For some, business school is a necessary evil on the way to your career. For others, it simply may be a way to take an unpaid sabbatical for a couple years to play golf and pick up a degree in the process. We did it for both reasons. But whatever your reason for attending B-school, we'd like to offer a few suggestions.
Take the GMAT now: We might as well get the most painful advice out of the way first. Believe it or not, taking the GMAT as an undergraduate probably is your best bet. The three or four years of work experience you gain after college before returning to business school probably will not prepare you better to answer the skill-testing questions that the GMAT administers.
We know its asking a lot to carve out time to take a standardized test, but you have more free time in college now than you'll ever have again. Trust us. One last tip: Take a Kaplan course, or get a book with practice tests. It will make a big difference in your score.
Learn the language: Getting into, and succeeding in business school partly is a function of speaking the language of business. Busting out phrases such as "integrated synergy paradigm" and "cross market matrix prioritization" impresses B-school professors, students, and admissions officers alike.
But there is a practical purpose beyond the fun of speaking such gibberish - staying current. An aspiring B-school student without a grasp of recent developments will fall flat on his or her face in an interview. Learning the language means developing an understanding, and that will make you a more intelligent conversationalist.
It also will go a long way toward helping you figure out which door you choose when coming out of B-school. You can build this vocabulary through regular reading of any respectable business periodical, such as Business Week.
Have good recommendations: B-schools, like most academic programs, require recommendations as part of the application process. As a general rule, most people don't give negative recommendations. Having said that, the better your recommendations are, the better your chances are of being admitted.
A common mistake is to have a prominent alumnus who doesn't know you well write a recommendation. Admissions officers see through this like saran wrap. While alumni-written recommendations are helpful, ideal recommendations often come from a boss who can write of you in an honest and forthright, yet flattering manner that paints an impressive, but believable picture for admissions officers.
Volunteer: While greed may be a commercial value, B-schools also look for people who have made time to focus on the needs of others. You don't need to change the world, but find time to make a difference.
Volunteering can also help you develop skills that you might not have the chance to acquire as part of your normal work life. A year out of college, you're probably not going to be calling all of the shots at work, but your could easily be a key leader on a charity fundraiser. Volunteering shows initiative and a sense of social consciousness. Who knows? You might even enjoy it.
Get a job: It's nearly impossible to gain admission to a good B-school, much less a top-tier school, without some work experience. With this in mind, a job before B-school can be a critical part of your application. But don't feel as if there is a magic job that makes you an ideal candidate - B-school students come from all walks of life.
The key to having a valuable job experience is in finding a job that will allow you to grow, achieve and gain more responsibility. You can do this in virtually any line of work, so find a job that you enjoy, and you're twice as likely to have a productive experience.
Enjoy your undergraduate experience:
It is a common and tragic mistake to think that you will relive you college days when you return to graduate school. For the most part, this is just not true. It's fun, but it's utterly unlike undergraduate life.
Sure, you're just as cash-poor as the average undergrad, but that's about the only resemblance you or your lifestyle will share with college. Your music, clothes, and movie references are antiquated anomalies. In fact, you're often the only person that thinks you're a student. Our weekly Thursday trips to Take It Away where we're asked if we're faculty or staff - never students - reinforce this notion.
The odd hours, the poor dining options and the academic stress might seem overbearing right now, but they make undergraduate life impossible to repeat. Bottom line: Enjoy yourself while it lasts.
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