I'm interested in potentially getting a top 15-20 MBA and it's quite possible that a substantial amount of my resume at the time of applications will be real estate entrepreneurial experience. It seems that Bschools like social enterprise and tech start-ups, but how do they view boring / non sexy businesses?
What if you are moderately successful and earn 0.75M-1.5M (up until application, not annually) from businesses for yourself?
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Why do you need to go to business school in the first place?
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Not from India, buddy
It's all about how you sell yourself. In term of admission process, most of the adm directors will be from liberal art background and will have nothing to little business experience. They want to see how you perceive yourself: are you at the stone cutter or the cathedral builder? They probably also want to see you not getting intimidated by GS, McKinsey classmates and overcompensate by telling them what you think they want to hear ($1mil revenue, blah blah). Most importantly why mba and why now? If you can't even sell them the BS how can you tell a persuasive story to mba employers?
it's doable assuming your stats are where they need to be. ideally, you have a blue chip name on your resume as well
Bump
Hard to speak conclusively since "entrepreneurial experience" could be anything from Mark Zuckerberg to my unemployed uncle, but in general I think big-name schools are trying to open themselves up a bit more to entrepreneurs.
Consider the new MS/MBA at HBS:
quoting from link:
What are typical students’ backgrounds? MS/MBA students aspire to lead technology ventures. They have undergraduate degrees in engineering, computer science, or a related field, with a record of academic excellence. They have at least two years of full-time work experience, ideally in designing and/or developing technology-intensive products.
For another data point, there's Cornell's new tech campus in Manhattan.
Neither directly addresses your point about how they view entrepreneurship among applicants, but their heightened focus on producing tech entrepreneurs suggests that, at the very least, the space is on their radar.
as you note, tech startup types get a lot of the visible love, but I don't think that necessarily means they're averse to non-tech startup exp (at some level, starting a biz is starting a biz). I think it's more that tech startup types comprise larger portions of their potential applicant pool.
Are you tired and want to join the corporate world back - if yes do it and i don't see any reasons why admission won't take you unless you fuck up your GMAT. $250K for 2 years is a chunky amount of chunk to consider if your sole goal is to get back into entrepreneurship.
You're fine assuming age, GMAT, etc aren't materially different from the profile of the school you want to go to. But your post begs the questions: "Why are you shooting for a Top 15-20 school? What do you want to get out school?":
One downside of startups for b-school apps is that adcoms can't benchmark easily from one candidate to the next. I.e. a "sales manager" at company X might have been running a team of 6 salespeople, signed the first anchor client and done $20mm in business while the CEO or COO of another startup might have been managing a rinky dink operation that never really went anywhere. So bear in mind a few things:
I'll note that I think the resources for entrepreneurship at top schools are pretty awesome - there are a lot of swings at getting funding for your business in addition to hands on guidance in developing your ideas. That being said, the resources are best concentrated in the best schools. I'd aim higher than the 15-25. Talk to people in the various programs. It's a wide gap. The real benefit of b-school for entrepreneurship at a top school is current access to VC's, future resume stamp when talking to VC's, being surrounded by the best and brightest aspiring business minds (don't discount the value of the dozens to hundreds of conversations you would have with very intelligent classmates that will allow to refine your model) and the network. It's not just about the coursework (which is better too). At a lower ranked program, everything outside of the coursework is highly diluted in relation.
I tend to disagree with some of the stuff you are saying: "better course work", "bright classmates" etc... I had a very different experience at a H/S/W school - a lot of the kids are way too full of themselves and keep on bragging that they are the best. There are some bright ones in the pack, but for the rest it will be: 25% of charisma less consultants and a lot of people who came from relatively straightforward jobs looking to move to private equity (and end up in banking).
What I will agree in terms of fundraising etc... Going to a top school will vindicate any VC for having invested in you when the business goes tits up. Never underestimate that, VCs unless they are founders are pretty risk averse. No one will tell them off for having backed the Harvard kid, but they will get a proper bollocking for having backed the guy who went to the University of Phoenix.
Good perspective. In terms of coursework, the benefit to me is twofold:
Courses spend less time teaching the material and spend more time challenging people's viewpoints in class. I've spoken to a lot of friends at other schools land it is absolutely a differentiator.
The professors tend to be incredibly experienced and connected. You'll be learning from leading academics in entrepreneurship or those that are active in the industry (i.e. they're VC's themselves, etc).
I went to Booth, and I think we skew towards the more humble/less douchey crowd, so that could be true. I found very few of my classmates to be abrasive or think they are the best. Rather, I found a lot of very intellectually curious people who spent a lot of time trying to understand others and their ideas to refine their own thinking rather than assuming that they're the expert up front.
As a consultant, I need to disagree on the charisma front :)
;) A guy I met at work went to Booth - top guy. I really have nothing to say except that he is humble and really good at what he does. Maybe it's something in the water.
Entrepreneurship story to B School (Originally Posted: 09/06/2011)
hey guys,
so am thinking about applying to b school this year. let me know your thoughts on realistic chances of getting into top 10 schools...thanks. brief background
School: mid ivy GPA: 3.15 econ major (low i know, was half-ass premed major first couple years before being weeded out) Extracurriculars: fraternity stuff, habitat for humanity, church stuff Ethnicity: Chinese American Age: 29 at matriculation GMAT: 720
Work Experience: Analyst, offered direct Associate promotion at top boutique (Greenhill, centerview, Evercore, Rothschild)
Turned down associate promote to start internet company with friends. built, developed launched and grew the business but didnt really take off and we sold technology to another company. not really a win, but can spin it positively. did that for 2 years.
am working on launching another company now but am planning on applying to B school with the enterpreneurship story...
what are my realistic chances at stanford gsb, MIT, haas, wharton, darden, booth (top entrepreneur b schools)?
thanks guys-
Bump...Bump...Bump
I think asking to MBA consultant on WSO would be more helpful for you. Below is the link
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/ask-stacy-blackman-consulting-bus…
Wharton’s MBA class of 2012 the students scored in the range of 650-770 in their GMAT and the median GMAT score being 720. At UVA Darden Middle 80% 650–740 with Mean score 699, similarly looking at MIT Sloan MBA class profile of 2010-11 the Middle 80% GMAT scores ranged from 670 to 770 and the median score was 720. Hence a score above 700 is desirable when applying to top schools in US.
If you wish to apply to top business schools then one of the prerequisites is having significant work experience. Generally candidates have around 4-5 years of full time experience in spite of several term time projects or jobs; so you may be competing with other candidates who have 4-5 years of full time experience and have started significant initiatives at college.
Hence, we would advise you to gain some full time work experience before you decide to apply for an MBA. If you don’t wish to do so them, you could look at the HBS 2+2 program or the Yale Silver Scholars program.
Regardless you might need to prove to the admission committee that your GPA won’t be an issue. If you can tell in your application about the skills that you gained at work and beyond in the areas you had scored low could and how confident you are in those areas now it could put you in better position. You need to indicate a positive learning from your bad experience. If you took any extra classes or courses in the subjects that you didn't do well and highlight your zeal to learn and improve it could also improve your low GPA situation.
Per usual, FutureWorks doesn't know what it's talking about.
I'll give this a shot; think i've read enough of Alex's posts to try. :) I'm sure someone who does this for a living may provide adjustments/additional insight
To the OP, a few things stand out: 1) Your age. 29 is definitely on the upper range for a few of those schools with the majority of the older applicants being military guys, etc.
2) Chinese-American - unfortunately, an overrepresented group in the applicant pool, meaning you really need to stand out either through GPA or GMAT.
3) Low GPA - as you mentioned, it's definitely much lower than the norm. Hopefully, it's upward trending? At least you graduated from an Ivy. Stats at top bschools would suggest they give strong consideration to the Ivy schools.
4) Entrepreneurship - could go either way on this one. You at least have some good, real world experience that will back it up (i.e. you're not perpetually starting/failing at new ventures). You will most likely be employable, post-graduation.
Extreme Reach: Stanford/Wharton (but if you can part with $500 and don't mind spending the time, why not).
Reach: Booth/Sloan [both schools have taken some not-so cookie cutter applicants in the past)
Sweet Spot: Darden / Haas
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