<p>Yeah, I guess if you're an Ivy (Brown) grad, started a tech company, interned / had summer jobs ever since you were 13, worked as a TA for two business classes... AND... the clincher... your POPS is a Harvard Business School grad...</p>
<p>Yeah, go ahead and apply to HBS.</p>
<p>I think that if too many undergrads are allowed to go directly to b-school and obtain an MBA, then the degree is going to eventually become watered down, and employers will pick up on this... the truth of the matter is, employers want experience with proven ability over time... Unless the MBA program is putting the undergrads with no work experience into a real world situation and providing actual work experience to help them build a track record of success, then the degree will become watered down. You just can't really get around experience, because the real world is a whole heck of a lot more complex than school, and that's just the facts.</p>
<p>The reality is that even if you do happen to get into business school without siginificant work experience, unless you are the child of someone quite rich or famous (meaning connected) or you have done something absolutely extraordinary yourself, you are going to have a tough time convincing employers that they should hire you over someone with a lot more actual experience than you.</p>
<p>Our friend just obtained his MBA from Unversity of Chicago. He said the same firm who hired multiple students from Chicago, offered a range of salaries commensurating with pre MBA work experience. The difference in range exceeded $25000 per year.</p>
<p>Just wondering, after a year or two of work after the MBA, would that person without initial work experience be able to make up the salary differential and come out ahead as opposed to working for say 2-3 years, then getting an mba, then going back to the field?</p>
<p>I think doing the MBA before work experience just nullifies its purpose. An MBA is traditionally a degree that one gets once they have gotten to a certain level in business, and desire to broaden their understanding/network of doing business in order to advance their profitability/value. When you start asking these types of questions: </p>
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Just wondering, after a year or two of work after the MBA, would that person without initial work experience be able to make up the salary differential and come out ahead as opposed to working for say 2-3 years, then getting an mba, then going back to the field?
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<p>you are essentially placing an MBA (professional degree) in the same boat with MS/MA (research/graduate) degrees. Like I posted before, if more and more students are allowed to do an MBA directly after undergrad, it will eventually minimize the value of the degree. MBA's have traditionally had an element of "already experienced" within the name, but maybe not so much anymore... employers will notice this.</p>