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According to a Wall Street Journal article, "No Experience Necessary," more MBA students are heading straight to business school after completing college.
One advantage of such a move, at least according to Wes Swank, a 29-year-old who completed his MBA at age 24, is that "going directly from college to business school [can help one] avoid jarring transitions." The benefit of not yet having a job means that you don't need to leave a job and put your life on hold for two years, he says.
The WSJ article cites the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) as stating that the under-24 contingency is the fastest growing group among people who take the GMAT. In fact, in 2010, about 40% of full-time MBA applicants had less than three years of work experience.
Some business schools, like the Loyola University's Sellinger School of Business and Management, are even going so far as to create special MBA programs for these young students. Sellinger's part-time program offers part-time learning with part-time working, so students get the classroom and hands-on work experiences simultaneously. Karyl Leggio, Sellinger's dean, explains, "We provide real-world experience to help accelerate their careers….It's sort of internships on steroids."
Harvard Business School's 2+2 program is another option for younger applicants. This program offers accepted college juniors a spot in a future HBS class, just so long as they first graduate college and then work for two years.
Similarly, Stanford GSB offers a deferment program where students can apply to the business school while seniors in college, and then defer for one to three years after graduation.
According to Dipak Jain, former dean of Northwestern Kellogg, "younger MBA graduates in many cases may be more appealing to employers, and younger students could help diversify business schools' student bodies." Young women, Jain continues, are also more likely to attend business school before they have families.
While this trend does seem to be on the rise, many are skeptical, especially in today's economy, that top companies will be willing to hire less experienced MBAs.
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