<p>I've gone back and forth on the merits and needs of going back to school for an MBA, and have been thinking a lot more about it recently.</p>
<p>I graduated with a Bachelors in Communications back in 2002 from UCSD, with a not so hot GPA, i think around 2.9 cum, and 3.1 major GPA. I've been working full time since even before then, but for arguments sake lets say i have 7 years of real work experience (a mixture of Product/Project Manager and Sales Manager jobs)--a few startups reporting directly to VP's or CEOs, and a couple established companies. And then i've got some extracurriculars in regards to doing some trainings, blogs, etc.</p>
<p>So now the big question...assuming i got a good GMAT score (which i'm assuming :-P), would all of that outweigh my poor GPA from 7 years ago, and get me into a good quality business program? Or do i need more work to offset the GPA?</p>
<p>If your work experience looks good on paper, with a good GMAT score, you could get into some good programs. Probably not Harvard or Wharton, but good schools. 7 years is plenty if you used them well.</p>
<p>The thing the schools are looking for is growth in your jobs and real accomplishments. If you can show that you’re in business. Hopefully you stayed somewhere long enough to have moved up through the ranks taking on significantly more responsibility. Or jumped to competitors who stole you because of your success where you were. You want to highlight career progress and have some great recs from CEO’s.</p>
<p>Stanford is in a different galaxy than the others and is harder to get into than Harvard. For it, I’d shoot for mid 700’s minimum given the GPA. For the others I’d guess low 700’s.</p>