Welcome everyone to our Wednesday words of wisdom.  While the average age and years of work experience at the leading business schools have traditionally hovered at around 28 and five respectively, many programs are now carefully considering the more youthful end younger applicants. Top schools like Harvard, Stanford and Wharton have been getting the word out that they want younger applicants, even those who are recent college graduates or college juniors and seniors, reports mbapodcaster.

Today, we’ll find out what a younger applicant can do to compensate for a lack of work experience, what the admissions committee will be looking for in young candidates and what it’s actually like to be younger than your peers in business school.

Laurie Stewart, Tepper’s Executive Director of MBA Admissions also says in the MBA podcaster, “Over our history we have had students join our program early in their professional life and we have had a number of students that have done quite well. And we have identified through our admissions process some exceptional candidates that really present a compelling application for admission even without not as much professional experience, they have very clear goals and they’ve thought through professional path that they want to follow and their academically very strong and we can see that they would fit in to the MBA learning environment in terms of a learner and as a contributor and so we really want to have those exceptional candidates in the class.”

  • Exceptional academic profile:
    For a younger applicant it becomes all the more important to score exceptional academic scores. Laurie Stewart says “If someone has less experience then their academic profile really needs to be strong. Their essays need to really make sense for why their interested in a MBA degree. And I think a candidate as they have an opportunity for an interview has to also really present themselves in a way that shows us that they can sell themselves and it’s obvious that they’re going to contribute and participate in the learning environment.”
  • Make your goals focused
    An effective strategy is to have a clear vision of the future, since ‘confused’ students are often a second choice for the programme. Its more crucial for younger applicants, since lack of professional work could cause some concern about your ability to pinpoint your short term and long term goals. Providing details about your career path demonstrates your confidence to stick to your plan. Applicants with more experience can use that to demonstrate as proof of their understanding of interests and work habits. If you are younger, you need to demonstrate the same without the experience, so being on your toes is a necessity.
  • Leadership
    The more leadership traits any MBA applicant shows, the better. But if you are a younger applicant, exceptional leadership         qualities carry even more weight.” If you are applying to top MBA programs especially, most applicants will be in the “good to excellent performer” category, and to be competitive, you must at least equal them in impact, leadership, and/or achievement, but in less time, whether on the job or in your college activities.
    Laurie Stewart, “There are other ways that students with less experience can show leadership. One obvious place is in their involvement on the campus or within the community. And we see great examples of the aptitude for leadership and the impact that less experienced candidates are making and that’s a really good indicator for those kinds of skills over the long term.”
  • Maturity
    Adcoms look for personal maturity in all applicants, but will look especially closely at younger applicants. Thus, it is important for younger applicants to demonstrate personal maturity in three areas:
  1.  Skill in handling interpersonal communications and interactions;
  2. Sound judgment;
  3. Ability to self-reflect and self-critique

An easy opportunity to demonstrate this is in essays that ask you to detail incidences.
If you still have some questions running on your mind about the same, feel free to ask us. We would love to answer your queries.
Hope you enjoyed reading.