For applicants with very limited professional experience

Hello,

It would be silly if I didn't share my profile here, given my username. I agree that there should be more information for young applicants on GMATClub. I've included my profile and a few words of advice.

Name: earlycareerMBA

Sex: Female

Age: 21 at matriculation

GPA: 3.96 (current college senior)

GMAT: 760 (AWA 6)

TOEFL: --

No. of years of work experience: 2 yrs at matriculation (running small company), with 1 eight month internship, 1 researcher position, 1 honorary position (donor relations at my university), and 1 teaching assistant job.

Extracurrics: Leader-ish titles in 2 current organizations and 2 past organizations

Industry: Entrepreneurship in the consumer products industry

Target B- School(s): Stanford R1, Wharton R1, Booth R1, Cornell R2, UCLA R1, McCombs R1, CU-Boulder R1

School Choice Reasoning: great Entrepreneurship programs with some indication that they would consider an early applicant.

Current Status: Interviewed with Wharton, Booth, Cornell, UCLA, CU-Boulder. (I'll update when I hear back)

Concern( if you think you are lacking in work ex. then why so): In conversation (or interview), many people don't think there is anything unique about my profile until I mention that I am a college senior.

Unique feature( if you think you can make it despite lack of work ex., then why so): I have a strange background and my current company is creative in focus. I always bring a sample product to interviews (and I always get a "wow!"), because what I do is tricky to explain. Starting a company has a way of concentrating experiences. When I mess up, there's no one else to blame and the consequence of my actions is painfully obvious. So even though the number of years of experience I have isn't as high as some other applicants, I like to think that my experiences are just as rich and educational.

My advice to other early applicants:

The Why Now Obstacle:
If "Why Now?" is not obvious from looking at your resume, think carefully about how you are positioning yourself. For me, plugging away at my company, making reactive business decisions, is a terrible use of my time. Far better to pursue an MBA now, get some of those day-to-day tools and a broader perspective on what's possible and then return to my company ready to push full throttle.

Why now: not just "why do you want the education now?" but "why do you want to take 2 years off of work now?" These are different questions and you should be able to answer both of them.

Why not 2-3 years from now: not just "why not go get 2-3 years more experience?" but "is the MBA experience in any way less valuable to you if you wait a couple years?"

Just things to think about. The Why Now question is a huge part of your application, so your answer should be nuanced and show a deep understanding of your situation. There are 2 sides to every question and your answer should appropriately reflect if it was asked in a positive way "why..." or a negative way "why not..."

Recommenders:
This was a huge problem for me since I am a college senior and an entrepreneur. I have no supervisors. I ended up relying on the goodwill of my research mentor and past internship supervisor. Neither of them knew me particularly well, but they had been very impressed by the work I had done for them, so they probably wrote positive, if not particularly "professional" recommendations. Either way, the schools that you apply to will understand the pickle you are in. Unless you have that 5 years of work experience, it is really hard to get 2 great professional recommendations. In fact, Booth requires a letter from a professor as well (for a total of 3) if you are a college senior.

Uniqueness:
This is purely opinion but perhaps someone will find it useful. I don't think you're going to get very far if your resume looks like a mini version of someone else's resume from your field. If the reviewer/interviewer/alum/faculty/whoever can see you trundling along for another couple years and having a resume equal to that of another applicant, there needs to be a really, really good reason to take you now. Every conversation I have with alumni or faculty revolves around "containing the early career MBA population." No one really wants very many of us. Even Booth, with a handful of webpages specifically for early career applicants, only takes about 10% of the class from this "0-3 years of work experience" category (stat from an Adcom member at an MBA fair event). You need to genuinely be unique, not just a couple of "ah yes, very nice" points on your resume. Whether it's career goals, background, extracurric experiences, or just vision, it needs to be unique to you now. If you can see yourself making the same argument 2 or 3 years down the road, it's not a good one. Additionally, if you (heaven forbid) actually do end up re-applying 2-3 years down the road, it's going to sound really half-hearted.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. Send me a PM if you want to talk further.