Still a few paths to a top MBA within the coming year

It's January of 2024 - missed the R2 MBA boat and still want to start soon?

PART-TIME

Many have fully remote jobs these days and can work from anywhere. So, this
brings about the opportunity to relocate to attend a top part-time program
in places such as Chicago, California, NYC, Austin or Ann Arbor. The cohort
system with the Berkeley-Haas EWMBA, featuring full access to on-campus
recruitment, makes the program feel like a full-time MBA.

Both Kellogg and Booth PT have deadlines each season, rather than rounds, which gives applicants a lot of flexibility. Michigan-Ross’s online part-time program offers full on-campus recruitment, and those deadlines are just beginning. The NYU part-time program is more popular than the full-time program - you’d likely have some very interesting classmates. R1 is on Feb 15.

ROUND 3 – preferably of 4

Of course, there is R3, which often has worrying odds for overrepresented applicants, but if they have a R4, it’s still pretty viable (and, I have seen overrepresented clients even get into R4 with nice schollies!). Duke, McCombs, UNC, and IESE come to mind.

MID-CAREER: 8+ YEARS of Work Experience

Stanford MSx is due Feb 15 and Michigan-Ross has the Global MBA – where Round 1 is April 28th.

EU SCHOOLS & CANADA

If you are looking to attend b-school in a French-speaking country – they all have January intake with R1 kicking off March 12 for INSEAD – make sure to apply by R2/April 26 for scholarship eligibility. There are monthly deadlines at HEC-Paris and R2 at IMD on Feb 15 (and they have 7 rounds.) There are 4 deadlines at HEC-Montreal and R3 is on March 15.

At Ivey in Ontario, arguably the top school in Canada, things are just getting started with R1 due on Jan 29.

COLUMBIA JANUARY INTAKE

If you can achieve your goal without a summer internship, maybe explore various paths through in-semester internships instead, apply to January intake at CBS when the application opens in June or July (one and only deadline is around the last day in September but don’t wait until then, in my opinion.)

The acceptance rate is much higher the normal term because they don't have to mess with you in terms of recruitment (reputed to be 40%). This is ideal for those who want to work for the family business, our sponsored candidates or entrepreneurs. They are friendly to older applicants.

Hopefully one of these paths to a top MBA works for you if you want to start soon!