<p>Hey,
I’m an Electrical and Computer Engineer (one of the toughest major at Cornell) freshman at Cornell University. I’m an Indian citizen.</p>
<p>I got some encouraging responses at the B-school forum; but,I’m asking this question here because many here are very successful Grad students and would be in a better position to evaluate my chances as an International student.</p>
<p>Here’s my High School Resume</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I want to do an MBA from Harvard, Wharton or Stanford after graduation from Cornell.</p>
<p>1.) What are my chances?</p>
<p>2.) What should I do over the next 4yrs to improve my chances?</p>
<p>3.) Will science related research be accepted by B-schools?</p>
<p>B-Schools dont look at the things u did when u were in High School. So ur deeds at Cornell will be the MOST important thing+ur Work exp, for B-Schools.
Best of luck!</p>
<p>Its not an important criterion, but B-Schools do ask for your HS Stats. I included my HS resume to give a vague idea of what sort of candidate I am, so that you could give some specific advise.</p>
<p>Apart from the 3 questions I asked, Please also throw some light on the importance of Work Experience.
People at the other forums were saying that I need some 4yrs of Work Experience!!! I can’t wait that long.</p>
<p>Arjun I have read your post in this forum and I might be of help in this whole evaluation process. Lets give this a shot!</p>
<p>Firstly I do understand that you have got yourself into an ECE major at Cornell which I do know is tough. Thats a great going because you already are in the Ivy gamut now. So transiting from one ivy to the other is not too much of a problem because they realize your potential. </p>
<p>But like you said that you intend to do a MBA program in either Harvard Business School, Stanford or Wharton. Choosing between these colleges is a major challenge so the safest thing to do would be to just apply to all of them. </p>
<p>High school stats are essential in a certain aspect while applying to these schools as they need to understand the students capabilites right from the beginning. In this case you have done just that. You have strong high school background which has worked your way for Cornell and will do so during MBA too!</p>
<p>Now answering your questions:</p>
<p>Your chances of getting in for MBA are high I must say that. But you need to do plenty of ground work before you take the plunge. I can see that you are ready for that. </p>
<p>What you need to do over the next 4 years is to prepare for GMAT extensively and make sure you get high scores on that. I am talking about you touching a 700 plus for sure. Also you do need to have work experience when you apply. A normal MBA batch has a work experience average of 4-5 years. Although in my case I had shown one year experience but managed to get in. </p>
<p>I think you should pick some economics minor and accounting minor at Cornell. That way you are demonstrating to the porbable college that you are already thinking of business studies. You could also give the CollegeBoard CLEP examination in accounting,management and prinicples of marketing. This would help a lot.</p>
<p>Doing science related research will not really help to get you into a B-school. Probably for Ph.D. in some science related field it would definitely help. But if you are looking at science related field research then what you could do is probably bring in aspect of marketing and finance into it and do costing analysis/projection analysis of a product in which you plan to do research in. Or you can talk about how you would probably market the product. This way you are adding dimensions to your research and trying to tell the B school that you are geared up for them. </p>
<p>Do make sure you take a break and work for a year or more before you step in for MBA. It really helps. Also you could probably look at is assistanship with a Harvard/Wharton/Standford research professors. It would boost up your application.</p>
<p>I guess these would help you get into your dream MBA uni.
Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Top level MBA programs strongly, strongly prefer that you have at least 1-2 years of work experience before you apply. They feel that it will better inform your experience at B-school, that you’ll be more valuable as a member of the class if you have some “real world” work experience behind you, and they also know that employers prefer MBA candidates that have had a couple of years of real work behind them. </p>
<p>In addition to Harvard, Stanford and Wharton, you should also look at the following extremely elite graduate business programs:</p>
<p>Dartmouth/Tuck
Kellogg
MIT’s MM in Management (great for engineers!)</p>
<p>And you may also consider Duke</p>
<p>When I recruited people coming out of MBA programs, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, Tuck and MIT were the schools I specifically looked at. I was toying with recruiting at Duke, but didn’t for various reasons, but I still have a strong respect for that school.</p>