MBA school immediately right after BS degree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Thank you for posting. ... OP's son has not secured employment, yet has a stellar GPA in a difficult and valuable STEM major (CS) along with a superb 99% GMAT score.

Thank you for polite, constructive discourse here. I have taught at multiple business schools on the earlier Top 20 list. I don't know much about scholarships, but last year I wrote an exceptionally strong letter for a graduating minority applicant, who got 50%-75% scholarships to top specialty masters programs. The "sticker price" is not the real price.

M.B.A.'s are easy. You can get better, harder courses C.P.A. programs or math and economics departments. But business schools offer one-stop shopping, tailored to business applications. The first year curriculum is pretty standard (math, statistics, economics, organizational behavior, accounting, finance, marketing, supply chain). Then you can take specialized electives in the second year.

Traditionally, many top students got jobs on Wall Street or management consulting. Some students want marketing, technology, or entrepreneurship. Many don't know what they want. The M.B.A. was a career-switching degree. Engineers wanted to move into management, accountants wanted project management, and technologists wanted to try finance. The curriculum and summer internships help find what you like.

It is hard to fill a large class with students who won't flunk. We could fill seats with international students and inexperienced undergrads with 3.4 STEM GPA's and 640 GMAT's. They will also frustrate experienced classmates by failing to participate in class discussions. Then they might do well on tests and get good grades. But many don't know what they want, and will not get good jobs.

Some immature students take an incoherent mix of easy electives. Then they do a second masters program because they can't get a job. In contrast, I have seen older students who are weak academically do targeted career searches and get multiple good offers months before graduation.

Consider two opposite mistakes. In one case, you give up a $100K job and pay tuition of $85K per year. You are uninspired by your summer M.B.A. internship for Emerson Electric in Missouri. Goldman Sachs and McKinsey fail to magically appear and make you offers. So you accept a boring job programming in COBOL for Accenture consulting. You could have gotten two years of experience on your resume, saved $50K, gotten salary raises, and qualified for similar jobs or better scholarships.

Alternatively, maybe you hate computer science jobs and really want to do information technology applications in business. You might get stuck in a computer science job you hate, that leads nowhere. If you are focused, then you could do a one-year masters in information technology. Or you could even do the two-year M.B.A. and find a Silicon Valley internship and permanent job. But this requires self-knowledge and ambition.

My most valuable job was my dream job in Missouri. I hate it, and it helped me find what I really wanted to do. Sitting on your parents' couch will not do that.

[Anonymous]

Great post.

We do not know whether or not the OP's son has a specific career goal, but, for one in his situation, that is okay. Without a specific career target, OP would be a strong candidate for a corporate leadership program which usually involves 6 month rotations in different practice areas. Corporate employers want tech savvy MBAs.

[Anonymous]

OP: The key is for your son to know his options.

With his numbers, he can apply to Stanford, Yale, NYU, CMU, and many other Top 15 or Top 20 MBA programs. Let the admissions officers evaluate his application. Just completing MBA applications should be a reflective, growth experience for your son.

[Anonymous]

OP: The best advice I can offer your son is to stay away from negative people.

OP: If you son decides to enter an MBA program without any post undergraduate full-time work experience or with minimal experience, he should still derive a great deal of knowledge & personal growth from the program.

If your son is undecided as to his career goal, he should be offered positions with management consulting firms and, possibly, with leadership development programs at a major company such as Microsoft & other Fortune 100 companies.

[Anonymous]

OP should understand though, that there are applicants with the same numbers plus work experience who, all else being equal, are much more likely to be admitted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP should understand though, that there are applicants with the same numbers plus work experience who, all else being equal, are much more likely to be admitted.

That may or may not be true.

Of course, Harvard, Stanford, & Penn-Wharton are likely to get applications from those scoring above 740, but not as likely at the other Top 15 MBA programs.

MBA programs, like colleges & universities, are concerned with their yield percentage. As an applicant who is above every Top 15 MBA programs' median & average GPA & GMAT score, some programs will see an opportunity to get a student who otherwise would be a solid applicant to all three of these programs.

Typically, Harvard & Stanford have the lowest average age in each class among the M-7 or Top 10 MBA programs. Clearly, Stanford GSB is open to highly qualified applicants with minimal or no post undergraduate school work experience.

I suspect that programs like NYU-Stern & Yale_SOM will accept OP's son with a very attractive financial package.

Leadership, as mentioned above by others, is a sought after quality which can be demonstrated in many ways. I find it interesting that some top programs refer to "leadership potential" rather than leadership.

There are not too many applicants with a GPA above 3.90 and a GMAT of 780 or higher.