<p>I’m currently only an undergrad freshman, but I was curious if anybody had stats or could lead me to the ‘standard’ credentials of people who get into schools such as Harvard Business School. What is the average GPA? What kind of college activities have they participated in? I know that a large part of it pertains to how they have done in the workforce, but I am mainly interested in what kinds of things to do in college.</p>
<p>Ryan</p>
<p>3.7+ GPA from non top-30 schools.
3.3+ GPA from top schools.
670+ on GMAT.
Minimum two years work experience (in most cases).’
Great essays and interviews.</p>
<p>Thanks. When is the GMAT normally taken? Senior year of college?</p>
<p>Jpps is right, although for the cream there needs to be more balance, i.e. high GMAT to compensate for lower GPA or vice versa, and usually at least three and commonly 4-5 years of work experience. </p>
<p>GMAT is usually taken after college.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that a GMAT score is good for only 5 years. </p>
<p>The OP asked what can be done in undergrad? Simple. Whatever it takes to get yourself as good of a job as you can. You want to be able to land a job with as much responsibility and opportunity as possible so that you can build that work experience and get those killer rec’s that you will need. So if that means starting your own company, or joining the venture-capital club, or whatever, so be it. It is true that you can take any job and theoretically still get into a top business school. But the reality is that certain jobs are beter than others in terms of setting you up for B-school. </p>
<p>Hence, I would say that as an undergrad, this is probably the most important task of all for you - more important than grades (as long as they are decent), more important than formal college EC’s, more important than anything. Let me put it to you this way. It doesn’t really help you very much to get straight A’s and have great EC’s if you end up with a mediocre job upon graduation that doesn’t help you build the experience you need to get into B-school. It would have been far better for you to have done few EC’s, get decent, but not spectacular grades, and take all that time you saved and spend it on researching companies, interning with them, making industry contacts, etc. such that upon graduation, you end up with a great job that will let you build that experience.</p>