Is 3 years work experience enough for an M7?
Seems that the average is 5-7 years. Also, does age really count when applicants are being considered?
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Given that the average age at matriculation is around 27 and people graduate at about 22 I would say the mean is around 5 years of WE. Which means there's plenty of people coming in with less than 5 years.
The real question is have you accomplished enough in 3 years to have something to add to the classroom and to be attractive to recruiters afterwards.
From friends who have worked in admissions at my M7, I'd say it depends. If you are coming from a MBB, 3 years is a very well worn path. Additionally, the average age of women is probably closer to the 3 year mark than men, so your gender potentially matters too.
Another consideration is what you want to do after your MBA. Many times people place too much emphasis on just getting in. Outside of consulting and banking, employers place a big emphasis on what you did prior to school. An additional 1-2 years of work could make the difference between getting an interview / offer and being overlooked for another candidate. At least for PE at my school, I've seen higher full time recruiting success from the people with 5-6 years experience, compared to those with only 4 (2+2).
Ideally I'd want IB Associate roles out of B school. I would only be 26 or 27 (typically the age people enter) leaving B school (assuming I enter with 3 years of exp).
Business school applicants are getting much younger nowadays, plenty of people with 2-3 years working experience. Those with 5-7 are now gravitating towards EMBA programs.
My boss got into an MBA business schools ">M7 with ~3.5 years of WE, so it shouldn't be an issue based on work experience alone.
It depends on the work experience. 3 years in IB or MBB? Absolutely okay. 3 years working in IT or as a Data Analyst? Meh, would depend on the rest of your package.
3-4 years at matriculation for IB/PE and M/B/B consulting, yes (i.e. basically blue chip finance/consulting - top tier schools and firms).
For others, it tends to be 5-7 years at matriculation.
I was just admitted to an M7 and will only have 3 years by the time I matriculate. I did not do MBB or an IB analyst stint.
^ Out of curiosity, what was your career path? What do you think helped you get in?
I interned at my fund and came back full time when I graduated and stayed the whole time. My GPA was middling at best (3.4) and my GMAT was 700. I think that, for the most part, work experience is going to be pretty similar across a lot of people's application packages, especially for those in finance. In my view, essays and recommendations really helped me stand out. I had great recs from people at my firm. I opted to go with recs from people that knew me better and had a slightly lower title than go for the MDs who would probably write a less compelling rec because they simply don't know me as well on a personal basis. I think I was able to cogently outline my career aspirations post-business school and why I believed that path was the right one for me. My essays, depending on the prompt, explained my background and life experiences growing up, which translated into some of the ECs I was involved in, and how the schools I applied to will allow me to leverage my current work experience into better experiences coming out of school. Note that my ECs were nothing more than a few hours per week in something that I actually loved to do, and had nothing to do with the quintessential orphanage creation, evangelical missions to Burma, or anything really mind-blowing.
From my understanding, business schools want to be able to see a clear outline of "Non-work Experiences/Passions" + "Work Experience" + "MBA" = "Post-MBA Experience"
A girl I knew had very personal experiences with Alzheimers (through her mom) while she was in her early years in college. She became involved in healthcare-related clubs, went into healthcare consulting, and did a lot of volunteer work at a hospital. She positioned herself to go to bschool to help get into a more advanced healthcare-oriented career and was accepted at Wharton in R1. Another buddy had a similar trajectory, only this time it involved sports, coaching high schoolers and sports medicine. He was waitlisted at Wharton and MIT (there's always some chance involved. IMO, he should have been admitted). My story isn't quite as bullet-proof (or as stellar) as theirs, but it followed a similar pattern: I was exposed to certain experiences when I was younger which evolved over time to lead me into finance and the ECs I undertook. I positioned my current experience at my fund and my ECs as the groundwork for which an MBA will launch me into my post-MBA career (I don't want to give too much detail for fear that people at my firm are on this site).
To the extent in which you can clearly articulate why an MBA is right for you, everything will fall into place. Visiting schools is an important component. I visited all the schools I applied to in April, and in so doing, was able to dig out intricacies of each one that I used to tailor my resume, essays, etc. I think that a lot of people fall short in applications because they simply want to go into PE, or simply want to make more money and adcoms read right through that. They have thousands of bankers-turned-PE-associates and thousands more consultants applying. If you can outline exactly why your "life story" is completed by an MBA (and better yet, that specific school) and have recommendations to corroborate that story, I think your chances are greatly improved.
All this sounds tedious. And it is. The whole process is really a wild soul search as to what you want to do with your life and why. It fucking sucks, but the more introspective you are, the more your story will resonate as honest and full of potential. Some questions to ask yourself: why an MBA and why that particular school? What are your short and long term career goals, and why? What are some meaningful accomplishments or other things you're proud of? Have you learned from any failures? What did you learn?
Happy to expound some more in case anything wasn't clear, or to answer any more questions anyone else may have. If anyone else has other comments/disagree with anything, I'm also curious to hear your perspectives.
From my understanding this highly depends on the business school you are applying to. May be better to ask an admissions consultant.
Thanks for posting this OP. I had a question regarding WE as well. Based on the recommendation of many peers I am planning to take the GMAT before I start full time. I didn't take into account of years of WE and the validity of the gmat score (5 years).
Ideally by the time I would be applying I would have 4.5 year of WE in non IB/MBB/PE (I'll be doing Risk Management at a BB). Should I wait to take the GMAT so I can rake up more work experience since it's a non high finance role or should 4.5 yrs suffice?
depends on what type of experience. 3 years of experience in consulting is more than enough. 3 years of experience in software eng. most likely isn't.
3 years of Work enough for m7? (Originally Posted: 09/28/2015)
Hi All, long time lurker but new to posting. I'm curious about what the take is on applying to business school with 2 years of work experience at application time and 3 years at matriculation. The work experience in question would be 1 year at a MM ibank in probably the best group at the bank and then two years in corp dev/strategy at a fortune 200 company. Have a solid GMAT (720-740, let's say) and 3.5+ gpa with fairly quant oriented (ie math/engineering) focus but major in business. I studied abroad a lot as well (two different countries), volunteer, and have some leadership initiatives around diversity panels at work. Trying not to give a lot away here so I remain anonymous but feel free to ask another questions.
My question is, will the work experience be a lacking factor? The alternative would be to do one more year so I'd be 3 years in corp dev and 1 year in banking before that. Will the additional year add much more or be pretty much negligible? Ideally looking to go to top 10 school and heavy interest in Stanford, CBS, & Booth. I know obviously essays will play a large part too but want to know about work experience. General comments on my profile are also appreciated.
As far as I know, the sweet spot for MBA is 3-5 years when matriculating so you are fine. The key factor is the strength of your overall application. If you are unsure whether to apply this year or next, apply this year and if you do not end up where you want then you will have next year to try again.
My background would look like, Military -> School -> Tech -> MBA -> Consulting. I'm happy with what I have currently but if I apply to any of those programs I won't have as much post undergrad work experience as my peers.
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