I saw on Cornell Johnson's FAQ page that they might be willing to accept applicants straight out of undergrad with no work experience.

They state on their website that:
"Each year, we admit a small number of individuals who come straight out of an undergraduate program. Since we want all of our students to succeed in their MBA program and beyond, we try to identify those individuals who will hold their own in an environment where most of their peers have some job experience."

I am a rising junior in college right now and am convinced that an MBA is in my future and intend to apply to several deferred admission programs during my senior year. I was just wondering to what extent this has been done before and what kinds of applicants they would be willing to accept straight out of undergrad.

Hi, I knew that they admitted students from Cornell undergrad to do dual degree for MBA. So I think you can try, what you need is a compelling essay/story to tell them why you choose to pursue MBA right after undergrad.

I graduated from undergrad last year, and was admitted to Cornell MBA'21 with 2 years of work experience. So nothing's impossible, you can even have full time work experience while at school. I've done it!

Good luck, MBA is such a big commitment and a long journey ahead. Wish you all the best!

mytilene

Even if you know that you want to get an MBA, it doesn't mean you need to do that right out of undergrad. I actually wish that I had waited to get more experience; I would have gotten more out of the MBA.

If you don't have work experience all the concepts they talk about have nothing to hang on, you don't have any reference. It’s like hammering a carpet to a wall hoping it will stick but it just slides off. I got a lot out of my case-based classes because I have a good imagination; but lecture not really.

Deferred Programs do require you to get the work experience before you attend, so that's a bit of a different thing. Applying to go to business school directly out of undergrad along with applying to deferred programs is mixing apples and oranges. If you are accepted to Cornell to go right out of your undergrad and also accepted to HBS 2 + 2 are you really going to go to Cornell? Do you see what I mean?


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