<p>What kind of GPA and GMAT score would make me competitive for admission at a a top MBA school (aka HBS, Wharton, Chicago, Ross, Stern and Sloan) If I am to major in engineering? </p>
<p>Also what is the average working experience of those who are admitted? What kind of work experience looks favorable to those school like Consulting, IB or working in a fortune 500 company? Will have to win like "the best employee award" or bring in profits of millions to be admitted?</p>
<p>Anything above a 3.3 and a 650 will make you competitive. Obviously, the higher the better. However, I have known quite a few people who have gotten into elite MBA programs whose scores are significantly lower than that. Keep in mind that GPA and GMAT are relatively minor considerations in the grand scheme of things. Far more important are your work experience and the commensurate essays, your interviews, and your rec's that are generated from your work experience.</p>
<p>Average working experience? About 5 years or so. There really is no set path to getting in. No, you don't have to win the 'best employee' award or bring in profits of millions. I have known people to get into places like HBS, Sloan, and Kellogg with quite modest, some would say mediocre, backgrounds. For example, I knew a guy who had worked as an engineer for 6 years, but then spent 2 years basically bumming around on his motorcycle with no job, basically doing nothing, and still got into Kellogg (into the elite MMM dual-degree program at Kellogg), HBS, and Stanford. Nor was his 6 years as an engineer particularly eye-popping - he was just basically a staff engineer for various manufacturing companies. What is important is to demonstrate some sort of spark that shows that you will fit the culture of that B-school and that you have the potential to be a strong manager, however that B-school defines "strong management" (each one defines it a bit differently). </p>
<p>What I would say is that if you are an engineer and you want to go to B-school then instead of (or in addition to) applying to normal B-school programs you should also seriously consider the elite dual-degree programs, like the MIT-Sloan LFM program (the combined Master's of Science in any engineering discipline + an MBA from Sloan), or the aforementioned MMM program at Northwestern (a combined Master's of Science in Engineering Management + an MBA from Kellogg). </p>
<p><a href="http://lfmsdm.mit.edu/lfm/%5B/url%5D">http://lfmsdm.mit.edu/lfm/</a></p>