Hot MBA Jobs: Investment Fund Manager
Everyone who decides to spend time going back to business school and earn an MBA knows a thing or two about investments—going out and getting a graduate degree is an investment of time, resources and money. For some MBAs, though, the investment doesn’t stop there—investment management is a hot job for those moving on from business school. Continue reading…
A Rotman EMBA Diary: Classmates Become Family
Networking is something that every MBA understands. It’s either a necessary evil—if you’re apprehensive about meeting new people—or it’s just a way to meet new people, get a job, learn about various industries or simply get noticed. However, for Andrew Davidson and Abhimanyu Sood, two EMBA students at the Univeristy of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, networking didn’t just help them meet new people; it helped them to build a new family. Continue reading…
Toronto MBAs that DO NOT Require Work Experience
Getting into a top-notch MBA program is a huge undertaking. You have to ace your test scores, provide glowing academic transcripts, garner appropriate letters of recommendation, write intelligent essays and somehow impress the admissions office during an interview. It’s a daunting task to say the least. And it’s even more intimidating if you’re a recent bachelor’s grad with little to no work experience.
If you’re sweating over getting into an MBA program, we’re here to make your decision a little bit easier. We understand that it’s enough to sweat the GMAT/GRE, you don’t need to sweat a job too. So, to help simplify your application process, we’ve vetted the top Toronto MBA programs to find the ones that don’t require you to have work experience.
If you’re interested in more schools that don’t require work experience for their MBA programs then see our MBAs without work experience guide or our Canadian schools that don’t require work experience for their MBA programs page.
DeGroote School of Business – McMaster University
Work experience is required for all international applicants and for domestic applicants applying for the full-time MBA and accelerated MBA programs. Domestic applicants do not need work experience when applying to the co-op program. However, only one year of full-time, continuous work experience is required. Also, for graduates from a North American university, DeGroote will consider an undergrad co-op or internship placement (totaling 12 months) in place of work experience.
As for why DeGroote requires work experience, they feel that their students are most effective when they’re able to pull from their own professional experiences and background. It helps its MBAs to be able to contribute to group work and discussions.
Ivey Business School – Western University Canada
The full-time and accelerated MBA programs require a minimum of two years of work experience. However, don’t let that stop you. The key for Ivey is that they want MBA candidates who can contribute to the classroom experience and discussions with maturity and context. Also, Ivey admits that they will accept applications with slightly less than two years of work experience. So, if you’ve only worked for a year and a half, you can still apply.
Rotman School of Management – University of Toronto
At the Rotman School, while two years of work experience are recommended, there is no minimum requirement for the full-time MBA program. That means that recent undergraduates are more than welcome to apply. However, all applicants should be aware that the average full-time MBA candidate has 4.1 years of work experience. As for the part-time MBA program, applicants are required to have two years of experience and most students have at least six years behind their belt.
Schulich School of Business – York University
If you’re interested in attending Schulich, a minimum of two years of relevant post-degree full-time work experience is required. However, that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck if you don’t have the necessary experience. The admission committee also accepts life experience. In special cases, you can apply for the MBA program is you have two years of experience volunteering overseas or you successfully completed a 2-year masters program. Also, co-ops or internships that were completed as a formal part of your degree, and noted in your transcript, can be counted for up to 12 months of work experience.
Ted Rogers School of Management – Ryerson University
While the Ted Rogers School requires two-years of work experience, there doesn’t appear to be a full-stop if you apply directly after undergrad. According to the school’s FAQ page, students can apply to the MBA program directly after undergrad, they just have to understand that preference will be given to applicants who have a minimum of two years full-time work experience.
Lazaridis School of Business and Economics Wilfrid Laurier University – Toronto Campus
If you’re a recent undergrad, the Lazaridis School can be a viable MBA of choice with no work experience, at least for those that decide to attend the full-time MBA program with co-op. For both domestic and international students, no work experience is required for the co-op and, in fact, the maximum amount of work experience allowed is two years (no exceptions). As for the full-time MBA program, two years of work experience is required and, unfortunately, part-time and summer employment does not count. However, the school will accept six co-op work terms during your undergrad.
So, to recap, for recent undergrads the best “no work experience” schools in Toronto are:
- The DeGroote School of Business does not require work experience for domestic co-op MBA applicants.
- The Rotman School of Management has NO work experience requirement for the full-time MBA.
- The Lazaridis School does not require work experience for domestic and international co-op MBA applicants.
Advice From A Rady MBA
Getting into a top MBA program isn’t a simple feat, and the challenge doesn’t stop with admissions. After starting the program, MBAs are faced with a myriad of difficulties including the seemingly impossible challenge of balancing school, work and life.
For Aleena Karamally, an MBA student at the Rady School of Managment at UC San Diego, surviving her MBA program has taken “an abundance of ambition, drive and determination to tackle papers, projects and readings.” To help other MBAs in a similar position, she wrote a blog on the Rady website offering five tips for finding balance. Continue reading…
Wait, This MBA Is How Cheap?
An MBA can cause varying levels of distress. Price, of course, likely tops the list. But not every degree needs to reach the dreaded six-figure mark. In fact, some, like the brand new online MBA offered by the University of Illinois College of Business at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), are shockingly inexpensive.
$22,000. That’s all. For an entire online MBA.
Let those numbers sink it, because figures like that appear far too often when pursuing any kind of graduate degree—nevermind an MBA.
The UIUC online MBA—dubbed the iMBA—was officially launched earlier this year. CNN Money reports that around 265 students are currently enrolled at an average age of 37. The majority of those students reside in the U.S. with around 18 percent international students joining.
This is a massive development for online MBA programs, according to some experts.
“About 10 years ago, online programs were really the stepchild of course offerings,” says Chioma Isiadinso, a former Harvard Business School admissions officer.
“There was a stigma attached to an online MBA years ago, but today employers are not asking how you got the degree. What’s more important is where you went and what skills you learned,” he continues.
The iMBA was created in partnership with Coursera, which has been helping implement online programs at top institutions like Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania since 2012.
Nikhil Sinha, the Chief Business Officer at Coursera, says, “We’re catering to people who typically wouldn’t be able to come into an MBA program at this stage in their life, but still need it to advance their careers.”
Heidi Moore, a systems engineering manager at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, earned a bachelor’s in aviation from the University of Purdue, but was looking for a business-focused career. She, like many, was wary about pursuing a non-traditional MBA. But the pricing and flexibility of the iMBA program at UIUC was more than enough to convince her.
“I want to get a master’s to become business savvy, but I don’t want to get into personal debt to do so. To me, that’s a contradiction,” she says.
Enrollment for January 2017 classes is currently underway. Applicants are encouraged to submit GMAT or GRE scores, but it is not an official requirement. Click here for more information on the program.
The Entrepreneurship MBA in San Diego
When you think about the city of San Diego, the first things that probably come to mind are great beaches, beautiful weather and a laid back attitude. And while that’s all true, it’s not all that San Diego is. San Diego might not be Silicon Valley, but that doesn’t mean its startup businesses are any less impressive.
Between 2000 and 2011, over 25,750 patents were awarded to the city, making it one of the most innovative cities in the U.S. And the first nine months of 2016, 60 companies raised more than $811 million in venture capital funding, up from 76 startups and $806 million the year before.
What about for graduate school candidates? Does San Diego offer any effective entrepreneurship MBA programs? There are three that stand out. Continue reading…
