josemnz83 wrote:
I'm interested in going to business school in two years. I graduated from TAMU with a 3.5 gpa. I'm planning on taking the GMAT next summer. I have 5 years of experience working as a teacher. 2 of those years I have worked in a supervisory role. During my five years I have received awards for outstanding performance. Would it be in my best interests to try to seek a position in the private sectors to make my application stronger? I'm afraid that business schools would want to know why a teacher wants an MBA, especially selective schools. At the same time, the reason that I want to gain an MBA is because I want to be involved in education administration (i.e. financial officer for school district, etc). I'm in no hurry but would appreciate any advice you may have for me.
FYI: I'm aiming for TAMU or Rice.
You're good to go, do not enter the private sector! Rice has a great program, and Houston is a hotspot for ed reform right as you know. If you're open to schooling outside of Texas, there are some schools out there where you can get a dual degree in education administration, Michigan Ross being one of them. Stanford is another. USC at one point had a MBA/EdD program which may or may not exist still. And maybe NYU had something too. In any event, a lot of the traditional top 20 MBA programs are pipeline schools for
Education Pioneers which will put you in that finance or operations role. Even without the dual degree, I would check on Yale, Haas, and Fuqua as well as they all have great non-profit and education-type people and clubs. A lot might depend on your GMAT with some of these programs, but just some things to look at as you're exploring graduate school!