I am a physics/finance dual major 3.3 GPA in physics, 3.5 in finance, 3.3 overall.
I heard that you usually need to have work experience to get into a top school, which i don’t have. And to be honest, it’s not easy finding a good job with the current economic climate either…though perhaps i’m not looking in the right places.
Anyways, i’m certain that i can do well on the GMAT…but i’m not certain how well…are high scores enough to get you into a good school or is work exp a definite prereq. I heard that only like 1/10 students get into grad school right out of college…but it doesn’t say how many apply for mbas out of college.
If you are looking to get into the top 20 B-Schools you need to have a minimum work experience of 3 years. Even with 3 years work experience you can get into these B-Schools provided your work experience is extra ordinary besides a very good GMAT score. The average work experience in Top 20 B-Schools is around 4-5 years. You should also look for a GMAT score of 700+ to get into these B-Schools. If you consider the B-Schools with rank range of 40-50 the average GMAT score is 650. If you are bent upon the point that you have to join straight away you can get into some B-Schools but at the end of the day you may feel that you should have joined a better school after gaining work experience. So, if it is feasible I suggest you to work for at least 2 years so that you can plan to get into some good B-Schools. At the same time you will have ample time to prepare for GMAT because you need to score high in GMAT to get into good B-Schools with 2 years experience.
[color=red] Remember a very good GMAT score alone is never capable of getting you an admission into the top B-Schools.In addition to GMAT score to get into top B- Schools you must convince the admissions committee that you have some good work experience, leadership skills besides telling them your long term goals etc; for which I think you should definitely take some time. In fact I have written essays to the students who got admissions into some of the top Schools and I know how important it is to have work experience to get into top B-Schools.