How important is experience?

[daveyar54]

Quick background on myself: I have a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (GPA 3.0). I scored a 700 on the GMAT and have recommendations from the Vice president of the company I work for (a $3.5 billion company) and my direct manager, both indicating my potential to be a business leader in the company. Although I graduated in 2007 and only have 2 years of experience, those two years have been spent in LEAN Business Practices analyzing and reducing waste in all facets of the company.

I was disappointed recently when I got denied at two MBA part time programs...IU Kelley and Butler University. I spoke with the admissions office at one of the schools and they said that my application was good, but I simply did not have enough business experience.

I definitely realize that attempting to start business school at 25 years old with only 2 years of experience is aggressive, but I have always known that I wanted to spend the majority of my career in the business center of a technical company, not doing research and development. I feel like if I work as an engineer for another 3 years, I'm just wasting my time.

My question is this: Should I continue to apply? Is it feasible for me to have a chance at decent MBA schools with this little of experience? What is the suggested or average amount of experience most applicants have when they start school. Finally, is the quality of years of experience considered, or simply quantity? (I have much more exposure to business practices and financial decisions than any engineer that I know of after 2 years.)

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

Regards,

Dave

[Jen Kedro]

Hi Dave,

While 2 years is a bit below the average at many MBA programs, 3-4 is very common, so you are not far off (and not sure how many years you'd have by the time you'd begin, depending on when you are aiming to start)? You are correct in that in general, it is both quantity and quality of work experience that are assessed, and as an applicant with fewer years of work experience, you would generally want to highlight the quality of that experience by emphasizing your people and project management skills, and any progression during that timeframe, in your resume, essays, and interviews. You'll also be effectively answering the question, in those places in your application, of why the MBA is right for you NOW, at this point in your career.

SOME part-time programs do look for a bit more experience because many part-time students are still working and applying their experiences to their day to day work, and the schools want these students to have a lot of experience to contribute and bring to the classroom. Make sure to research other programs you are interested in to find out what their class tends to look like and see how you compare to those stats. Note that your GPA is also a bit low for many programs, another potential challenge.

In the end, I would say that the 2 years does not necessarily preclude you from decent chances, but your main challenge will be to successfully convince the readers of your application that an MBA is right for your career at this point in time, and that you will have a lot to contribute to the class despite your fewer years of experience.