<p>What weight is put on academic stats (GPA, GMAT) vs. work experience?</p>
<p>If a candidate has a high GPA, say 3.7-3.8, in a tough undergrad major like math, stats, or econ from a top 25 university, gets a 700+ on the GMAT, but does not have great work experience, is a top 5 or 10 MBA program feasible?</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you only have a 3.0 GPA and below a 700 GMAT, but worked as a Goldman IB analyst for 3 years (assuming you somehow pulled the job offer to begin with), does the work experience compensate?</p>
<p>Basically, I'm curious as to which holds more weight, academics or work experience, and can great success in one area make up for a lacking in the other.</p>
<p>Work Experience generally the most important factor. The best way to get the work experience MBA programs are looking for in candidates however is to be like the first candidate you mentioned, leverage you successful undergraduate studies, and land a job with lots of room for upward mobility.</p>
<p>Realistically, most candidates for admission at top business schools have both good academic credentials and excellent work experience. </p>
<p>It was my experience in business school that the more work experience one has, the less that college GPA matters as much; however, almost everyone will have a decent undergrad GPA. Also, one’s GPA only begins to matter a bit less as you have 6, 8, 10, etc. years of experience, not 2 or 3 years.</p>
<p>That said, excellent work experience and recommendations will almost always make up for a couple of tenths of a point of GPA. A couple of tenths of a point of GPA will likely not make up for a dearth of work experience.</p>
<p>Depends on the school and the degree. If the school you want to get into is demanding, nothing short of a 3.6+ may be accepted. Work experience should usually be in a capacity that clearly shows judgment, promotion, and initiative, if it is going to help.</p>
<p>That’s inaccurate, top schools regularly take people with relatively low GPA’s but other compensating factors (like outstanding work experience). No idea where he’s getting a 3.6 from, but only HBS and Stanford had means that were that high this year (meaning around 50% of students at the two best schools were under a 3.6). I would say that for top schools anything around a 3.5 is fine. Plus or minus a few points won’t matter much. Once you get down to closer to a 3.0 it starts to look bad IMO.</p>
<p>Of course reputation of school and difficulty of major matter as well.</p>
<p>Yeah I was looking at profiles of some of the top schools. The GMAT score ranges in addition to the GPA means and ranges were surprising. Even Harvard had a student with a 490 GMAT accepted. And as storch said the median GPAs mean half the class had below. If it’s a mean GPA that could indicate that there were students with 4.0s and then students with 3.0s</p>