<p>Are their any excellent MBA programs that do not require years of work experience? I just don't know if I'd want to work somewhere for a couple of years get all settled and then go back to school.</p>
<p>no. and now im making my message longer because it said "no" was too short.</p>
<p>A lot of schools don't "require" experience, but you're definitely fighting an uphill battle if you don't have any.</p>
<p>yes, but the programs aren't top tier.</p>
<p>what are some of those non-top tier schools?</p>
<p>Last I heard, Harvard and Stanford were top tier.</p>
<p>Going to a top tier B-school with absolutely NO work experience is kind of like getting the opportunity to jam with U2 before you learn to play the guitar, bass or drums - in other words, you can (and it's been done before), but you'd get an infinitely deeper experience from it once you first have some experience under your belt.</p>
<p>The primary thinking here is two-fold: 1) by the time you are ready to get your MBA (i.e. have had some work experience) - you have a greater sense of the skill set you want to augment / focus on; and 2) that your experiences will provide a different perspective from your peers - giving you the ability to share, compare, contrast with others' experiences. </p>
<p>If you go to b-school without any work experience, how do you know what skills you want to focus on? what your real strengths are? what are your weaknesses? where do you want to go after b-school?</p>
<p>So yeah, you can go to b-school without any work experience (and do the b-school version of the "air guitar" like you know what you are talking about), but it kind of begs the question, "what's the point?"</p>
<p>Almost every B-school, even the elite ones, will let you apply without any work experience. A tiny few will even get in. I know some people at HBS and MITSloan who have no work experience.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I would say that if you can get into a school like that right after undergrad, you probably should go. After all, sure, your educational experience will probably be stunted as, like Ivygrad said, you won't know what you really want to do. But it will still probably be better than working at some entry-level job for a few years. Moreover, the fact is, B-school admissions are highly fickle. You might get in one year, turn it down to get more experience, and then apply again the following year... and not get in. Happened to a guy I know (although in his case, he did have experience) who got into several top B-schools, including Sloan and, I believe, Wharton, but decided his company offered him a cool opportunity, so he decided to stay for another year. So he applied the following year and didn't get into any of the schools he got into previously. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I wouldn't exactly hold my breath waiting to get into a top B-school without any work experience. Only a small percentage of students at any such school will have no work experience, and many of them will have partially substituted for it with advanced academic experience. For example, a guy I know who is at HBS with no work experience spent 3 years on a Marshall Scholarship at Oxford doing PhD work. So he has no work experience, but he's still a lot more impressive than the average undergrad.</p>