ECs for B-school: <1 year of participation meaningful?

I will be applying to b-school (only top 5 schools H/S/W, Ch, MIT) next fall and wanted to get people's thoughts on how ad coms evaluate extra-curricular activities. I am from an i-banking background and aside from volunteering for a couple of charity events, have almost no meaningful / substantial ECs since undergrad. If I start making more of an effort now to get involved (e.g. try to get on the junior board of a non-profit), would that move the needle? Or would the ad coms see through that as something superficial? Perhaps my energy is better spent trying to hit a 750+ GMAT?

 
Best Response

I'd get both. Do the GMAT and the EC's. A lot of what I wrote about is relatively recent for me; I joined an organization last year, doing volunteer work for them, and now I'm on the board and chair a committee and have had several great leadership experiences that I was able to write about.

Something else I wrote about is a mentoring program that I just started in June, that actually kicked off a couple days ago.

Schools will look for what you accomplished, not how long you've been with an organization. If you think you can join an organization and accomplish great things in the next year (it's definitely possible), then go for it. If you're just joining EC's to list them on your resume then it's pointless no matter how long you're wit them.

 

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