I'm curious to know if Wharton, Harvard, and Yale stress the 2 - 4 year "learn a language" ideal for acceptance. I know how to speak and write Arabic which comes in handy, so must I seriously go and bullshit learning Spanish, German, or Chinese? Will they let it slide since I'm already bilingual? I know this isn't college confidential, but I need to hear it from the business school students and those who did undergrad/grad at an MBA business schools">M7.
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Arabic has almost no business value, even when working in the MENA region. All of the Gulfies will speak English in business, and do not care if you are fluent in Arabic.
Therefore, I think a 'business' language is ideal to have as opposed to a cultural language, like Arabic. French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian are all more relevant.
Okay, so would I be dinged out if instead of a language I took AP Computer Science and AP Macroeconomics classes?
You won't be dinged out if the rest of your application is strong. I am fluent in Arabic from birth, I have found that it helps me greatly during interviews as it is a great conversation topic. So yes while it does not have value in Investment banking, being proficient in another language will definitely help you get in.
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