What is the Perfect Time for You to Get an MBA?

1. Average age and working experience for MBA students

Your age and work experience are always taken into consideration by the MBA admissions committee of a business school. The admissions committee’s goal is to form a diverse class and to do so it also looks at your age and the number of years of work experience. 

To ensure the quality and diversity of the incoming class, the admission committee reviews your application holistically. Thus, MBA admissions officers take your age and professional experience very into careful consideration. According to the MBA Crystal Ball, students enrolled in the top US business schools range from about 27 to 29 years old.

Each location shows the general pool of applications, with North America sharing most of the 4-5 years of work experience candidates within 30 years and Europe and Asia pushing towards a higher end.

Average Age and Work Experience for MBA in USA

Average Age and Work Experience for MBA in Canada

Average Age and Work Experience for MBA in UK

Average Age and Work Experience for MBA in Europe

Average Age and Work Experience for MBA in Asia

Average Age and Work Experience for MBA in Australia

2. When is The Best Time to Get an MBA

Why Business School Prefer Students in Their Late 20s

Full-time MBA programs admit most of their incoming class from professionals in their late 20s. This is because these professionals have had a considerable amount of time accumulating experience in the world of work and likely held senior positions in their career. These people are great assets to the MBA class because they can make valuable insights to the classroom.

Yet, they aren’t set in stone in their career path, which means they still have a great deal of flexibility to move between industries or advance further into executive positions. They are open to learning and changing which makes them ideal students in a full-time MBA program. 

However, these numbers don’t truly reflect that there is an exclusivity towards other age groups. Rather, people in their late 20s are the largest cohort of applicants, and there are less people younger or older than that age group applying for MBA. Therefore, the age breakdown will lean more towards people who are in the 26 to 28 age range. 

The Perfect Time to Get an MBA

Does this mean that a younger or older applicant is not attractive to the top programs? For example, is a 25-year-old candidate less attractive to admissions committees than an identical 29-year-old candidate? Or an applicant over 30 years old is not suitable for the dynamic class of an MBA program?

‍Not necessarily, but most admissions committees are looking for applicants with robust job experience, program fit, and the willingness to learn. As we have detailed above, these people tend to fall in the age of late 20s. However, that does not mean that your age determines your chance of earning an MBA degree. 

No matter how old you are right now, before you start preparing to apply, take a critical look at your reasons for pursuing the degree and make sure it’s the right decision for you. Consult the list below to see if an MBA should be the next step in your career.

       1. You feel professionally stagnated: 

Workspaces are environments where you expect to accumulate professional skills and move up the career ladder within your organization. However, your organization’s values aren’t always aligned with your professional goals. 

If you feel that you have plateaued in your current job and there are no more to grow, an MBA is a reasonable career decision to help you navigate your next career steps. 

If you find yourself stagnating in your present role or that you’ve plateaued in your job and there’s no room for upward mobility, an MBA can help you navigate and leverage your next career step. The business school experience will show you how to integrate your skills, passions and goals against the backdrop of current global market conditions.

       2. You are aiming for a new professional goal

An MBA has the advantage of opening new doors and options if you are thinking of new avenues to leverage your professional skills and expand your network beyond your current industries. 

An instance where an MBA can be extremely helpful is when you are trying to pivot into other industries but are lacking an essential network and platform to facilitate that transition. Through intense coursework and diverse discussions, MBA students have a chance to get the first taste of various industries without making any firm commitments.

       3. You want to apply for managerial roles

Apart from opening professional doors for career switchers, an MBA degree is also extremely valuable to career enhancers who want to take on the executive roles in their company.

An MBA is a testament to your professionalism and in-depth experience in your industry, regardless of how many years you have been in that industry. It has become a norm that, in order to achieve the top rung of the corporate ladder in fields such as finance, marking, or IT, you must earn a highly-ranked MBA degree.

        4. You are thinking of adding and improving specific skills

While your office is a wonderful place to acquire and practice professional skills, it is often difficult to master more advanced capabilities in the workspace. After all, your work performance is prioritized over learning in-depth. 

That is why the classroom environment of an MBA program can fill in these gaps perfectly. In an MBA program, executive skills like strategic thinking, business problem solving, and leadership are taught thoroughly. The business school also provides you many opportunities to practice those skills in a variety of scenarios without having the same accountability of the business world.

How You Can Benefit from An MBA in Different Stages of Your Career

We have so far discussed that there is no universally agreed time to start an MBA journey. When you begin your studies at a business school boils down to your professional goals and drives. In different stages of career, however, you will certainly reap different but valuable benefits. Let’s find out!

2-3 Years

Younger candidates with less than 3 years of experience can greatly benefit from studying at a business school if they are shooting for a promotion quickly or become more marketable to the high-paying job market. To earn a spot in the MBA program, however, they have to prove their work experience is on par with what is expected of an MBA student. Admission counselors are looking to see how you will contribute in the classroom and if employers will want to hire you post-MBA.

4-5 Years

Candidates with 4-5 years of work experience are mostly selected to be students of a full-time MBA program than other people in other experience groups. They have deep enough work experience and an openness to new ideas. These people can get the most out of their MBA degree if they want to get a title bump or switch industries. Employers are also familiar with recruiting people with this level of experience, so there are many opportunities to choose from and many of the colleagues will fall in the same range

6+ Years

Slightly older MBAs bring more work and leadership experience, from which employers and classmates benefit. Because employers are used to recruiting slightly younger MBAs, it might take some extra work for them to find a post-MBA job at the title and salary level befitting their extra experience. However, if these highly professional workers are looking to make a relatively large career change at a later stage of the game, it’s hard to beat an MBA for help making that transition.

However, some older candidates don’t want to take two years off from work to attend business school; many students who are on the more experienced end of the spectrum opt to attend an executive MBA program while they continue working instead.