I was just wondering what the chances are that someone working in prop trading firm (let's say they are pretty profitable for 2 years) are for getting into a MBA program at a big name school (i.e HBS, Wharton, Stanford, etc)
i think you would have to back it up by acing your GMATs and the rest of the application process. i believe work experience is required for any MBA admittance and you will be competing against CEOs and other executive types at a top school.
about nil.. MBA admissions look at daytraders as gamblers. In many cases they are right. However, for the few who are the tiger woods of the profession, there simply do not get the respect.
Why do you want an MBA... Many MBA's have been fired today and their degrees are worthless... I know one thing ... I will never ever go to university again. listening to some professors talking about the random walk theory and crap like that.. An MBA is good for the people that do not have the skills or the appetite for trading but for those who have it then an MBA is worthless but it is also a loss of time and of money... It's like saying that Tiger Woods needs an MBA to improve his gold skills
You'll probably need a GMAT around the 700 ballpark. They will consider the trading, but it certainly won't be a big asset on your app. that makes you shoe in. It won't be too highly regarded, although I don't think it'll hurt you if you have a good GMAT score.
Well said, Traderfut2000, I totally agree with your comments... MBAs are taken for people who wanna work in the corporate sphere... why consider studying for an MBA if a guy is making good money trading?
These days most people with adequate training can get a GMAT score in the low 700s.... what really differentiates a class act (at least in terms of GMAT scores) is a score above 750.... but again, why go for an MBA if you are making a great living trading?
It all depends on how you market yourself. Don't say you were a daytrader, but rather that you rose through the ranks at a top proprietary trading firm and became a head trader very quickly. I also wouldn't stress how much money you made, but rather what kind of experiences you gained. Such as learning how to handle risk, creative thinking for new trade ideas, and any teamwork you might have done. To have a decent chance you must get excellent GMAT scores that are significantly better than the average score at the MBA schools you are applying too. If you can manage it, try to get the head of your firm to write you a recommendation, that should really help. Business schools want to know what YOU as a person can bring to their community.
Yeah, I have the equivalent of a top MBA and I can say it did not help me at all on the markets.. Listening all day long to people that do not know anything on the markets, was just boring and I finished my studies just to have a good degree.. I did not even go at school and missed a lot of courses and my main aim was to find a market related job since I did not have much money to start trading on my own... For me the degree was just a way to make some money and gain some experience into the markets and one thing is sure I will never ever come back to the corporate world except of course if I really don't have the choice... It's always the same story on the corporate world. it has nothing to do with hard work, but connections... My father worked like a mad all his life and he was not retributed for it... I prefer to work for myself and be my own master. An MBA for me is like a military school you have to do it in order to become an officer but the odds are very low that you will make it at the top and even though when you see today CEO you prefer not to be in their situation.. you have to cheat, break people, create clans.... The corporate world is like a jungle were if you are not strong you are dead...
I'm sure you're not the only daytrader in the world that's wondered about it, so here's some relevant threads from the BusinessWeek MBA Forums: (sorry, you have to register for the forums though, no big deal) http://forums.businessweek.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=bw-bschools&msg=33241.1&maxT=3 http://forums.businessweek.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=bw-bschools&msg=4513.5394&search=y It's funny all the bashing day trading gets from some of the ignorant and uninformed in the first thread. They seem to think that day trading simply involves buying a stock at the open and selling it at the close. Ha ha. However, there is one guy that posted that had daytraded at a prop firm for 1.5 years and says he got into a top10 MBA program. I can see daytraders maybe having a tough time getting into a H/S/W, but I suspect they have just as good a chance of getting into any other top 25 program assuming adequate qualifications elsewhere. And remember, it's all about essay, essay, essay, essay, essay!