Undergrad for Post-Grad- how much does it matter?

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

Hi

Yes- I know this topic has been discussed ad nauseum here. I have read many previous threads, talked to many people, asked my parents to talk to many people and still am in analysis paralysis.

I am an international student, from India, keen on attending college in the US. I am a high school senior, would be off to college in August. I would later do post-grad, most likely MBA but not too sure yet.

The question is: to what extent does an undergrad matter for getting into a good MBA program. By top MBA, of course I mean anything along the lines of Harvard, Kelley, MIT, Duke, Emory etc etc.

For undergrad, money plays a big role for me. I currently have a full scholarship from Rollins (FL), a $21000 per year scholarship from Bentley (MA), and no scholarship from Northeastern, Santa Clara and University of Virginia.

I am awaiting more decisions, such as Claremont Mc-Kenna, Duke, UPenn and NYU.

There are conflicting views about the importance of work experience for a top MBA. Some say that, armed with a good undergrad GPA, good GMAT and essay, chances are as good as can be. Some say that work experience is practically a pre-requisite. I guess the truth lies somewhere in between. But where?

And how difficult, in relative terms, is it hard to find a job after under-grad, if I do Economics at Rollins with a full scholarship? Any sort of work experience will be great.

Hard questions? Indeed. But damn important ones.

Thanks for any help!
Ansh

2

For ALL of the best MBA programs, full-time, professional work experience is a REQUIREMENT. Your MBA application for any first-tier MBA degree simply will NOT be considered immediately upon receipt of a Bachelor’s degree and without professional experiences (two years generally is the bare minimum, with three or four years being more common). Furthermore, your successes during that initial professional period (reflected in essays and recommendations) is a major acceptance evaluation factor.

3

You can get into a “top MBA” with an undergrad degree from any college or university on the planet, provided you have decent undergraduate grades, a good GMAT score, and excellent, increasingly responsible work experience. The key to admission at one of those places is the “excellent, increasingly responsible work experience”. And as TopTier mentioned above, two years would be a bare minimum. It really is better to have more work experience than that.

Why so much work experience? Because MBA students are expected to bring their own real-life on-the-job experiences into the classroom, and to share those experiences with their classmates as a contribution to everyone’s learning experience. You really, truly will get more out of your MBA program when you have enough work experience of your own to relate your graduate studies to.

If you have an F1 visa, you can apply for an extension un under the OPT rules and work here for a while after you graduate. Most undergraduate programs will result in 12 months work permission. Some scientific and technical majors have longer permission. With Economics, you would only have 12 months.

It is not likely at all that you would be able to find an employer that would be able to get an H1B (work visa for you) when your OPT expires. For that to happen you would need to major in engineering or computer science - and even then it is unusual for someone with only a bachelor’s degree.

4

I would look at placements (where graduates in your major are employed after graduation) for the schools you were accepted to. If you are able to work in the states after undergrad, you will want a program that is well recruited to give you a good start to the “professional experience” required for top MBA programs.

Keep in mind that the MBA programs that do not require work experience (often lower ranked programs), do not necessarily add any value to you as an applicant. Having an MBA with no work experience isn’t much better than having a bachelors degree with no work experience. The MBA is meant to build on the professional experience you already have, and to offer networking opportunities and recruitment for well qualified students. I would choose to work and get into the best program you can rather than look for programs that do not require the experience.

5

Thanks for all your replies, really helpful!

So now that the importance of work experience has been identified, I would like to know if unpaid internships can take the place of work experience for MBA applications? In case I can’t find a job, that is.

And if I go to Rollins as an Alfond scholar (their top scholarship) will finding work be significantly harder than if I go to U.Va? I would like something business or finance related (banks, managerial roles) or economics related (think tanks, or such).

Thanks!

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@anshj97‌: Responding to your questions and with the understanding that what follows is only my opinion (however, one based on 40+ years of managerial experiences and a first-tier, full-time MBA):

  1. Unpaid internships can assist in obtaining meaningful, full-time paid positions, BUT they certainly are no substitute for "real work." This results from two major factors: (a) interns frequently are only the office "go-fer," their duties have little substance and (b) interns, being unpaid, cannot and are not ACCOUNTABLE for anything. What major financial/consulting/commercial enterprise will entrust any significant decisions or responsibilities to an unpaid volunteer, who actually can depart at any time and without notice?
  2. I don't know too much about Rollins (and the Alfond would be a plus); however, my "gut" says UVa "by a mile." UVa is a "public Ivy," its stature is global and distinguished, its alumni network is excellent, established and pervasive throughout management, finance and business, its students will be FAR more accomplished (how difficult is Rollins admission in comparison to UVa?), recruiters from many of the best enterprises will interview there, and MUCH more. NONE of the foregoing is greatly applicable to Rollins. It's certainly a good school, but more-Florida than nationally or globally recognized, and its aggregate stature simply cannot compare with UVa's. In essence, were you to walk into a major DC "think tank" or a New York iBank and say "my undergraduate degree is from UVa," people would probably think "good school." But from Rollins, I suspect they'd think "oh yeah, that little liberal arts college in Florida."
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@TopTier, although this is probably not especially relevant, when I looked at it, neither Stanford nor MIT required post-graduate full-time professional work. They will both accept a small number of exceptional kids without experience – Stanford saw, I suspect, that if they didn’t catch such kids before they left for the Valley, they’d never get them back.

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@shawbridge‌: Thank you, that’s interesting to know. However, I would wager that not one MBA student in fifty (probably even less) at Sloan or Stanford have no significant professional experience. Therefore, I believe the advice offered by several posters, which indicates that one essentially must have several years full-time experience to be admitted to first-tier MBA progarms, remains entirely valid. You know, we occasionally read that some fourteenish prodigy has matriculated at a university, but that doesn’t mean we suggest that early-teens submit applications (not that you did so).

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I think working for several years is typically good advice even if it were not required because students with meaningful work experience get more out of some aspects of the curriculum. But, there are kids who are exceptional academically and/or entrepreneurially who might get in and because of their experience might get the benefit. But, you have to be at the tippy-top end of kids applying to Stanford GSB or Sloan academically and likely be exceptional in other ways also. So, your prior probability of admission at Stanford should be less than the 7% for all students if you are applying early. Nonetheless, Stanford’s class profile shows years of experience ranging from 0-15 with an average of 4, implying that there is at least one and there are at least two with one year of experience. So it is not the rare event happening once every 10 years. But, my guess is that admission with less than two years of experience requires a pretty extraordinary record and a fair bit of luck.

Incidentally, if you are the business school, your chief product other than research is successful alumni who a) enhance your relationship; and b) give money. If you see an extraordinary kid who is highly likely to be successful and you think that once they have started working, they will never return to school, it would be in your interest to admit them with even though they have no working experience.

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Thanks for all your responses! Much to think through though U.Va is clearly advantageous in this regard. I have talked to the universities and while U.Va has very good placements, so does Bentley with its business environment. And Rollins too has some decent placements. Let’s see.

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Wharton will accept a few exceptional students into their MBA program with no work experience, but the vast majority will need 2+ years of work experience in order to be accepted. The average is actually higher than 2.