What's the Rush?

Some people just can’t wait to go back to business school.

Returning for your MBA is a very exciting endeavor.  Business Schools are the DisneyWorld of graduate education…nobody fails out and there’s no dissertation or annoying thesis to write.  For a terminal degree, you really can’t do better than an MBA for return on investment either.  And it impacts your earning power for the rest of your career.  Why not go back and get this amazingly magical degree as soon as possible?

In a word, the reason to avoid rushing back to business school is: readiness.

While it’s true MBA programs do not require the extensive research prowess that most graduate degrees do, the tradeoff is that you must come having logged some impressive real world experience.  In a way, you must think of business school’s work experience requirement as your thesis---you spend 2-5 years in the school of hard knocks, and you “graduate” with the credential of perspective.

The perspective you offer in the classroom from your career achievements is your punch ticket to a successful admissions decision.

Very few business school students get into top programs without any work experience.  While it does happen from time to time, it’s often done by whiz-kids who started a business as an undergrad, got a perfect score on the GMAT, or knocked it out of the proverbial park with some kind of community-based impact story.  Often, it’s all of the above.  So if you’re one of those impatient types who thinks you can skip the heavy lifting and just go back to b-school straight out of undergrad, the stats disagree. 

Basically any school you’d want a degree from won’t give you a seat straight out of undergrad.

Trust me, you don’t want to go to that program anyway.  Why?  Because if they let you in without any work experience, then odds are you aren’t the only one.  This means your classmates also may not have much to add to the discussion, which when taken collectively means nobody is getting as much out of the experience in the program that they should be getting.

So suck it up, put away those applications and get out there and work for a few years.  You will thank me later.

For information on how we can guide your business school application process, email us at mba@amerasiaconsulting.com or go to http://www.amerasiaconsulting.com/contact