside the 50 states. Compare that to the breakdown at the London Business School, where 80 percent of the students come from outside the U.K., or to HEC, where more than 70 percent of the students are not French.

In his first group project at HEC, Rollag worked with students from Costa Rica, Romania, Italy, and France. "I never imagined how rich the diversity would be, and how it contributes to the program," he says. "People from different countries solve problems differently, and so we had a lot of cultural issues to deal with as well as personal issues. ... Not only have I experienced a lot inside the classroom, but I have also learned a lot outside."

How can I tell if a school is reputable?
As business becomes more and more global, so does business education. Graduate education in business administration was once a primarily American and Western European phenomenon, but programs are now springing up all over the world. And as more top U.S. schools open international campuses and partner with international firms, foreign business schools are responding to the competition by improving the quality and breadth of their programs. Today you can get an MBA just about anywhere. But the sheer number of choices makes it difficult to find programs that offer the right combination of name recognition, networking opportunities, and quality education.

One measure of quality is accreditation. The AACSB International (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) is recognized worldwide as the premier seal of excellence in business education and accredits more than 400 programs worldwide. Of these, 391 are in North America, seven are in Europe, three are in Asia, one is in the Middle East, one is in Central America, and two are in South America.

Other notable accreditation bodies include AMBA (Association of MBAs) and EQUIS (European Foundation for Management Development). Visit the Web sites of these organizations to see whether a particular school is accredited or to search for accredited programs in a geographic region.

Rankings lists, while hardly the last word on the relative quality of programs, can be great jumping-off points as you begin to identify potential schools. You can compare some major lists of rankings at Bschool.com.