Dear Stacey,
I am interested in apply to a top 5 MBA Program for 2010 entry. I would be considered an "early career applicant", owing to the fact that I only have 1 year of full time work experience. However, I have a significantly higher level of education attainment/professional qualification compared to most MBA applicants. I hold a Bachelors of Commerce and a LLB (JD equivalent) from a prominent university in Australia. I will graduate from the LLM Program at an Ivy law school by May 2009. I am an admitted lawyer in Australia and plan to take the NY Bar in July 2009. For reasons that will be disclosed in my formal application, I feel that pursuing an MBA is the right step to take at this point in my career.
I am concerned at the prospect of my candidacy due to my limited work experience and my non-conventional background. I will be 26 years old by the time I apply in fall 2009. I would be most grateful if you could indulge me by answering the following queries:
• Would MBA schools hesitate with applicants who are “over educated” and “under-experienced”?
• In general, how are applicants who have higher levels of educational attainment/professional qualification but very limited work experience viewed against more traditional applicants with a bachelor degree and 2-4 years of work experience (being mindful of the differences in character and attributes between applicants)?
• Will my application be treated in a similar fashion as college senior applicants?
• What is the best strategy for candidates with very limited work experience to demonstrate qualities such as leadership, innovation, managerial capability and entrepreneurial potential (qualities that would be more readily demonstrated by applicants with higher levels of work experience)?
• How do you view applicants with a legal background?
• What are the weaknesses in my profile from your perspective? How do I mitigate them?
• As a Lawyer (over educated and underqualified) what is the best way to market myself?
• Career goal --- should I say I’m interested in regulatory related work such as regulatory advisory to businesses --- with view to get into corporate management/ want to work government/banking bodies such as IMF/ World Bank etc --- Would I be at an advantage in marketing myself as the “alternative” candidate who is not gunning for a management consulting/IBanking position. It seems that BSchools want diversity in career field and are pushing their graduates to different NGO/Govt/Alternative career paths --- is this true? Would I be at an advantage by pitching myself as the regulatory/govt guy (considering MBA is for people who want to be captains of industry)?
• My GPA is around 3.4-3.6 from undergraduate (and I’ll probably end up with a 3.5 from my LLM at Penn Law), but this has to be taken into account that I went to the best (arguably) university in Australia and attended the most challenging academic program (a combined law/business degree that admits only top 1% of high school applicants). I didn’t exactly graduate summa cum laude but to put it bluntly, a 3.4 from my program is still pretty damn good. I feel that relative to the entire pool of MBA applicants, my mediocre performance at a top program is still pretty good. As a recruiter recently said to me: “no one really cares what marks you get if you’re from Harvard” --- is there truth/logic to my argument? How do MBA judge mediocre graduates from top academic programs, compare to a valedictorian from a lesser school/ less challenging program? How do I convince them that I’m the cream of the crop when compared against a bunch of BA/BSc’s with 3.8 GPAs?
• What is the best way to prep for the GMAT? I am comfortable with verbal, not so much with quant. I was a math/science super freak in high school, but have long lost the touch. For a person like me, what is the best strategy to prep? Should I join a prep course or can I get away with self study?
I am interested in apply to a top 5 MBA Program for 2010 entry. I would be considered an "early career applicant", owing to the fact that I only have 1 year of full time work experience. However, I have a significantly higher level of education attainment/professional qualification compared to most MBA applicants. I hold a Bachelors of Commerce and a LLB (JD equivalent) from a prominent university in Australia. I will graduate from the LLM Program at an Ivy law school by May 2009. I am an admitted lawyer in Australia and plan to take the NY Bar in July 2009. For reasons that will be disclosed in my formal application, I feel that pursuing an MBA is the right step to take at this point in my career.
I am concerned at the prospect of my candidacy due to my limited work experience and my non-conventional background. I will be 26 years old by the time I apply in fall 2009. I would be most grateful if you could indulge me by answering the following queries:
• Would MBA schools hesitate with applicants who are “over educated” and “under-experienced”?
• In general, how are applicants who have higher levels of educational attainment/professional qualification but very limited work experience viewed against more traditional applicants with a bachelor degree and 2-4 years of work experience (being mindful of the differences in character and attributes between applicants)?
• Will my application be treated in a similar fashion as college senior applicants?
• What is the best strategy for candidates with very limited work experience to demonstrate qualities such as leadership, innovation, managerial capability and entrepreneurial potential (qualities that would be more readily demonstrated by applicants with higher levels of work experience)?
• How do you view applicants with a legal background?
• What are the weaknesses in my profile from your perspective? How do I mitigate them?
• As a Lawyer (over educated and underqualified) what is the best way to market myself?
• Career goal --- should I say I’m interested in regulatory related work such as regulatory advisory to businesses --- with view to get into corporate management/ want to work government/banking bodies such as IMF/ World Bank etc --- Would I be at an advantage in marketing myself as the “alternative” candidate who is not gunning for a management consulting/IBanking position. It seems that BSchools want diversity in career field and are pushing their graduates to different NGO/Govt/Alternative career paths --- is this true? Would I be at an advantage by pitching myself as the regulatory/govt guy (considering MBA is for people who want to be captains of industry)?
• My GPA is around 3.4-3.6 from undergraduate (and I’ll probably end up with a 3.5 from my LLM at Penn Law), but this has to be taken into account that I went to the best (arguably) university in Australia and attended the most challenging academic program (a combined law/business degree that admits only top 1% of high school applicants). I didn’t exactly graduate summa cum laude but to put it bluntly, a 3.4 from my program is still pretty damn good. I feel that relative to the entire pool of MBA applicants, my mediocre performance at a top program is still pretty good. As a recruiter recently said to me: “no one really cares what marks you get if you’re from Harvard” --- is there truth/logic to my argument? How do MBA judge mediocre graduates from top academic programs, compare to a valedictorian from a lesser school/ less challenging program? How do I convince them that I’m the cream of the crop when compared against a bunch of BA/BSc’s with 3.8 GPAs?
• What is the best way to prep for the GMAT? I am comfortable with verbal, not so much with quant. I was a math/science super freak in high school, but have long lost the touch. For a person like me, what is the best strategy to prep? Should I join a prep course or can I get away with self study?
