<p>Alright, so I am an Undergrad business student at SHSU with a double major in Finance/Banking and Financial Institutions with a minor in German. I plan on going straight to grad school and getting my MBA through a full time program.<br>
My downfall is I have no professional work experience, I've had opportunities the only problem was they're only summer internships. The problem with those are that I wouldn't have a guaranteed job when I came back, and without a promised income I'd have no way of paying rent, tuition or books. I work 30ish hours a week in retail and am a supervisor but that's not going to help, I know. I plan on explaining my lack of work experience in my essays by describing my social standing and my dependence on my own income.
My pluses: my GPA is a 3.97, my only B was in my freshman english class, I don't believe in retaking classes, so I took the same professor for my second english class to prove I could make an A in his (own words) "nearly impossible to make an A" course. I made a 97, only A out of 50ish students. I plan on having him write a rec letter, to show my determination.
I'm expecting a GPA anywhere between a 660-740, big window I know, just depends on how nervous I get.
The schools I am planning on applying to are: Stanford, Columbia, Duke, UH(fallback), and am currently looking for another school preferably in the west coast(any ideas?).<br>
Before you say work experience will keep me out of these schools, i've researched all of them and all have accepted people and are open to accept people with no work experience. What do yall think my chances are given my GPA, and say a 700 on the GMAT?</p>
<p>Coming from SHSU ( which I presume is Sam Houston State), you won’t get into a top B-School without noteworthy work experience. A 4.0/800 GMAT won’t help.</p>
<p>Correct Sam Houston, and the reason I go there is because I’m from a poor family, I get about 50% of my college paid off by loans and that’s all the financial aid I’m eligible for and I receive barely any Family contribution, because my parents have their own debt to worry about. My GPA would be just as high regardless of University, but I understand my school doesn’t have as much prestige as others. Hopefully their Admissions office doesn’t mind, we recently had a student accepted into Stanford with a mid 3 gpa and above average GMAT, with just a year or two of experience from what I heard. So does work experience matter that much to them even though they say it doesn’t?</p>
<p>They do say professional work experience matters. Look at the median age of incoming first years. It isn’t 22. The few students that get in right out of undergraduate school have something else going for them.</p>
<p>They want to see that you can thrive in a professional context. Furthermore, post MBA employers like to see significant work experience as well.</p>
<p>Go visit the admissions office of a top school and discuss your candidacy with them.</p>
<p>If I were you, I would pursue a job for two to four years, have some success and then go back to school.</p>
<p>Thank you for your honesty, the more I think about it the more I’m starting to lean towards applying for a deferred admission at Stanford and probably the 2+2 program at Harvard, basically a deferred admission process for no-work experience college seniors. Unless I make a 750+ on my GMAT, then i’ll reconsider normal admissions applications.</p>