This really hangs on what you mean by good. You could get into one of the top 10 or 20 MiF degrees but probably not into a top 100 MBA.

You'd need an absolutely stellar background and work experience to get into a top school.

If you applied for 2020 you'd have about three years of experience at intake. Can you wait until 2021? If so, and if your career growth remains on-track, your odds of getting into an MBA would go up.

If not, then certainly look at MiM or MiF programs instead.

Maybe waiting another year is a good option. Do you think many top business schools give admits with four years of experience at intake?

Much more likely with 4 years versus 3 years.

I've just applied to Wharton - kind of a shot in the dark at this point and if it doesn't work out I'll wait until next year as you suggested. Thank you for the guidance.

A lot of this depends on how high-quality you are as a candidate. On average, someone with the background you describe would not be selected for the Wharton MBA next year either. I don't think you quite appreciate that the candidates that Wharton turns down are also very high quality. It's a great pool for the top universities.

PS A ridiculous comparison, but I am at the University of Edinburgh. It's one of the oldest, richest and most prestigious universities in Europe and we get more than our fair share of applicants because the city is beautiful and booming. We have eight applicants for every masters' seat, and the excellent applicants we reject go to Imperial, the LSE, Warwick... it's very frustrating, but we have to control the tempo at which we outgrow building. We are not separating wheat from chaff.

Point taken. I don't have high hopes at this point but I wanted to put it out there just to make sure.