Deferred enrollment MBA programs allow candidates to secure a spot on an MBA program before they hold any professional experience. If successful, candidates will then enter the workforce for (usually) between two and four years, before matriculating at their school and completing the program.
Spots in deferred enrollment programs are highly sought after, since they offer students a real sense of freedom in the early stages of their career. Safe in the knowledge that their MBA spot is secure, candidates may opt for employment that genuinely interests them, rather than pick the path most likely to lead to an MBA. Candidates can take risks, experiment, and explore what brings them meaning, before joining their MBA a few years later.
This is an opportunity that fits outstanding applicants: those with strong academic performance, established leadership skills, internship experience and a clear vision for their career. Candidates should be ambitious, high-performing, and ready to demonstrate how they stand out from the crowd.
As well as being of a high caliber, students applying to a deferred enrollment MBA must still be studying, and must not have held a full-time job.
Applying as a Junior or as a Senior?
If you are applying to your deferred enrollment program as an undergraduate, the answer to the “junior versus senior question” is fairly straightforward: you must apply as a senior.
This is the case across all deferred enrollment MBA programs, who open applications to college seniors and undergraduate students in their final year of study. The policy makes sense: the final year of study is the year in which candidates will have completed the most coursework, built the most connections, engaged in the most extracurricular activities, undertaken the most internships – and generally be able to present the most comprehensive picture of their abilities to their target schools.
When to Start Applying
Students will need to submit their applications before they graduate, but after they start their final year. Since deferred MBA programs are highly competitive, candidates should also apply with an excellent GMAT/GRE score, a high GPA, brilliant essays, outstanding letters of recommendation, and demonstrable leadership ability and impact.
Candidates must, therefore, begin the application process with plenty of time to achieve these things – possibly in advance of their final year.
They may want to begin gathering leadership experience in their first and second years of study – by engaging in extra curricular activities, leading university projects, or coordinating student collaborations. In order to secure the best possible GMAT or GRE scores, candidates should take a year, if possible, in order to prepare for the test, and aim to sit the test six to nine months before they need to submit it. Getting the test completed this early allows time for the retakes that so many applicants opt for, securing as they do so extra opportunities to improve their score. Applicants should also bear in mind that they will, of course, be completing these application efforts alongside their studies, and so preparations may take longer than if they had already graduated.
Applying From a Graduate Program
Some programs will accept applicants who are enrolled in a graduate program, rather than an undergraduate one. The requirement for zero professional experience still stands, meaning that candidates will need to have moved directly into their graduate program from their undergrad.
However, business schools vary greatly on policy here. Some, such as Chicago Booth and MIT Sloan, accept applications from students in all graduate programs; some, such as Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School, accept students from Master’s degrees, but not from PhD, medical, or law programs; and some, such as Stanford GSB and UCLA Anderson, do not accept students from any graduate programs, only undergraduate. This policy variety reflects the general tendency of deferred enrollment MBAs to be geared towards undergraduate students.
