Why I’m Not Getting Either A Part-Time MBA Or An Executive MBA

MY STATUS AS A CAREER CHANGER

The abbreviated version of my goals include transitioning from full time employment and part time entrepreneurship to full time entrepreneurship. I also plan to do so within the same general industry that I work in 9 to 5, a fact that makes my goal a reasonable one that can easily be backed up with prior experience and training.

QUITTING THE JOB

Being that I’m an entrepreneur, I’ve never been particularly attached to jobs. Any job that I have ever had has served two purposes and two purposes only: 1) to pay bills while I worked something else on the side 2) to develop skills that I could use in the development of my own enterprise.

When you cross reference that little piece of info with the fact that I took a pay cut to come to my current job (it was about a 700% better opportunity for about 75% of the pay) it becomes apparent that I wear no “golden handcuffs” (job perks/pay so great that you have a hard time leaving, even when you hate the job itself–although, I love my current job; it was my previous job that I hated).

THE NECESSITY OF GETTING A FULL-TIME MBA

I’ve had some level of success in my past business ventures; however, it has never been enough to “take me over the top” (leading to burnout, then starting again from the drawing board). To that end, I’ve identified several skills that an MBA will provide. Additionally, the network of a strong MBA alumni (certain schools in particular) will be critical in helping me meet the goals that I will be outlining in my upcoming b-school application essays.

Finally, the experience that I am looking for is geared more toward transformation and less toward taking some classes to be a better “manager”. Honestly, the latter is just not an exciting enough reason for me to pay big bucks and sit in class for two years; I wouldn’t even bother with an MBA if that was all that I wanted to do with one.

THE HARD CLIMB OF TOP 10 MBA ADMISSIONS–POST 30

Once I accepted the reality that a full time MBA was the way for me to go I stumbled across pages of online op-eds and the like stating that “over 30″ MBA applicants to top 10-15 programs might have better chances of success by collectively donating our organs to the world’s largest pink slime factory; I disagree.

Though there is a persistent rumor that admissions rates are lower for older applicants, the opposite of that rumor may in fact be the case. Also, due to the common 30+ responsibilities (families, mortgages) that I mentioned earlier a full time MBA program is too much of a commitment for most people in my demographic; hence, few bother to apply to more than a local, part-time program to begin with.

Nevertheless, those of us who are over 30 have specific challenges to overcome if we hope to earn a spot at a top-rated business school. My search to identify and hedge against those challenges inspired me to start this blog.

MBAOver30 offers the perspective of a 30-something, California-based entrepreneur who is applying to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Northwestern, Berkeley, UCLA and the University of Southern California. He hopes to gain acceptance to the Class of 2015 and blogs at MBAOver30.

Previous posts on Poets&Quants:

How I Totally Overestimated The MBA Admissions Process

Musings on MBA Failophobia

Letting Go Of An MBA Safety School

When A Campus Visit Turns Off An MBA Applicant

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