Quote:
Originally Posted by hlacheen
Just a curiosity, how would you rank the importance of these factors in MBA admissions?
GMAT score
Undergrad GPA
Quality of undergrad school
Work experience
Community Service
Work experience is #1. The rest can compensate for each other (i.e. You can have a poor GMAT score, but with great grades and a top-tier undergrad institution, you can still hit top schools)...community service is the most overrated aspect, and really doesn't matter that much unless you can find a way to tie it into your overall story well.
I work for a top mgmt consulting firm, and our company, along with our closest competitors, consistently churn out kids to HBS, Wharton, Booth, Coumbia, etc...in fact, I don't think our firm even sponsors kids that don't get into top 5 or 10 programs. This is mostly just because the top consulting/banking/PE firms are simply feeders into top programs.
As an extreme example, the kids at the top couple PE firms (KKR, Blackstone, TPG) pretty much have a track-record of near 100% acceptance into HBS (though this year was a bit of an anomaly) and pretty close to that for Stanford.
There is simply no way to make up for good work experience. However, the one thing you do have going for you if you don't come from this background is the ability to tailor a unique career story, which could stand out...