"Early Career," etc. Business School Options

agreed. you should be able to get a job as im sure your schools alumni network is pretty strong, so i dont know exactly why youre worried. at least work for two years before you see bschool as an option.

and you wont get in. trust me, its made very clear that for top MBA, you need work experience. and if you dont go top mba then an mba isnt worth it altogether

I'm concerned about the job market because I'll be recruiting in less than six months, and my impending summer internship, while something that will confer considerable substantive experience, has zero name recognition, just like my undergrad school (since it's tiny and in the middle of nowhere, although highly ranked).

Highly ranked is definitely not useless. Tiny schools that are highly ranked and prestigious still carry weight - unless of course it is highly ranked by a few alumni and no one else (or something like that). I would agree with the previous posters - limited work experience is not the same thing as zero work experience. The purpose of the MBA is not just what it can do for you, but what you can do for it and your classmates. Coming from a small ugrad, no work experience and a bit of club experience on your resume will not be a big standout as required by top MBA programs. Additionally, I don't see why you'd want to run to an MBA program without some quality experience to really see what you want to do, build some experience, some background and some marketable skills.

Recruiting in general, although not booming, is definitely up. Don't run away from this market, push for something, excel in it, advance and then push for the B school option, if you still want it. Don't rush the end of your academia - the MBA is usually the last step - let it come when you're ready and really need it; not when you just don't want to be bothered by the burden of job hunting.

There are a handful of straight out of undergrads and this is growing, but unless your daddy was a rockstar and can hook you up with a job after, would advise against it. A lot of these students had little to add in class (don't add anything meaningful to class discussion due to a lack of life/business experience), have problems recruiting (except for the consultancies) and you lose the call option later in life to career switch which the MBA is all about.

My ugrad school is W&L, to provide some clarification.

One of my biggest concerns IS recruiting without having had prior experience.

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/fulltime/admissions/early-enrollment/

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/collegestudents.html

From Wharton FAQ's:

"We welcome applicants directly from undergraduate school who are motivated and exhibit strong leadership and managerial potential. In preparation for the Wharton MBA program, the stronger your quantitative background, the better prepared you will be to take finance, statistics, accounting, economics, and other quantitative courses offered in our curriculum. Calculus and/or statistics are good foundation courses. We do accept students without this type of background, but we like to see evidence of a capacity to handle these types of topics (e.g., strong quantitative GMAT scores, strong academic performance in quantitative subjects). We are also interested in your history of involvement in extra-curricular activities, community service, and hobbies. We advise undergraduates to apply in the Fall prior to the academic year in which they want to enroll in the program. Admission to the program is contingent upon successful completion of the undergraduate degree. We do not offer deferred admissions for those applying while still in an undergraduate program."

and from Darden:

"Darden does not require a minimum number of years' work experience prior to entering the MBA program, and it is important for you to assess your own readiness when deciding to apply. Successful candidates are able to demonstrate strength in our criteria regardless of the number of years of their work experience."

Are all these assertions that schools make legitimate? Or is it absolutely a waste of my time to apply for MBAs? I plan on taking the GMAT this summer regardless (and pocketing the score for 5 years), and applying to the UVA McIntire program, Vanderbilt's MS Finance, and a few others.

All the points posters have made above are good reasons for not trying to go to business school right out of undergrad. But the most important point is one that hasn't been said yet...

The biggest value of working before going back to business school is that it gives you a chance to figure out what you want to do -- or at the least, figure out what you don't want to do. Most people are going to decide that their first job out of undergrad is not the career they want long term, as it's hard to understand what kind of work you'll enjoy and be good at on a day-to-day basis until you've actually experienced it. Business school offers just about the best reset button you can get if you want to change careers while staying in the business world.

If you don't know what you want to do yet then you definitely should NOT go to business school yet. B-school is not designed as an opportunity to spend 2 years deciding what you want to do. Because summer internship recruiting at most of the top schools starts within a couple of weeks of the day you set foot on campus, it's important that you have some idea of what it is that you want to do when you graduate with your MBA. That doesn't mean that you won't change your mind -- many students do. But if you arrive on campus without an idea of what you want you won't have time to explore all the options available.