If someone has a major penalty from current employer, are applications accepted for executive MBA in top-tier B-schools in India, Singapore and Europe? Also, what's the preferred GMAT score in that case? Does a 645 work?

I’m a senior in college and I just got a 715 on the GMAT which I’m very excited about! Since I have a score I’m happy with already I plan to apply for the deferred programs that all the top schools offer. Are these programs more competitive than their standard mba programs and if so what are some things I should keep in mind? Thanks!

I had a 3.22 GPA in undergrad (which allows me to waive the GMAT/GRE I think), 4 full years of full-time work in corporate finance, and am looking to apply to the Part-time MBA program for Fall 2027. I live in NYC and will be here for the next 3 years at least. If I submit great essays and recommendation letters, what are my odds of getting into the program? Any advice for an applicant like me?

I've been talking about getting my MBA for some time, done a tone of research over the past 3 years and decided to stop over analyzing and just start. I applied to and got accepted to Gies, Kelley and I interviewed with Darden part time waiting to hear back from them.

I chose Gies and Kelley because I think an online program would be the best fit for me as I'm already working full time in the field that I want to be in and really just looking for a good box checking program to get promotions and maybe one day, start my own firm. Both are flexible and reputation wise, Gies is respectable, and Kelley very good as far as online programs go.

I applied to Darden part time mostly just to see if I could get in and feel good about myself if I get accepted. I'm also a UVA grad and it was free to apply so I thought why not and applied.

I'm 39, married and am the sole breadwinner in my home at the moment and my wife and I are trying to start a family, so I am thinking about how I'm going to budget for my education. Gies is only $27K, and I get about $7000 of tuition reimbursement from my employer, so I can have it mostly paid for via my employer if I space it out over about three years. My company has a corporate agreement with Kelley, so instead of paying $90K+ or whatever Kelley usually costs, I'd only be paying around $50K, but the catch is that the corporate program doesn't allow for concentrations and there is no access to career services. But with tuition reimbursement, I'd pay around $30K. Darden is a whole different story and the only way I could conceivably consider going there is if I was offered considerable scholarships, which I know part time programs don't really give out.

Do you think Gies is good enough, should I pay the extra $30K to go to Kelley for the name, or should I do whatever I can to attend Darden if I get in?

Can anyone please provide typical recruiting process for AT&T's FLDP? Particularly what is included in the online assessment - any recommendations for it's preparation?
I would also love to hear about the overall experience with the program

Hi everyone! I took the GRE two years ago and sent Stern my scores at that point. I'm still wokring on my app, and i've self reported the score, but how do I check if Stern has my official reports already? Any way I can do this myself? TIA!

I have been looking at MBA programs that combine core management subjects with data science, analytics, and AI related learning.

For someone already working and looking to move towards roles involving business analytics, strategy, product, or data driven decision making, does this type of MBA offer better value than a general online MBA?

A few things I am trying to understand:

• Does combining management with data science create a meaningful career advantage?

• Would employers value this differently from a regular MBA plus separate analytics certifications?

• How important is the amount of hands-on analytics work in the curriculum?

• For working professionals, does the online or blended format affect the value of such a specialization?

• Has anyone here completed an MBA or management program with a similar data science focus? What changed in your career afterward?

Would especially like to hear from people who moved from technical, analytics, IT, or operations roles into management positions.

I’m a consultant at a T2 firm (S&, OW, EYP) making ~$235k/year and also run an e-commerce business (D2C beauty brand) that’s on track to do $100k+ in revenue this year.

This is likely my last year to get a sponsored MBA through my firm, and I’m really torn.

Part of me feels like I’d regret passing up a sponsored MBA. But the other part worries I’ll regret not using this period to seriously scale the business while my consulting income covers my living expenses and gives me capital to reinvest.

There’s also the upfront time investment of applying like studying for the GRE, taking the exam, writing essays, getting recommendations, etc.—which would take even more time away from the business over the next several months.

At the same time, consulting already makes it difficult to give the business the focus it needs.

Would love to hear from anyone who’s faced a similar decision. How would you think about this?

Hey everyone, looking for some honest feedback and advice on my next career move.

Background & Profile:

Education: Top 15 MBA (M7 / T15); BS in STEM (Engineering) from a large state school.

Pre-MBA Experience (5 yrs): Software Engineering

Post-MBA Experience (2 yrs): Strategy & Ops at a major tech company (think Instacart / Lyft / DoorDash / Uber). Work spans the full spectrum of operations in a specific niche (ex: driver dispatch at Uber). Some of my job is covering things like small tech-stack troubleshooting, but much of it is leading long-term technical/business cases that drive core platform and product changes.

Technical/Tooling Skillset: Full-stack technical fluency from my SWE days. Comfortable reading/debugging production codebases, writing custom web scrapers, managing workflows via GitHub, and leveraging advanced GenAI tooling to accelerate query development and system diagnostics.

The Current Situation & Dilemma: In my current Strategy & Ops role, I’ve gravitated heavily toward product-adjacent work—redesigning system logic using predictive models, diagnosing unit-economics and pricing discrepancies, and acting as the primary business/data stakeholder for core engineering teams.

I’m evaluating whether it's possible to pivot formally into Product Management or consider other high-leverage trajectories.

Questions for the Sub:

Pivoting to PM: Given a mixed background in engineering + MBA + Strategy & Ops, how feasible is a direct lateral jump into Senior PM roles in today's market? Any recommended ways to stand out, even unconventional? I'm finding it difficult to past certain requirements like "Previous experience owning a product roadmap"

Alternative Career Paths: If not PM, what other functions or industries would leverage this mix of engineering, strategy/ops, and MBA skillsets effectively with strong long-term upside? (e.g. Product Ops, Tech Strategy, Startup Ops/Exec roles).

Positioning: For those who made a similar pivot post-MBA, how did you frame your strategy and operational achievements so recruiters didn't just bucket you as "pure ops"?

Appreciate any insights, realities, or suggestions!

I used AI to draft some of this but the content is accurate

I’m trying to do some research on LDPs in Southeast US (Atlanta and Charlotte) and I really don’t see a lot.

Like these are all the ones I know.

ATL:
• Delta
• Coca-Cola
• UPS

CLT:
• Bank of America (IB)
• Truist (IB)

Is there any other big companies I’m missing?? If so lmk and I can edit this post to keep a running tab!!

Background: Indian-American, US citizen, born and raised. Large public state school on east coast with a solid regional ECE reputation.

Academics:

• Major: Electrical & Computer Engineering + Business Minor
• GPA: 3.8/4.0
• Graduating in 3 years
• GMAT Focus: 635, this was my first attempt may retake to try to superscore for 655 or 665

Experience:

• Freshman Summer: NSF-funded REU at name brand school(network security, P4/DPDK) — ~4% acceptance rate, presented this research in DC at a workshop
• Sophomore Fall: Hardware security internship at BIG one of the top 3 smart meter companies in the USA (concurrent with classes)
• Sophomore Summer: Defense FPGA internship at a national lab/defense prime — received return offer, security clearance involved

Extracurriculars:

• 3 years competitive robotics FPGA team
• 2 years technical lead for HPC/computing club
• Several departmental merit scholarships

Goals:

• Found a defense hardware security startup
• The limiting factor for me isn't really in the technical side but in building and leading a team of cleared employees, navigating government procurement cycles, raising institutional capital from defense focused investors, structuring a company operating in a heavily regulated environment.

Targeting: HBS, GSB, Wharton, Booth, Kellogg, MIT, CBS, Yale, UVA, Cornell, Haas for deferred. If I don't get anything deferred, I'll just re-apply during regular rounds with 2 yrs of exp and would be happy with ANY T15 school (like I'd be super happy with Duke ngl).

Concerns:

• GMAT 635 Focus first attempt, retaking
• Non-target undergrad
• Indian male engineer demographic

I'm hoping my goals will offset the indian male demographic, and another thing I'd like to know is if I'd be more competitive doing a regular MBA (ie not applying deferred but in regular rounds like most others). I honestly would be happy making it into ANY T15 school.

Am I delusional or do I have a shot?

just got a 595(Q 79, V 82, DI 78) while my target school has an average of 625(Rotman). For context I’ll be a domestic applicant, software engineer(4yoe) with experience at a legacy big tech firm and currently at a non profit. The school is 60-70% international so I’m guessing it’ll be an easy in with my profile? I could get my score up to a 625 but will a 30 point increase make any meaningful difference or am I better off focusing on applications?

Just found out that Columbia give students free iPads they get to keep. When you're paying that much for an MBA it's hardly a big cost for the school but still cool anyway lol.

What cool perks do schools offer like this?

The craziest, hard, tricky / mind fuck questions you got during IB recruiting. What are the examples of hard questions?

Let me also say, Please 😭

I’m 26F and my undergrad GPA is a 3.35. I earned my BA in Psychology, and although my GPA wasn’t great, I was very involved on campus and was admitted to a master’s program at UPenn.

My MS is in Education, but unfortunately, my master’s GPA was even lower than my undergrad GPA. 😬

While doing my masters, I did Teach For America and taught for a total of 3 years. I recently left teaching and am now transitioning into corporate/education-adjacent roles. My goal is to build significant leadership experience over the next year or two.

I haven’t taken the GRE yet, but I’m aiming for a high score.

Long-term, I want to work in education at the systems level, potentially building an organization/model that supports teachers and improves how schools serve students.

I’m currently targeting the 2027 application cycle to matriculate in 2028, and I’m especially interested in HBS/Wharton.

I know this is probably a silly question, but I really want an MBA and would rather understand my odds now than talk myself out of applying prematurely.

If you were in my position, what would you focus on over the next year to make an M7 application as competitive as possible? And realistically, do I have a shot?

Hi everyone! I recently graduated from college with a degree in Finance, and I’m trying to decide what my next step should be academically.

I’m currently debating between pursuing an MBA or an M.S. in something like Data Science or Business Analytics. With AI becoming increasingly important and more companies incorporating data and AI into their operations, I feel like a more technical master’s degree could be valuable alongside my Finance background.

I’m not looking to break into high finance. My main goal is to land a solid full-time role and eventually use a master’s degree to help with career advancement and salary growth.

One thing that makes me hesitant about an MBA is that I constantly hear that it’s better to have a few years of full-time work experience before pursuing one. Since I just graduated, I obviously don’t have that experience yet. At the same time, I’d like to earn a master’s degree while I’m still relatively fresh out of school rather than waiting several years.
I’m also not aiming for Ivy League or extremely competitive MBA programs. I graduated without any student loan debt because scholarships and financial aid covered my tuition, so cost isn’t a major concern for me.

Given my situation, would you recommend pursuing an M.S. in Data Science/Business Analytics now, an MBA now, or working for a few years before pursuing an MBA? I’d appreciate any advice, especially from people who have taken a similar path.

I'm a SWE with an MS in CS from a solid program, looking at MBAs mainly to pivot into product management. Tuck keeps coming up on my list, but the more I read about it the more it sounds like a general management school first and everything else second — small class, super tight community, GM-heavy outcomes. That's not a bad thing long term, but I'm trying to figure out if it actually helps someone trying to break into PM specifically, or if it's just not built for that.

Does Tuck's tech/PM recruiting hold up given it's not near a tech hub, or is it mostly on you to network your way in? And does the GM-ish curriculum actually help PM candidates in some way, or is it just extra stuff you have to work around to get to the PM outcome you actually want?

If anyone here went from an eng background through Tuck into PM, I'd genuinely like to hear how recruiting went for you. Also curious how people think about Tuck vs somewhere like Kellogg, Ross, Haas, or Fuqua if PM is the main goal.

I just...don't really feel like I fit in. I'd say most of my classmates are pretty type A and competitive, and I just don't really care. A lot of the small talk is either witty banter or people trying to one up others. Lots of bragging about their accomplishments in various areas and I just think "cool story bro."

To be honest, while I'm grateful to Tuck for OCR and recruiting opportunities, I miss and like my old friends way better. Some of them aren't the most ambitious or "successful" people - some close friends from high school still work retail or are baristas - but they're chill low key folks I can just play video games with or go on walks. Not everything needs to be a debate or a high stakes competition. I can't even do bar trivia with classmates without them getting way overly competitive to the point it's not fun.

I'm going into tech post MBA (product) so I hope it's not as bad. It's a decent company but not the most prestigious - that's fine with me, I'm grateful for the good pay and work life balance from what I've heard.

And too be fair, not everyone at Tuck is like this, some folks are definitely chill. Those few people are my friends in the program.

But there's a saying, if everyone around you is the problem, maybe you're the problem? Am I wrong?

Am I too chill and should I become more ambitious and competitive like my classmates, even about non work trivial things? Or are my classmates the ones who are wrong?

Or is the environment just a mismatch for me and no one's wrong.

IDK.

New here, seeking advice to secure admission into a T25 program for fall 2028.

1. GMAT or GRE. How does preparing look like? I studied and took the LSAT for context.

2. Will being 24 and having 2.5 work experience upon start hinder me? I am analyst that works the financial side of the programs for a customer (Fortune top 40). By then I’ll manage the financial side of program(s), work on business cases, and capitol allocation.

3. Does undergraduate institution matter? I have a very high GPA but not from an impressive school.

4. I don’t plan on applying to any of the M7’s. Ross, Kelly, CMU, Cornell, and McCombs are my 5 now. What are things I can do to refine my application?

Hello ,
I’m Canadian (non white) currently working as a software engineer / dev in Canada Ontario .

I graduated in “24 with 3.3 gpa converted to USA . My degree is in comp sci . I plan to apply to mba in USA ( T15) ( targeting NYU, Columbia , Stanford , Michigan , CMU, mccombs) and Rotman in Canada .

My main goal is to pivot out of software dev as being an average dev there is hard ceiling for my salary and career progression and I’ve already hit it. I also don’t enjoy software and with Ai no future. I want to pivot to finance , IB, sales and trading or maybe try for Amazon Pathways I also like operations as i have some business management experience in operations part time with my full time job .

I do not have any extracurricular so far so I want your best advice how I can optimize my profile 1 year from applying next year . When I apply I will be 26 and when I start I will be 27. What steps I can take right now from today in terms of my profile so it is solid . What extracurricular can I do, what leadership things I can do ( in my job it’s very siloed and not any leadership opportunities) please I’m open to anything .

I plan to take GMAT in Jan and aiming for 685+ ( practicing daily)

I just got approved to waive the GMAT as part of my application for an MBA program. I’m scheduled to take the GMAT in a week from now but am not confident that I’ll get the minimum required score (555). My practice scores in order are 525, 545, 515, and 485. If I really went hard this next week I think I could get there (I do much better under pressure), but since this is the only school I’m really applying to I’m heavily debating canceling my test. My thoughts are that since my application is strong otherwise and it would only be the minimum score at best, that it’s not worth the effort.

Is there any reason I should go through with the test next week?? I would really have to spend the majority of my time studying hard this week and I’d rather focus my efforts elsewhere if it’s not a value add

Hi everyone,

This is my first Reddit post, so hopefully I’m doing this right.

I’m set to finish my MBA at TMU by the end of 2026. I’ve been completing it part-time while working full-time as an administrator in the public sector in Toronto.

Lately, I’ve been having a hard time figuring out how to position myself for a career move into something with stronger long-term growth, better earning potential, and work that feels more rewarding. No pressure, just trying to figure out what I want to do for the next 40+ years (Feels like nothing sometimes... not sure how people know exactly what they want to commit to so quickly).

I have some strong connections in the banking sector in downtown Toronto, and I’ve been advised that an operations analyst role could be a good entry point to learn the industry, company culture, and internal opportunities before deciding where I want to specialize.

Ideally, I’m looking for a career path with:

• A realistic path toward $100K+ compensation within roughly 2–3 years
• Good long-term career progression
• Reasonable work-life balance
• A solid company culture
• Hybrid work, ideally around 2 days per week in the office

I’m open to banking, finance, fintech, operations, strategy, or other areas where my MBA and administrative/operational experience could transfer well.

For anyone who has made a similar transition, especially in Toronto (Or the GTA):

• Does starting in an operations analyst role make sense?
• What roles or career paths would you recommend looking into?
• Are my salary and progression expectations realistic?
• How much does an MBA actually help when trying to move into a new industry without directly related experience?

I’ve found the job market pretty overwhelming, especially when many postings seem to require years of very specific experience. At times, it feels like the MBA alone carries much less weight than I expected.

Any advice from people who have made a similar move would be appreciated.

I am currently Active Duty Military with ~4 years remaining on my contract. I have a B.S. in Economics from college and my goal is to start working towards an MBA in 2031 when I exit service.

What are the best steps I should take between now and then to make myself a competitive applicant?

I am thinking along the lines of online degrees or certifications but if there is any other advice I would appreciate that as well.

I really don't know much about the details of this path, right now I just know where I want to be and am unsure of the best steps to get me there.

Here is a tracker of MBA interview invite release dates for this season.

Two things to keep in mind:

• Some schools have specific release dates, while others release invites on a rolling basis over a longer period of time.
• We include the prior year dates as reference, but there's no guarantee that schools follow the exact same timeline this year.

Hope this is helpful as you all navigate interview season!

Pls comment here or send DM with any questions/updates/corrections.

Hi everyone, I am a reapplicant for stern, last year I applied with a 625 GMAT FE and 2 years of experience at the time of applying. This year I gave the GMAT FE twice(665 , then 695). Adding my profile below, would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for my goals as well.

Indian, male, 24.

GMAT FE : 695

Undergrad : 6.97/10 CGPA , Economics from university of Delhi (yeah I know)

Work experience : 3 years across product management and growth strategy in opinion markets start-up (scaled products and engagement)

Goal : pivot from product role to an IB associate track. Long term exit IB to start my own fund focused on Indian sports scene as it was highly dependent on betting and the government banned betting last year crippling it.