The GMAT Exam: A Call Option on Your Career?

The MBA.

You naturally want that stamp of approval when you’re up for that next job or promotion.

Well, at least if it’s a stamp of approval from Harvard / Wharton / Stanford as opposed to Unknown University.

If you’re already in the finance industry, you’re probably already considering your options, assigning risk-weights to various plans and figuring out the trade-offs between going to business school now vs. several years from now as your “Plan B” backup option.

But what if you’re not sure about business school? It is, after all, 2 years of unpaid salary and over $160K in costs to cover tuition, books, trips, dinners, and more.

You don’t exactly want to pay for the entire expense upfront if you’re not sure whether or not you really want to go… but the good news is that you don’t have to.

Instead, you could simply take the GMAT exam and consider it a “call option” on your career.

Say What?

From Investment Banking to Harvard Business School: How to Outshine Every Other Banker and Make the Leap

This is a guest post from Roger (HBS, 2010) and Jennifer Chen (MIT Sloan, 2010). Roger and Jennifer are authors of “The HBS Blueprint: A Proprietary Step-by-Step Action Plan,” which teaches you how to get into HBS and or any other top business school.

If you’re an investment banker interested in going to a top business school someday, I’ve got good news and bad news for you.

First, the good news: Most MBA classes at the top programs over-index in students from investment banking. Experience in investment banking shows a strong work ethic, quant skills, and ambition, and Adcoms love that.

But here’s the bad news: The number of investment banking applicants is also disproportionately high (yes, everyone wants that elusive “2-year vacation”), which means that there’s a lot of competition… and that you might just look the same as everyone else – not ideal for winning admission to the top programs.

But there are clear ways to stand out from the crowd of current and former bankers – even if you haven’t climbed mountains in Japan or starred in a reality TV show before.

Can You Really Use Business School to Re-Brand Yourself and Break Into Finance?

“Just go to business school.”

“Go to a top MBA program.”

“With HBS on your resume you can do anything you want.”

It’s one of the most common pieces of advice given to anyone interested in consulting or finance: get into a top MBA program.

Even if you went to a no-name undergraduate, did nothing finance-related since then, and you don’t know anyone in the industry, a top MBA program will let you break in.

Or will it?