age 30+ ..does it affect your admit chances ?

From what my friends tell me, it's mostly the military crowd which make up the 30+ demographic

Open the 2012 Ross thread, scroll down the applicants list, and notice how many are 30+.

Thanks I have been looking at all the 2012 school applicants threads.
however all applicants ≠ admits

Although this is the first year that GMATClub has these fully detailed lists, I think when all the cards are shown you're going to see age isn't really a factor.

It depends on the school. Certain schools have a reputation for wanting younger students, others are more receptive to older students.

I would say the majority of people are about 28-30, but there are a fair amount of people both 25 and under and those over 30. I really don't think for most schools that it's a hard cut off. It's more that when you're over the age of 30 - why do you really want your MBA? Do you REALLY want to be a student again? What can you actually get out of it? Because when you have that much work experience, you may not necessarily gain as much from an MBA as others who have less experience.

At Kelley, I would estimate that maybe 20 of us are 30+, out of a class of 210 (I think). I am 35, and there are 4 older than me (max of 39). As far as I know, only one of the 30+ crew is actual ex-military. The rest of us are diversified. Several simply ended up getting their undergrad degrees later in life (so they have 4 years of work exp). I was/am a lawyer. Based off of talking to the admin and other here, I am pretty confident that being in your 30's is not a disadvantage with admission to Kelley. You just have to make sure that you can answer the "why MBA and why now" questions.

Tom

Hi Zynga,

You should not be concerned about an imaginary cut-off age. Younger and older candidates will face challenges. Older candidates will have to prove that it makes sense to return to school at this late stage of their career, and that they are not merely encountering a mid-career crisis. They will also have to demonstrate that all of their time in the work world has been well spent. They should demonstrate progression, tangible contributions, and a high level of self-awareness, confidence, and maturity.

A 35-year-old applicant who has spent 15 years in the same position without showing significant growth or progression will have a hard time being admitted to a top school. But this is not because they are 35- rather, it is because they may have not demonstrated growth during that time.

Hope this was of help.


Best,

Conrad and the Stacy Blackman Team

If you are looking into EU .IMD average candidate age is around 31-33.

Good question. If the data published in the Economist is accurate then being 30+ does present a disadvantage. I wrote about this topic and compiled some of the age range data in this blog post:

https://mbaprepschool.com/qa-am-i-too-old-for-an-mba/

Best of luck!
Tyler

I'd be shocked if the Economist numbers were the absolute range. They almost have to be the middle 80%.

I was shocked too. I double checked to see if you might be right. The pages simply say "Age Range of Students." Of course, I have no access to the source data and cannot vouch for its accuracy; however, The Economist is a reputable sources.

Here is a link to one of the pages so you can check it out for yourself: https://www.economist.com/whichmba/2010/ ... f-business

Something else to be gleaned from the data is that the part-time MBAs (evening, weekend, etc) have a wider age range. Furthermore, the average age and age range for European MBAs is higher.

Tyler,

I can say with a certainty that the range for UCLA Anderson is incorrect.

https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x27471.xml

And as far as the question of whether age 30+ will affect your chances, I am confident that it WILL affect your chances but in a much more subtle way.

Business schools try to pick candidates that will be successful academically as well as professionally.

If you are an older candidate, how can the school be sure that you can handle the academic load given that you have been out of school for such a long time? Furthermore, the school will also ask the question, "has this candidate been stagnant in his current career and want to use MBA as a springboard?" Ironically, business schools look for candidate who will be just as successful with an MBA as without an MBA.

As an older candidate, you really need to do well on your GMAT and paint a clear picture of what you want to do after your MBA to mitigate your employment risk after graduation.

Good luck.

^^ so does having a masters degree (2 additional years) cut you any slack for "above the average age" factor?
or having a masters degree has no bearing whatsoever on the situation ?

The admissions process is a blackbox so it's rather hard to make a determination on what kind of bearing a masters degree will have.

My best guess would be that if your GMAT score is good, except for the quantitative portion, having a quantitative masters degree from a reputable institution may mitigate the concern by the admissions committee.

Good luck.