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Almost a month into my programme at Wharton, the question I’ve been asked most frequently is, how did you get in? I’ve also been seeing posts asking this question on S2S, so as part of a very small group of college seniors at Wharton (who is not a submatriculant- grades probably matter far more to that group) I thought I’d write a bit about my story/ profile, and how I made it here. College Before entering college, I was awarded a full college scholarship to fund my overseas study at The University of Chicago. At The University of Chicago I made it a point to keep up with my academics, majoring in Economics. International Interest (Important for Lauder) Aside from college courses, I’m fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English, and I speak conversational Thai. In the past three years I’ve spent four months volunteering in Thailand, three months studying abroad in China, and traveled to Peru, Mexico on holidays. Work Experience
Before college, I served two years and two months of mandatory service in the Singapore Army, where I led a team of about 6-15 people (depending on the exact time of the year) in a human resource branch.
During the past three years I’ve also interned yearly at the company that offered me the scholarship. In the first year I worked in corporate development, and was worked on tackling the threats to the company business model. The company is a media conglomerate, and prints newspapers and magazines; with the advent of free blogs and online news, our circulation has been plummeting.In the second year I worked at the marketing department approaching people off the streets to sign up for our new online job portal. In the third year I went back to corporate development because helping the company deal with the threats to its circulation excites me and I’d decided that pursuing such a job scope (corporate development) was my career goal. My internships have been great learning experiences, and like all successful applicants I was fortunate to have been able to translate some of these learning experiences into essays outlining my career goals and growth over the past few years. These were ultimately able to help me gain admission. The point, for college seniors, is this: I don’t believe it’s possible to get into business school without having worked at all (this is, after all, business school), but it is definitely possible to get in without full-time post college work experience (and instead having good internship experiences to write your essays with).
In the second year I worked at the marketing department approaching people off the streets to sign up for our new online job portal. In the third year I went back to corporate development because helping the company deal with the threats to its circulation excites me and I’d decided that pursuing such a job scope (corporate development) was my career goal. My internships have been great learning experiences, and like all successful applicants I was fortunate to have been able to translate some of these learning experiences into essays outlining my career goals and growth over the past few years. These were ultimately able to help me gain admission. The point, for college seniors, is this: I don’t believe it’s possible to get into business school without having worked at all (this is, after all, business school), but it is definitely possible to get in without full-time post college work experience (and instead having good internship experiences to write your essays with).
Volunteering Apart from the short and medium term, my volunteering experiences have also clarified my long term goals as a social entrepreneur. I’ve spent practically every summer doing a community service project on top of my internship (two summers in Thailand), and throughout high school and also for a time in Chicago I volunteered my time as a teacher, tutoring in a variety of subjects from English to Math. Conclusion
So you see, even with my limited work experience I know my short and medium term goals (corporate development) long term goals (social entrepreneurship) and I know exactly what I need to get out of the MBA. When schools like Wharton say that it’s not ‘how many years and how many months’ that matter, they’re not kidding. Rather, know ‘why now, and why MBA’, and you’ll not have to worry about work experience. So for me, why MBA, why now? First, why MBA: I became very interested in pursuing a career in business after my internship experiences, so I began to consider a business degree. Indeed after this decision, in a month and a half I had to do my GMAT, write my essays, and secure recommendations- all while working/studying full-time. In short it certainly wasn’t a planned decision (although that’s probably not the best way to do things!). And why now? Well, I’m currently most interested in the media, and if I waited till I gained more experience in the industry, in a few years time there may not be much of an industry to speak of, what with the entire news industry being threatened by free online alternatives. Hence I decided that I’d go now, whether it was Wharton or some other school. Luckily I got in, and here I am at Wharton, and not ’some other school’!
For everyone out there who’s considering applying to business school, good luck, and I have just one piece of advice: just try it. I started out thinking I’d never get into the mythical Wharton, which was my dream school. But talking to some other people made me realise that I should at least turn in an application, and with that my dream came true after all. So good luck to everyone out there! link:http://graddiv.wharton.upenn.edu/diaries/?p=30 | 
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发表于 2008-6-11 19:58:00
