<p>Hello CC
I am currently a senior at UNLV and I am set up to graduate at the end of Fall semester 2013 with a degree in Psychology. if I graduate at the end of fall semester I will have a 3.0 GPA. I also have the option to delay it and graduate sprint of 2014. The only reason I would do this is because I would be able to work on bringing my GPA up to almost a 3.2 which would make me more competative in the long run. here are the rest of my stats:</p>
<ul>
<li>25 years old when application is due</li>
<li>almost ten years of retail experience (full time through out college)</li>
<li>over 5 years as a supervisor for Circuit City, Best Buy and Sprint</li>
<li>over 2 years of being an Assistant Manager for Big & Tall and Lids</li>
<li>Currently working for Sprint as a supervisor for the past 2 years (2 promotions)</li>
<li>Captain of Semi-Pro Football Team</li>
<li>2 years of doing relay for life </li>
<li>no current volunteer work, but I am actively looking for decision making positions within the volunteer community.</li>
<li>Have not taken GMAT, but the 3 practice ones I have taken average to around 735 ( I know that it can be different with the real one, but I am just curious)</li>
<li> I have recommendations from my District Manager of Sprint and my current Store Manager.</li>
</ul>
<p>I simply want to know what ever information I can get about the following questions (if any extra information is needed to answer please feel free to ask):</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Would it be better to graduate in the fall 2013 as oppose to spring 2014 if I want to attend an MBA program in Fall 2014?</p></li>
<li><p>Will my work experience be good enough to get me into a top 10 school?</p></li>
<li><p>Any recommendations to help improve my chances? I would like to attend stanford</p></li>
</ul>
<p>-Either grad date will work, It’d be beneficial to graduate in the Fall for experience, but if you are applying to a top business school, most likely, you’ll know if you’re accepted before you have an internship lined up anyway, considering the deadline dates for applications are this fall.
-Work Experience is tricky, I, myself, am applying to top schools as a matriculating student. I have 3 years of Mgmt in retail. Honestly though, it won’t be counted as professional experience and it’s not post-grad so it won’t help too much. With 7, they should make an exception, but I don’t know.
-As for recommendations, I’d say just start interacting with your school choices and look for places that don’t require post grad work professional experience. Great schools that I know don’t are Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, and maybe Vandy. </p>
<p>If you really pull a 730 on your official GMAT, you have a chance of acceptance at Stanford, the avg is 720, so you’re probably right there for the avg with little professional experience.
I’d look into overseas programs tho, with a GMAT that high, you could look into some MBA or MiMs at top tiers in Europe. I’m eying the London Business School MiM, its specifically for under a year of post-grad work experience. Avg GMAT is 680 and gpa around upper 3.5s.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response! I will really get the ball rolling and start looking at all of these things.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that I have been suspended from my institution for one year because of my G.P.A going under a 2.0. Will this look like a strength that I was able to get my G.P.A. back up or will this drastically damage my chances at a top 10? should I probably focus on top 30’s or even just any MBA program?</p>
<p>I’d never focus on just any mba, go for where you want to go. Top 10 might be too much of a stretch considering the gpa and lack of professional exp. but just look for an mba that’s good and specializes in sending people towards the field you’d like to go to. Ex. I will seek a finance concentration, so I found schools that send a lot of grads to be financial analysts. They’re not top 10 overall B schools but in Finance they’re ranked very high, top 15 or better.</p>