It can be all business with b-school applications, particularly when it comes to fulfilling certain admissions requirements. More and more prospective b-school students want to make the leap straight out of undergrad into an MBA program.
It makes perfect sense that students want to get a leg up, considering the ruthlessness of the job market. The catch? It’s tough to snag any real-world professional experience when you’re bee lining from one campus to another. But never fear! Despite the fact that work experience on your C.V. will go a long way to strengthen your profile, more and more MBA programs have taken note of this particular dilemma and loosened or abandoned the professional experience requirement all together.
Here are a few MBA programs in the Baltimore area that don’t require professional experience from applicants.
Baltimore MBA Programs that Do Not Require Work Experience
Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins
Carey counts WebMD CEO Cavan Redmond (’87), Bank of New York Mellon President Karen Peetz (’81), and Candy Carson (wife of Ben Carson) as notable alum. Although most students at Hopkins-Carey MBA have “an average of 2-to-5 years of professional work experience,” the school has no “minimum requirement.”
Perdue School of Business at Salisbury
Established in 1986, Perdue is the “largest college-level center for business education and development in the region.” No work experience needed at Perdue-Salisbury, although the school adds points to applications with “qualified work experience at the middle-management level or higher, with supervisory/budget responsibilities.”
Merrick School of Business at the University of Baltimore
With an alumni network of 26,000 strong and 45 full-time faculty members—including 6 Fulbright scholars—with expertise in government, defense, health care, technology, finance, U-Balt’s Merrick School of Business offers a compelling bang for one’s buck. While “the majority of UB MBA students are full-time working professionals with an average of five years of work experience, the school does admit many highly qualified recent college graduates.”
Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland
UMD’s Smith School of Business does not specify work experience as a requirement.
Sellinger School of Business at Loyola University
Lauded by The Princeton Review for its capacity to “prepare students to lead in a global economy” and ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of 2017’s Best Graduate Schools, as well as one of the top 25 b-schools for accounting (#24), finance (#21), and information systems (#18), Sellinger does not require work experience for admission. Although the school states that a “minimum of two years of work experience [offers] an important edge in the admissions process.”