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My first attempt at this question was voted to be closed. Here's another attempt at the same question which I have broken into two different questions/posts.

I am an application programmer with 3+ years software development experience. I already have a Masters in Computer Applications from a reputed university in India. I am planning to apply for universities in the US and UK for the 2014 fall semester as I feel that my job is getting stagnant and I have always wanted to study abroad.

I am really not sure whether I want to take up another masters degree or apply for business school instead. Considering my indecisiveness regarding what I want to study, I have decided to appear for both the GRE as well as the GMAT and keep my options open. The first step for applying abroad is to take the GRE or the GMAT and I want to get done with this step by keeping all my options open.

I am planning to appear for the GRE by March 2013 and the GMAT by June 2013. That will give me enough time to apply for masters as well as business schools abroad. I understand that many business schools have started accepting the GRE but appearing for the GMAT will broaden my options.

Given the above information, What are the pros and cons of applying for graduate study in multiple disciplines? Has anyone taken this path and applied for a masters and an MBA in the same year?

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    Hi bot, I believe this is a good question, and a much better fit for the site than your earlier attempt. Thanks for staying and improving it!
    – F'x
    Nov 18, 2012 at 15:56
  • I had to roll back the edit because I feel that the background information and the conclusion adds more meaning to my question.
    – CKing
    Nov 19, 2012 at 3:36

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The main issues against such a path are the time and expense involved in doing so. Effectively, you have to complete two different sets of testing requirements, and you'll need to write two very different sets of essays. You'll also probably need to get different letters of recommendation, as the emephasis for different fields are probably not likely to be similar. If you apply to US schools, there is also the cost of applying to the additional schools in the other discipline.

Since you're an international student, it isn't likely that you'll be asked to fly in for interviews, so that wouldn't be a big drain on your time.

As for the pros, if you aren't sure which path you want to pursue, this will definitely give you more options. But other than that, I can't think of a "real" advantage to splitting your efforts in such a manner. (I guess one other exception is if there's a special "dual master's" program at one of the school's you're interested in; however, this requires reviewing the information available from each school.)

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  • I didn't really think that far. You make a very strong point which I never considered. Although I feel that I don't mind taking the extra effort in getting dual recommendations from the same person and spending more money on applications if it helps me keep my options open.
    – CKing
    Nov 19, 2012 at 16:15

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