MBA without any work experience

Question

how many colleges are there that offers MBA without any work experience?

Ducksworth · Answer

Even if a school accepts you, you shouldn't go to business school yet. It will be a waste of time and money at this stage.

suraj2312 · Answer

sir, how its going to waste?

mappleby · Answer

It's not worth going for a number of reasons. First of all, a large part of business school is class involvement and what you learn from your classmates. What value can you contribute to a discussion having never worked before? Sorry if that is blunt but it's the truth. Also the discussions will be less meaningful to you because you won't have any experiences to tie into the classroom topics. Nothing will be able to register and say, I remember when I got into that kind of situation or that would have been a better way to handle xyz.... And part-time work in high school and college doesn't count. I had a job of some sort since I turned 16 but until you are out in the workforce full time, after college graduation, it just isn't the same. That's why business schools generally don't care about any of those old jobs and don't count them in your work experience when you apply.

Also, the MBA is one of the few options for completely changing your career path. If you get an MBA right after undergrad you lose that option down the road. If you end up hating your job you can't use the MBA to re-brand yourself and switch careers. Also, and this may sound counter-intuitive, I think it will hurt your employment prospects. Think about it, you will be over-qualified for most entry level positions since you already have an MBA. However most employers hiring MBAs have an expectation that they have 3-5 years of previous work experience along with the degree. So you will be underqualified for most post-MBA positions but overqualified for pre-MBA positions.

suraj2312 · Answer

ok..i got whatever you have said and i think its the best explanation i got ever...now, i wil go for ms..but, can i switch to mba after few years say 10 or more if want ed to??

aerien · Answer

You can, of course, get a Masters now in whatever you're interested in and then decide to get an MBA at a later date. It's just a matter of figuring out your career path and if/when an MBA is a degree you need to get.

Despite everything that's been posted in this thread already (advice that I was once given in college and have found it to be extremely true!), if you do want to attend an MBA program straight from undergrad many US schools do take students with no work experience. Most are on the lower end of the rankings, but if know for sure you want to be in a specific city long-term, you can find a program in that area that will admit applicants like you. As far as top programs are concerned, you can only be admitted without work experience if you've already done something extraordinary (e.g., started your own company, played a leading role in your family's business, etc). Other top schools have automatic deferrals where you apply while you're still in college, but you're admitted after you work for a few years. Consider looking at Harvard 2+2 and Stanford for schools like that. If you want to go straight from school, Yale SOM has a Silver Scholars program.

If you want to get a Masters in something that gives you more of a business-focused education, consider programs like Duke's Masters in Management Science (MMS). It's geared for people coming straight from undergrad who did not have many business courses in undergrad.

Admissionado · Answer

He's right. Plus anyways, you won't really be able to get in (for all of the above reasons), sooooo maybe just work a few years first?

feellikequitting · Answer

Yes, go for it. Don't listen to any of these idiots guiding you the other way. If Stanford's business school encourages college undergrads to apply without prior experience, what makes you any different than the students who are getting accepted into these Ivy League schools. Harvard's Admission has a program specifically for undergrads without experience, specifically for juniors and seniors.

Future leaders can be molded easier into leaders opposed to people who are older, and have established stubborn patterns that can be changed. The best thing you can do is get your MBA while you are young. MS in finance or accounting wont be as helpful down the stretch of your life. Wo cares if you can't add input based on work experience, I'm sure you can problem solve other issues on a different note such as impact on culture and business, can you write code, do you have experience in building websites, most kids know HTML for basic code writing, old people don't know what HTML is. See my point, go for it, you could bring a lot into any classroom. MBA is golden, period. I wouldn't trade it for the CFA, MS degree, or any professional designation. MBA is highly favorable in any country, around the world.

mappleby · Answer

I normally try to be positive and helpful on these boards and not to attack specific posts but there is so much wrong with this response that I can't help it. It might also have something to do with the fact that a person who is clearly still an undergrad and has no experience with work or applying to business schools comes into a thread calling those of us with actual experience idiots.

I'm assuming you are referring to the Harvard 2+2 here which requires you to get 2 years of work experience before attending business school. You apply while an undergrad but then go out to work for a few years because Harvard, like us idiots on the forum, understands that work experience is an essentially prerequisite to a strong MBA experience. So that actually doesn't help your case it hurts it.

The fact that you think of those of us who are 27-28 years old, the normal age to attend b-school, are dinosaurs who don't know HTML just further shows how clueless you are. Not to mention HTML is worthless. If you believe that when people talk about needing to understand programming to be competitive today they are referring to HTML you are very off the mark. You should be learning Java and C++, learning about databases, things that actually matter.

And if you don't believe me just look at the class profiles of any decent school. You will be lucky to find more than 1% of students have no work experience. Maybe if you want to go to some Cal State branch nobody outside of 20 miles has heard of then you might be ok. But most people come to GMAT Club because they want advice getting into top programs. I suggest the OP and anybody else who reads this to take advice from people who have actually been through the process.

MacFauz · Answer

Haha... People hate online trolls.. But I personally feel that they can make any forum more lively...

mappleby · Answer

Yeah I probably shouldn't rise to the bait but I feel like this forum is different. Most forums half the people are just screwing around anyways but people come here for legit advice that can actually effect their future.

feellikequitting · Answer

See, the thing is that guys like you don't make it far in this world. In short, you are an idiot, egotistical, and lack integrity. Look it up in the dictionary. Guys like you work for me. Full of selfishness, greed and envy, oh wait I left out full of ****. I don't know you, and I can see right through you. Admin committees will see this on your essays, and will ding you for someone who knows about values. The things that matter in life you know nothing of, so far off. If you claim to have gone through the process encourage, inspire, lead others to do the same. Lead. Be an example. Build up on others, instead using your time to focus on the wrong or illogical thinking of which you claim that I have on my post, you could of used that to build someone up. I know the concept strikes you head on, because you've never been told to lead, and to be an example, you've been told all your life to be selfish and to look out for number one. Be different, quit being an asshole, and try to influence others for good, not just for your own agenda.

mappleby · Answer

Look I'll apologize for taking the cheap shot at your current school because that was unnecessary but I stand by everything else I said. I gave the OP very sound advice, as did a few others, which he appreciated. The reality is you sound very much like a 19 yr old undergrad. If you don't want to get attacked you probably shouldn't start a post by calling everybody else with far more experience than you a group of idiots. Then don't proceed to give really crappy advice.

I'm not going to bother addressing your second response and all the stupidity in it because it is honestly laughable and I don't care about your opinion.

jko · Answer

Now that all your ad hominems and random grandiose self promotion / insults are out of the way, lets address your actual concerns:
 
Believe it or not, this is what mappleby is doing. He wasn't telling the OP to never apply for an MBA, he was giving advice on how to make the most of it - "get some work experience first".

feellikequitting · Answer

Mappleby, I've just hit a wall with this gmat crap. I never meant to discourage you show this kind of behavior. This exam is getting the best of me, and I used this forum to vent today, I feel foolish. I'm frustrated with my studying, etc. Please pay no comment to my remarks. I took a CAT exam today, and frankly I bombed it, and I was angry. this forum is my only escape with people who do understand this process. If I could delete, I would.

I'm sorry, I was the a-hole. Honestly, I'm fed up with this f-ing exam. Any advice?, I honestly feel like quitting, and I'm about done with this.

I'm sorry, I was the a-hole. Honestly, I'm fed up with this f-ing exam. Any advice?, I honestly feel like quitting, and I'm about done with this.

Ducksworth · Answer

For starters, change your forum name to something "feellikeacing".

vincerich · Answer

+1 to this. Personally, I never understood why people get so stressed out about the GMAT. The test wasn't easy, but with a few hours of concentrated studies per day, it really wasn't that hard to crack 700. If English is your second language, then I can understand the frustration, but if it's not, I just don't get it. Spending $1000s on GMAT courses is nuts! When it comes down to it, if you get a 680 but you have a great story to tell, you've got a shot at getting into any school that you want. If you feel like you NEED a 760+, then your background is probably pretty weak, and you probably don't need to be in business school yet.

I know A LOT of people who got MBA's (from both top and lower ranked, regionally reputed schools) who are working jobs that they could have easily gotten by simply working after college. I know that getting a MBA is the "in" thing to do, but it's definitely not a golden ticket. From what I've seen, a lot of people rush into it because they realize that they forgot to major in business in undergrad. It usually doesn't work. Those people end up in the same entry-level positions that business undergrads. can get, but they have $70-100K in EXTRA student loan debt because of it.

Disclaimer: I waited a few years after college and got into a top school (that's also conveniently located in my hometown). I'd recommend following that path. I'm in my 20s.

katieb · Answer

A friend of a friend got into Ross straight after her undergrad at Michigan state. She wanted to go to med school but didn't get in. She's a human bio major. Not sure what her GPA was, somewhere between good enough for MBA and not quite good enough for med school.

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Posted from my mobile device

ARINGO · Answer

While most MBA programs expect students to spend about three to six years in the workforce before applying for business school, deferred admissions opportunities give candidates a guaranteed pathway to the MBA before having extensive career exposure. You can find a list of these programs here: https://aringo.com/deferred-enrollment- ... xperience/

JatinBhandari1 · Answer

Work before you do an MBA. See this example- without any work experience, when they are teaching you about sophisticated ways to create responsive and lean supply chains, you will be googling the definition of “Supply chain”. Use this analogy- If someone is teaching you the Newton’s second law of motion :Force = Mass * Acceleration” , and you are at a stage where you are figuring out what acceleration is, you will be far behind the learning curve.

If you do not have work experience, you will not be able to truly appreciate the effectiveness of an education in business.

If you and I both start our MBA Program at Wharton/Columbia/Harvard- and when we Graduate, we both will come out with different experiences primarily because of what we were looking for during those two years of study. Different people walk into an MBA program with different expectations, different mindsets, and different areas that they want to work upon. And they gather those expectations while working in a full time job before an MBA. If you walk in straight out of undergrad, you will have no Expectations.

If you work for 4 years, you will realise that your undergraduate degree is not sufficient to take you to the next stage. And you will discover that next stage only after going through the experiences of working with people, working with good/bad bosses, understanding the importance of communication. Even if you do not want to, you will still absorb a great deal of learning from your first 4 to 5 years of work experience.

When you take that 4 years of work experience to a business school, you will really REALLY Feel focused, and will know why you are there. I know that a lot of people are big fan of IIT - IIM model- without any gap or break. A lot of students in India feel that let us get over with our education in a single breath and then work for our entire life. This is true especially for women who are at times under the pressure of marriage by the parents who are genuinely worried.

But the reality is- if you do an MBA right after undergrad, your learning will be very very limited. It will be very theoretical.

For example- if you have to understand the impact of restructuring the supply chain on the shareholder value or overhauling operations and assessing the impact on people, leadership, teams- in these classes, you will first struggle to understand the right meaning of Supply chains, or operations.

MBA without any work experience

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