<p>What does one need in terms of GPA,GMAT scores,personal accomplishments ?How difficult is to get into a top Business School (Wharton,Harvard,Stanford,Stern,Johnson, etc) without any source of work experience after undergrad ?How difficult is to do it with 2 or 3 years only, as the average WE of Wharton graduates is 6 years.Is this only because they didnt have enough money and needed to work for 6-7 years before they can afford B-school or just because it is nearly impossible to get in with no WE ?</p>
<p>The WE is actually quite helpful to your experience. I’m not in business school (not yet anyway) but I know I am a much more mature person and better candidate than I was 2 years ago when I graduated…</p>
<p>^^Yes, but wouldnt you feel proud to go to B-school with much older (30+) and experienced people ? Wouldnt it feel better to make your first million when you are 28 than if you are 35 ? More mature, definitely, but more successful, really ?</p>
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<p>This shows your lack of maturity. That’s why you need to get a few years’ work experience.
You won’t make a million dollars out of B school if you don’t have several years of experience previously. Nobody will hire you.</p>
<p>Pimp Juice. </p>
<p>Because if you think you need an MBA make a fortune like that, you’re fooling yourself. Those types already have mad skills and natural ability. The MBA is so that you can compete. </p>
<p>If you think you’re going to own the world working for someone else, you’re already behind the curve. Partnership (Owning the pie) comes from “sweat equity” and sweat equity comes from within, not without.</p>
<p>Success and wealth are defined by your own value proposition. They come from within. When you understand that, then you are prepared for graduate school and your MBA.</p>
<p>^^No body says I can own the world by working for someone else.However, in order to start my own successful business, I need to work for someone else first.Just think about it.Graduate from college at 22-3, graduate from top B-school at 24-5, work for someone else for 5-6 years with a starting salary of …say 120 000$ + bonuses, then when you are about 30, you will have enough knowledge, experience, and most importantly, saved money, to start your own business.
However, this is just my opinion and I cant possibly know for sure since I am just a high school kid and maybe too optimistic about the future.My parents have always provided me with everything I wanted and in a way spoiled me.I don<code>t have any working experience, that</code>s why I am seeking your opinion about that matter :)</p>
<p>Only two schools come to mind for gaining admissions straight from undergrad. Harvard and Stanford. Go to their websites and you can find statistics on these applicants, they have whole profiles up to view at both schools.</p>
<p>These are usually very exceptional people that have a good reason to start an MBA program straight from undergrad, saving time is not a valid reason. After that if you dip past the top 30 schools then the acceptance rate straight out of undergrad jumps significantly. University of Miami for example has 20-30% of its class straight from undergrad.</p>
<p>Companies pay an average of about 100,000 starting salaries to MBA grads from the top 15-20 business schools because they have valuable experience. They are not paying these people solely on the fact that they are B-School grads. They have shown leadership in the workforce and the ability to succeed and grow in a business environment. </p>
<p>Even for these exceptional students who do gain admittance straight from undergrad do not get offers as high as there peers or have the ability to break into certain fields. </p>
<p>Also an MBA is a very collaborative environment that requires a significant amount of team work. What is your contributed value in the classroom to the “much older” students?</p>
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<p>Almost impossible. If you wanted to go straight from undergrad to a top B-school, not only would you need a 4.0 GPA and an 800 GMAT, you would probably needed to have started/ran your own business, grew it, and sold it for a substantial amount of money (i.e. millions). You need some sort of tangible business accomplishment to get into these programs. Most people do not have that absurd entrepreneurial experience, so they work for 4-6 years first.</p>
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<p>Still pretty difficult, but doable with exceptional work experience during those 2 or 3 years. Money is a factor, but not the reason you need experience first. See above.</p>
<p>^ I got the point.Thank you very much.</p>
<p>You’re confusing correlation with causation. </p>
<p>MBA graduates have high salaries.
Therefore, graduating with an MBA will give one a job with a high salary. </p>
<p>False. </p>
<p>As already stated on here, many students get high paying jobs after completing their MBA’s at high ranked business programs because they had the resume and work experience to get into that MBA program in the first place. The MBA is meant to be an instrument to make you competitive against your peers, not a starting platform. I know a student who graduated from my undergraduate college and got into HBS at the end of senior year and is currently the friend of a Deloitte on-campus recruiter who graduated with him (he graduated from UG a few years ago), and after getting in he deferred admission for 2 years so that he could work before attending. He’ll be attending there in this fall however. </p>
<p>From the very short list of college undergraduates in the world who I believe have the merits and credentials to get accepted into HBS or GSB straight out of college, I think the list is far fewer of those who are capable enough to attends either of those schools straight of college and successfully enter the workforce on an equivalent level to their peers upon graduation. </p>
<p>To be quite honest, your posts signal to me a high level of misunderstanding of what the MBA is meant for, and when coupled with your apparent lack of knowledge of the procedures of post-graduation employment and your obvious lack of maturity (admittedly no knock against you, are you still in high school), show that you’re still a few years away from even fostering this question. </p>
<p>If I were you, don’t worry so much about business school right now. Make sure you get into a good college, and when you get there get involved, get good grades, and try and leverage your networks in order to secure some great internships during the summer. In a few years, re-evaluate what your post graduation plans are.</p>
<p>By the way, if you want to know about the guy who got into HBS straight out of UG, I looked up an email he sent me a few weeks ago and this is what I can give away about him without giving away his identity: </p>
<p>White Male
Graduated from Cornell University
GPA above 3.9
GMAT above 750
Two summer internships with BB I-Banks (ML and GS)
Some type of Business/Econ related major
Ran a student consulting group on campus
Started and ran a non-profit while in school
President of a Business Club on campus </p>
<p>I’m pretty sure he’s been working at Goldman since he graduated. Just to give you an idea of what you need to do.</p>
<p>^ He was running a business while in school? He’s got mad skills and apparent natural ability. That guy’s got pimp juice. ;)</p>
<p>Seriously, part of the MBA experience is learning from your classmates work experience. The guy mentioned below has valuable experience and knowledge he can share with his classmates. That’s value that can be added to any MBA classroom. He also has a proven work ethic. Most graduate education depend on a lot of self study. The professors give you the guidelines of where you should go but it is up to the student to teach him/herself. You learn that type of work ethic on the job not in an undergraduate classroom. In undergrad you learn to listen, memorize, and regurgitate. </p>
<p>None of the programs teach you how to create or innovate. That is what the guy below was doing long before he got into college. Undergrad and HBS is where he honed his skills not learned them.</p>
<p>^^ All right, but then, how many years of WE are enough in order to have good chances of getting in ?Providing I have a gpa of 3.7+, GMAT 720+, do you think 2 or 3 years are enough ?Of course, quality > quanity, but still the number of years is important.</p>
<p>2-3 years are more than enough if the quality of work is good and you show good progression to a leadership role. </p>
<p>If you look at Harvard and Stanford average work experience and age for incoming classes you can see that the average work experience is 3.5 years and age is at 25-26 years old.
These schools trend to younger professionals. </p>
<p>Wharton on the other hand has an average work experience of 5.5 years and 27-29 years of age for their incoming class so certain schools have different criterion for what they want their incoming class to look like. </p>
<p>GPA is not a big factor at all in admissions when you have work experience, the middle 80% for Harvard is 3.1-3.6 GPA, that means 80% of the admitted class has that GPA. </p>
<p>For GMAT 700 is the sweet spot for top schools unless of coarse you are Indian/Male/IT which is a very competitive applicant pool in which the average is closer to 750. </p>
<p>The type of work experience is also a big factor in admissions, Consulting and Finance are also competitive pools so if you have this background you have to make sure you can stand out in the crowd. </p>
<p>Also consider that top schools are not created equal, if you want to go into Investment banking then Wharton and Chicago are excellent choices, if you want consulting, Kellogg comes to mind, Non-profit? Yale. Harvard and Stanford are good for all choices. Another choice to conciser is teaching style. Harvard is 100% case study method whilst Kellogg has experimental courses, lecture courses and case study courses mixed in. </p>
<p>How is your college selection looking btw? This should be your #1 priority right now because getting work experience in consulting or investment banking from a non target undergrad is exceedingly hard, even landing coveted leadership rotational programs at fortune 100 companies such as Intel, GE, Siemens and IBM are very selective and tend to target certain schools. Where do you plan to apply?</p>
<p>Well, I am international student from Bulgaria, and I will do my undergraduate degree in the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG) . It is probably not popular at all in the States, but it is one of the most reputed ones in Eastern Europe, meaning that I can get WE at a top firm/bank , etc. in the region.
I am also admitted to a few law schools in England (top 10 law schools, in fact), but I gave up on that career path.I applied to a couple Ivy League schools (Dartmouth , Columbia) , Univ. of Washington,Pomona, and Boston college.However, even though I will probably be admitted to all of them, I will have to pay at least 25 000$/year.I think it is better for me to take the full scholarship AUBG offers me and save money for Business School.Don`t you think so ?
I still havent decided whether I want to work as a consultant or investment banker or anything, the only thing I know for sure is that I am going to major in Business Administration and after that I would go to Business School in the USA.I can afford it, the only thing I need to do is to work hard.</p>
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<p>Insufficient for many degrees. For example, math.</p>
<p>OP: Dartmouth and Columbia are very very good schools. They will bring the top opportunities in finance and consulting to your doorstep. You should be sure AUBG can give you equivalent opportunities. If you find out it doesn’t, you then must way the narrower opportunities vs. the cost of Columbia/Dartmouth. If the gap is significant, you might want to reconsider.</p>
<p>one strategy to take an MBA shortcut is to pursue a jd/mba. of course getting into harvard or stanford law is tough, but if you can do it i think the corresponding mba program allows you in with less work exp. as you can argue the 4-year opportunity cost is best taken at a younger age. </p>
<p>all of the sudden 3.5 isn’t good enough though; you will really need 3.9+. you will also need testing abilities in the 750+ GMAT range (to correspond to a 98th percentile LSAT. obviously this is not a scientific conversion). </p>
<p>[Ask</a> the Harvard MBA Can a Harvard Law student become an investment banker?](<a href=“http://www.asktheharvardmba.com/2008/04/19/can-a-harvard-law-student-become-an-investment-banker/]Ask”>http://www.asktheharvardmba.com/2008/04/19/can-a-harvard-law-student-become-an-investment-banker/)</p>
<p>“One of my very good friends earned his BA, JD, and MBA from Stanford. McKinsey was delighted to hire him despite his lack of work experience, and he later become one of the youngest people ever to make partner at McKinsey.”</p>
<p>@giants92
^^ Yes, I realize this.However, I have spoken with many successul AUBG graduates who work at the moment for top banks and organizations in the country.Bulgaria is a member of the European Union and almost every major firm/company has a branch here.Most of the managers of these branches have graduated from either Western European universities or AUBG.Therefore, I am sure that if I work hard, I will find satisfactory work opportunities.Besides, I have a serious gf and leaving the country now is not an option :)</p>
<p>i mean this in the least offensive way possible. a girlfriend at age 16-17 should almost never factor into career plans unless she is pregnant.</p>
<p>Harvard 2+2 takes students right out of undergrad, however it is a program that is designed primarily for people that have majored in the sciences and engineering.</p>