Mmmm Hmmm...I get what you are saying! I think most of the schools should(& would) know what we have been doing(or not doing:-)). Personally I think what they basically look for is whether the candidate can ramp up (to the rigors of the MBA) & whether he/she has sufficient experiences to share & make the class much more interesting! Of course I think they also look at your score & whether you have a certain career plan (& if you can achieve that mainly because placement record is an important parameter in a lot of these b-school rankings).
What I mean is if you have a technical background you would obviously have worked more on technology. But what the school would look at is how you have grown while you have been doing your core job(so everything from knowledge transfer,estimation,participation in request for proposals to initiatives taken & process improvements undertaken would look good on your resume)
Also a definite career plan is important, to crack the interview you most definitely should have a plan to link pre-MBA to post-MBA right, even though I agree MBA might open up a lot more avenues (& u might have some of your own hidden agendas-money,managerial aspirations etc which u can't openly say you know
) Its very important to have a good plan & show it in your essays & interviews.
It also is important to show some good things that you have been doing in your free time, again it could be anything from playing a sport,learning a language to a social initiative(I hope u don't really over-do the social bit here. I have seen a lot of fake ones & it hurts coz I'm one of those who is genuinely involved)
And the last bit you need to genuinely like the school & place & if you do it will show up in your essays n interview. For me BCN has always been a dream place & when I did a bit of research on ESADE I really liked the school. Of course the cons are the exorbitant fee & the situation in Europe but my expectations from the ESADE MBA are that it will provide me with enough skill set & confidence to find a great job anywhere in the world!
P.S: Writing essays is really helping me draft big mails!
