People say grades don’t matter in business school. How little work can I do and still be a “success” at B school?
In theory you can do almost no work at business school, assuming that you are reasonably bright and have acquired the vital skill of winging it. Most employers don’t even look at your grades, and others – like the investment banks – consider academic achievement alongside other things. But in practice, loafing your way through your MBA is a bad idea for three reasons. For a start, if you are the sort of person who hankers after success, a string of bad grades will be painful to you. Second, part of the point of going to business school is the networking and future contacts – you don’t want your classmates to have you down as a lazy, dumb wastrel. And third, isn’t it just possible that some of what you are paying so much money to learn might actually be useful? In which case, trying hard might be a good investment in itself.
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