About work experience

[stmk407]

Hi Lisa,
What i learned from admission consultants is that having no work experience is a barrier even a superior GMAT score cant offset it. They say that the admitted students are very rare and have special conditions.
What skills does someone need to be accepted to a top 30 school without work experience? I have GMAT 640 and will retake again in 3 days but my quantitive part is 50. I demonstrated leadership skills in community services but don't know if they account for anything.
I'II be glad if you help me.

[Lisa Anderson]

Dear stmk407,

Being admitted without work experience is difficult at most schools in the top 40. Schools will usually limit that population to a small percentage of the class and have high standards for this group. GMAT and GPA are usually very high (>700; >3.5) and these candidates will have at least one professional internship or significant responsibility in a family business. Likewise, they will also have multiple, significant leadership experiences in extracurricular activities. Finally, these candidates must have a solid rationale for why they want to enter business school without gaining work experience first.

If you are looking at smaller, regional programs, the standards will not be as high but you will still be expected to make a case for admission without work experience.

Good luck,
Lisa

[stmk407]

Thanks a lot for the reply. I'd like to learn something else about them. I heard from an admission consultant that those accepted without work experience are either their undergraduate student or his family is connected very much with school. Is it really so? Is that small portion only allocated to students somehow associated with school?

[Lisa Anderson]

It is not required or necessary to have an association with a school. That might help, but it is not the only reason someone might be admitted. Schools limit the number of students without work experience because business school is designed for those that have work experience--it is an important component to classroom discussions as students learn from each other as much as professors and course materials.

Regards,
Lisa

[stmk407]

Thanks for your help a lot, Lisa. I retook GMAT and it was necessary for me to get a full evaluation for me. If you can evaluate my profile I'll be very glad.
GMAT:Male
Nationality:Turkish, Caucasion
University:ITU (ranked 390th in the world, 1th in Turkey) Chemical Engineering
GMAT 720, q49 v38
At the previous one(640) i got 50 for q so, in your opinion should i mention it, because the night before the test i couldnt sleep well and i think i made some basic miscalculations. I care this a lot because with 50 i was in top 5 percentile with 49, in 12 percentile that's why i am worried.
My gpa 2.50 what's because i care gmat to offset my low gpa. However i got AAs for Calculus I, Physics I, BA for Economics, Chemistry, BB for Calculus II and Differential Equations.
Extracurricular activities: I was the president of chess club in high school brought the Turkish Champion to school for private tutoring. In university, i was members of gokart club, chess club, chemical engineering club. I have seperate friend groups for playing soccer, gokart, and fitness&swimming everyweek. I have 2 gold for chess, 1 silver medal for volleyball from the camps i attended. I became 7th in chess in Istanbul among my coevals.
Community service: I have done organizations for poor people in Turkey for their need, by working for services to help them for years.
Job related activities(not work experience): In a project to build 1200 houses, i worked as a volunteer with the manager of the project for learning. He gave me great responsibilities and i managed with most of the challenges.
My official work experience is just 2 months internship.
My father has been the head of the departmen of management engineering of the top university in Turkey according to the rankings and he inspired me from the childhood for management and economics.
I know it was a little too detailed but for you to say something precisely, i thought you should see the picture with everything with pros and cons.
The schools i am thinking to apply is UCLA and Tepper Full-Time. What can you say about my chances?