<p>i'm currently a high school senior and i'm thinking about going to business school right after college. what are the advantages and disadvantages to doing this?</p>
<p>also, i noticed a lot of business schools want people to have prior work experience. what type of work experience are they looking for?</p>
<p>Disadvantages:
1) Lack of real world experience. The material you learn at the MBA level is not so different from the material you learn at the undergraduate level. But you will be expected to draw on real life experience and this will seriously hurt your ability to hang with the big boys!~
2) Lack of proven professional success. No track record. Why should a company hire an MBA who has not proven herself or himself to be a finisher and a producer?
3) Lack of maturity. Let us face it, a recruiter will take a 29 year old more seriously than a 24 year old.
4) Lack of things in common with classmates with hurt networking possibilities. There is a clear difference between 22-24 year oldads and 28-34 year olds. It will be difficult for a fresh college grad to relate to the MBA crowd.</p>
<p>Advantages:
1) None.</p>
<p>so how many years of work experience should i get after college before going for my MBA ?</p>
<p>It depends. If you work for a consulting form or Investment bank, I would say 3 years would suffice. But if you work for a large manufacturing company, I would say 5 years.</p>
<p>hmm... what about at a computer company ?</p>
<p>Not really, unless you get a couple of promotions within three years. Generally, IBs and Consulting firms are structured in such a way that after 2-3 years, you MUST get an MBA. But other companies usually develop their entry level employees for a longer period of time. So if you join a company like Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Dell, Oracle, Cisco, Sun, Pfizer, Meck, J&J, GE, Ford, P&G, GM etc..., you will probably want to work for 4 or 5 years before applying to B school. </p>
<p>At any rate, I do not see what the rush is. Take your time.</p>
<p>Next year I will begin the AFROTC program. I was wondering how much easier it will be to get accepted to an MBA program right out of college. I will be an officer after by BS but I would like to get dual degree MS Eng and MBA in two years. THe school the i will be going to UC Davis has that program but i was wondering if you had any input about a daul degree and how much being an officer will help. Getting an MBA right out of college would be the best for me since i will be in the Air Force for at least 11 years and I wouldnt want to go back to school when i am in my 30's. </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>What is the usual starting salary for college grads at top firms (i.e. Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, etc.)...coming out of an elite university (say Yale)? Is it enough to at least save something before going on to MBA?</p>
<p>many times when you work for large i-banks, consulting firms, etc. they will pay for your MBA.</p>
<p>Bern700, I wouldn't put too much stock in that. Yes, those companies may pay for your MBA, but only if you agree to go back to them for a certain number of years. And furthermore, these sorts of companies will generally pay for at least part of the tuition for your MBA as part of the general package, regardless of whether you previously worked there pre-MBA or not. </p>
<p>To airforce1, working as an officer will help. But the key word there is 'working'. Just being a freshly minted officer is not going to do much for you in terms of getting into B-school. You have to demonstrate true working experience. That experience can, in unusual circumstances, be demonstrated in activities you perform as an undergraduate, and it is true that as a freshly minted officer, you will be a more viable candidate than the average person who has just graduated. But that's not really saying much. Most new graduates, even those who are new officers, still do not have the requisite experience that B-schools look for. </p>
<p>Dual degrees are useful provided that they fit the career path that you are envisioning. You have to ask yourself what you want to do and then see if the dual degree makes sense. For some people, it makes perfect sense. For others, less so. Don't just get extra degrees just because you think it's fun to get extra degrees (that is, if you're the one paying for it - if you're not paying, then, heck, you might as well get all the degrees you can). Do it because you think your career will benefit from the degrees.</p>
<p>So if your doing IBanking, wouldn't be better to do a 3+2 year program like WashU (Mba right after college) since you would be working in a firm and there will be no need to send you back to college since you have an MBA.</p>
<p>Tpeck, I never recommend going straight to a MBA program right after undergrad. I always recommend at least 3 years of work experience, preferably 4 or 5. I just don't think you can benefit from an MBA unless you leave school and work for several years.</p>
<p>In general, I agree with Alexandre, in that clearly you would benefit more by coming into an MBA program having worked for several years.</p>
<p>However, what I would say is that if you can get into a top-flight MBA program right after undergrad, you should probably take it. It's highly unlikely that you will get into a top-flight MBA program right after undergrad simply because they demand work experience that most undergrads just don't have, but if you can get in, then unless you happen to have a truly outstanding job waiting for you, you should probably take the admission offer. I know I would have. True, you will not benefit as much as you would have if you walked into the MBA program with significant post-graduation work experience. But on the other hand, it's probably better than anything else you could be doing. </p>
<p>Furthermore, elite B-school admissions tend to be rather fickle, so you have to think carefully about turning them down because you may not get to make that decision ever again. I know one guy who got into the MBA programs at MIT-Sloan, Wharton, and Kellogg, and turned them all down because he felt that he wasn't ready and he wanted to work for one more year. Then the following year, when he reapplied, he didn't get into any of them, so then he decided to work for another year, reapplied, and once again didn't get into any of them. Sometimes you gotta get while the gettin's good, because once the opportunity is gone, it may never come back.</p>
<p>Man, I still think its better to get a MBA right after college.
1.You will get hired and paid more.
2.You will still get connections in the business school. Just because your younger doesnt mean you wont make any connections unless your anti social.
3.Work experience doesn't really mean anything. How would someone with a B.S. degree get a job if work experience is important? I mean really, if you worked for 4 years at Walgreens for 10 dollers an hour with a Busines Admin degree and did good and and got into a good mba program for investment banking then what is the point for work experience? The only way I can see that work experience is good, is if you worked for a big investment banking firm after undergrad then you might have something in common with the other students who did the same thing.</p>
<p>TPeck, trust me on this one, there are countless advantages to working for several years. Let me explain:</p>
<p>1) You assume that if you are sociable, you will be able to relate to and befriend MBA students right out of college. Not so. You will have very little in common with them. Your attitude, maturity and experience will be on different levels. There is a large gap between a fresh college graduate and a 28 year old MBA student with 4 or 5 years of work experience. Obviously, you will make friends, but not as many.</p>
<p>2) You assume you will get a higher paying job just because you have an MBA. Sure, but it won't be much higher. Instead of starting at $40,000-$60,000 out of college you will start at $50,000-$70,000 out of your MBA. There is no way a corporation will hire an MBA with no work experience at a salary higher than $70,000. If you want the $100,000 starting salaries that go to MBAs, you will have to have proven yourself in the corporate world.</p>
<p>3) By experience, I am not talking about working at Walgreens for $10 an hour. I am talking about working as a Financial Analyst for a financial institution or a Marketing analyst at a fortune 500 company or a project manager for a manufacturing company for several years, getting regular promotions and bumps in pay. I.E, a track record of professional success. </p>
<p>There is a reason why all top 10 MBA programs require real world experience.</p>
<p>It is clearly true that it is extremely difficult to get into a topflight MBA program right after undergrad, and those that do generally have unusual circumstances. I know one guy who got into a topflight B-school right after undergrad, however he was not a
'normal' undergrad, but rather a re-entry student who was a former Navy Seal. Hence, I would say that getting in right after undergrad is a realistic option for most people. </p>
<p>However, I maintain that in the (unlikely) event that you are able to get into such a program right after undergrad, you should probably take it, just like in the unlikely event that you see a $100 bill on the sidewalk, you should take it. It is true that your MBA experience right after undergrad will not be as good as if you had come in with strong work experience. On the other hand, it's probably better than anything else you could be doing right after undergrad. I think back to the job I had when I was 22 fresh out of undergrad, and I have to admit that I would have rather gone to an elite B-school, in the unlikely event that I would have gotten in.</p>
<p>Chances are that if you are qualified to get into a top 10 business school out of undergrad then you can probably get into one after having work experience. So it would be best just to get your work experience and come back later and you will be MUCH better prepared.</p>
<p>Well, see, that's where I disagree, and that's why I pointed out just how fickle B-school admissions are, especially the elite B-schools. The elite ones get thousands of highly qualified applicants every year, and so the admissions from year-to-year tend to be a crapshoot. Many times, you just don't know why certain people got admitted and certain other people got denied. </p>
<p>Again, I point to a guy I know who did have some, not a lot, but some, work experience, and applied to (and got admitted to) Wharton, MIT-Sloan, and Kellogg. However, he felt that he wasn't ready to go, so he declined. He tried to defer, but none of them had deferral policies at the time, so he declined, thinking that, just like you said, if he got in before, he'd be able to get in again. The following year, he reapplied, and didn't get into any of those 3. The year after that, he reapplied again, and once again, didn't get into any of the 3. </p>
<p>The story isn't completely sad, because he ultimately did manage to get into (and is going to) UCLA. Yet I think he would freely concede that he would have been better off taking Wharton, Sloan, or Kellogg when he had the chance. You have to think carefully about turning down an offer to an elite B-school, because you never know if it's going to come back. It's like seeing a $100 bill on the sidewalk and leaving it there, thinking you can come back and pick it up later. It may not be there when you return.</p>
<p>2.) <a href="http://www.olin.wustl.edu/bsba/adm/faq/%5B/url%5D">http://www.olin.wustl.edu/bsba/adm/faq/</a> " average total compensation (first-year salary plus signing bonuses) of offers accepted by Olin BSBAs was over $50,000. This is the guaranteed compensation, and does not include "performance bonuses," which in some cases could raise students' first-year incomes as high as $85,000."</p>
<p>Thats just for a BSBA!</p>
<p>3.) How is this possible? Wouldnt you need work experience to be able to work at a fortune 500 company right after college? I see no point in Business school after you have a job and you make a bunch of money, so thats why I think its better to get an MBA before hand so firms wont send you back to school to get one.</p>
<p>Yeah you COULD raise your salary that high. However, how many of the graduates actually do? Probably not many. I'm sure the students who have that high of salary are in investment banking or have connections with a different company, thus the average person is not going to have access to either of those situations.</p>