Top 10 B School

[Anonymous]

How important is it to have work experience in order to get into a top 10 business school? Son is in top 10% of class at an Ivy, has 760 GMAT, involved in student government plus completed a consulting internship. I see average work experience is around 4+ years at some of the top schools but I'm guessing there's a wide range of experience levels.

[Anonymous]

For an MBA? I think its pretty common to have a few years work experience before going back, but there must be publicly available data on this.

[Anonymous]

The top 10 MBA programs according to US News are:

1) Chicago-Booth
2) Northwestern-Kellogg
3) Penn-Wharton
4) MIT-Sloan
5) Harvard Business School
6) Dartmouth-Tuck
6) Stanford GSB
8) Michigan-Ross
9) Yale-SOm
10) NYU-Stern

Immediately beyond the current top 10:

11) Columbia Business School
11) Duke-Fuqua
11) UCAl-Berkeley
14) Virginia-Darden
15) Cornell

OP: You need to refine your question & consider sharing more information as to why your son/daughter wants to attend an MBA program without any full-time post undergraduate work experience.

Is he/she open to alternatives such as a current offer of admission conditioned upon completion of at least one to two years of full-time post undergraduate work experience ?

Is she/she open to attending a on year masters specialty or generalized business program ?

Which programs would your student most like to attend and why ?

[Anonymous]

The better programs don’t want you straight from undergraduate because they want you to bring work/world experience to the classroom. Also, your kid will have a better idea of what they want to focus on if they’ve tried a few things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The better programs don’t want you straight from undergraduate because they want you to bring work/world experience to the classroom. Also, your kid will have a better idea of what they want to focus on if they’ve tried a few things.

But, this doesn't really answer OP's question. Judging by the question posed by OP, it seems clear that OP understands the preference for post undergraduate work experience.

In the not too distant past, Stanford & Harvard had been the most receptive to young, inexperienced applicants while Northwestern-Kellogg strongly preferred post undergraduate work experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How important is it to have work experience in order to get into a top 10 business school? Son is in top 10% of class at an Ivy, has 760 GMAT, involved in student government plus completed a consulting internship. I see average work experience is around 4+ years at some of the top schools but I'm guessing there's a wide range of experience levels.

While post undergraduate work experience is important to top 10 MBA programs, the better question seems to be whether or not such work experience is required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The top 10 MBA programs according to US News are:

1) Chicago-Booth
2) Northwestern-Kellogg
3) Penn-Wharton
4) MIT-Sloan
5) Harvard Business School
6) Dartmouth-Tuck
6) Stanford GSB
8) Michigan-Ross
9) Yale-SOm
10) NYU-Stern

Immediately beyond the current top 10:

11) Columbia Business School
11) Duke-Fuqua
11) UCAl-Berkeley
14) Virginia-Darden
15) Cornell

OP: You need to refine your question & consider sharing more information as to why your son/daughter wants to attend an MBA program without any full-time post undergraduate work experience.

Is he/she open to alternatives such as a current offer of admission conditioned upon completion of at least one to two years of full-time post undergraduate work experience ?

Is she/she open to attending a on year masters specialty or generalized business program ?

Which programs would your student most like to attend and why ?

Thank you - this is very helpful. He has an offer to continue working for the consulting firm where he interned but hoped to continue on with his studies and knock out business school. We are encouraging him to work for a couple of years as DH and I did that before law school and it helped us find niche areas of practice. He is interested in a generalized program and would be open to a current offer conditioned on completion of X years of work experience - is that a common type of offer? His background is in a STEM field and would like to attend Sloan but, hoping to live in Boston, he would also apply to Harvard as well as other programs that have higher acceptance rates.

[Anonymous]

Another bigger question is what's the marketability of the MBA degree without significant real experience???

[Anonymous]

Very important. I think Harvard and Stanford have programs you can apply for senior year, where you’re guaranteed admission in two years, so at 24. But besides that, youngest people with be 25. 4-6 years experience seems to be sweet spot. The previous poster who said Northwestern likes more experienced candidates is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another bigger question is what's the marketability of the MBA degree without significant real experience???

Firms like Blackrock hire them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very important. I think Harvard and Stanford have programs you can apply for senior year, where you’re guaranteed admission in two years, so at 24. But besides that, youngest people with be 25. 4-6 years experience seems to be sweet spot. The previous poster who said Northwestern likes more experienced candidates is right.

Agree.

The MBA programs with the least average work experience are (in order):

1) Stanford
2) Harvard
3) Yale
4) Cornell

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very important. I think Harvard and Stanford have programs you can apply for senior year, where you’re guaranteed admission in two years, so at 24. But besides that, youngest people with be 25. 4-6 years experience seems to be sweet spot. The previous poster who said Northwestern likes more experienced candidates is right.

There are several elite MBA programs which offer this type of conditional early acceptance.

[Anonymous]

Chicago-Booth will give a little bit more edge to their own graduate, but work experience is a big plus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another bigger question is what's the marketability of the MBA degree without significant real experience???

Firms like Blackrock hire them.

Not without work experience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top 10 MBA programs according to US News are:

1) Chicago-Booth
2) Northwestern-Kellogg
3) Penn-Wharton
4) MIT-Sloan
5) Harvard Business School
6) Dartmouth-Tuck
6) Stanford GSB
8) Michigan-Ross
9) Yale-SOm
10) NYU-Stern

Immediately beyond the current top 10:

11) Columbia Business School
11) Duke-Fuqua
11) UCAl-Berkeley
14) Virginia-Darden
15) Cornell

OP: You need to refine your question & consider sharing more information as to why your son/daughter wants to attend an MBA program without any full-time post undergraduate work experience.

Is he/she open to alternatives such as a current offer of admission conditioned upon completion of at least one to two years of full-time post undergraduate work experience ?

Is she/she open to attending a on year masters specialty or generalized business program ?

Which programs would your student most like to attend and why ?

Thank you - this is very helpful. He has an offer to continue working for the consulting firm where he interned but hoped to continue on with his studies and knock out business school. We are encouraging him to work for a couple of years as DH and I did that before law school and it helped us find niche areas of practice. He is interested in a generalized program and would be open to a current offer conditioned on completion of X years of work experience - is that a common type of offer? His background is in a STEM field and would like to attend Sloan but, hoping to live in Boston, he would also apply to Harvard as well as other programs that have higher acceptance rates.

No this is not how it works. You don't "knock out" business school. It's not like law school. You don't need it in many fields. He should take the consulting job. If they like him, they may sponsor it for him.