<p>We are a small and diverse group of Columbia MBA's, each with professional experiences in writing, brand strategy, and marketing. Amongst us, we have applied to all the top business schools in the U.S. and Europe. We've learned our lessons, made it to our dream school, and want to help you leverage what we've learned through a long and painful application process.</p>
<p>If you have questions, we are happy to answer (1 per person). For more information, email us and check out our blog.</p>
<p>Hi, I wanted to find out something. Did you encounter students who were current business owners? </p>
<p>I ask because I am a current business owner of a engineering consulting firm that’s doing quite well. However due to my background in engineering, I wanted to get training business and am thinking of pursuing a MBA from Columbia. Columbia is the only place I really want to go for personal reasons. </p>
<p>However I have heard that admission committees don’t like successful business owners as they feel as if we don’t need their MBA. Is that true? Or should I play up the fact that my company is doing well but point out the reasons specifically why I want the MBA. Basically explain, that I want more business training to make better decisions as well as gaining knowledge of equity and investment management which I want to get into.</p>
<p>There are several successful entrepreneurs (from a diverse field of industries and functions) and even more aspiring entrepreneurs who are current CBS students. If you’re applying, the key is to let admissions know exactly why you need an MBA to achieve your future goals, because for most people, a successful personal business IS the end of the road. To provide a more personalized answer, we’d need to know more about your personal background and application goals, but being a successful entrepreneur is almost always a positive, not a negative. We also strongly believe that a genuine application will trump appealing to what Admissions wants to hear.</p>
<p>If you’d like more personalized strategy tips and advice, check out our blog and shoot us an email.</p>
<p>How will lack of work experience look to CBS? </p>
<p>I will be graduating from McGill University with a double major in intl development and poli sci and will have internships at NYC econ develop corporation, local congressman, and public policy think tank. BUT, i havent worked in the business world in i banking or wall street.</p>
<p>i want to do social entrepreneurship so how difficult would it be to get into columbia?</p>
<p>also, what target gre and gpa do I need?</p>
<p>finally, going into social entrepreneurship, what will my approximate starting salary be out of college? is there any hope of $100k +?</p>
<p>I wrote this in another thread earlier, but it’s true - every application is its own story. Being in b-school, every student is so different, even if they’re all focused on finance or media, what have you. </p>
<p>I’m going to just tackle your first question for now. Lack of work experience - there is one student here currently with no work experience that I can think of, and that’s one out of 1400 current students I can think of. While everything is extremely related to the rest of your application, I would say having no work experience (or like-work experience such as peace corps, etc) is a disadvantage to your own experience at business school. You learn more from your classmates and study group teammates than you do at class, and classes move extremely fast. Not only will you have much less in both skill and experience to contribute to your teammates, you will almost certainly need to work much harder to keep pace with school (you will be in class with bankers and consultants for finance and accounting classes, and marketing managers for stats and marketing). Therefore, I would examine carefully what the best route is, personally and professionally. </p>
<p>If you’d like more details, see our blog and you can email us about working together. </p>
<p>Hello, I am a prospective J-Termer, planning to apply next month. My background is in structured finance (banking and restructuring) but I want to switch to sales and trading and move away from the structured finance niche. Therefore, I want an MBA, preferably from Columbia, to make this lateral switch. </p>
<p>Could you please tell me about some of the firsthand opportunities I might get through the classes, cases, faculty connections that will help me in the absence of an internship? Are there any finance classes where students can do actual real world projects?</p>