Profile Eval.: Petroleum Engineer/Brazil/4,5 yrs exp.

Oswaldo--these are good questions. B-schools like a good story, so my opinion is that it depends on what your post MBA vision is. You say you want to make a career shift, so if this shift is becoming an entrepreneur, then it could help substantiate that claim if you have started a business. Now realize for schools like HBS and STandford, they are not going to be too impressed with a small business with no growth, so the risk you run is making it look like you have started a "cottage business" if you don't have time to post some pretty impressive progress. I think this risk will outweigh any brownie points you would get for rolling the dice and taking a risk. Your engineering career is impressive and I think a memorable story can indeed be built around your achievements, particularly since working on oil derricks sounds exciting and definitley different from the average applicant. Coupled with your Brazillian citizenry, your story has real potential to grab the interest of the top schools. I would focus on those stories and think twice about potentially appearing to be unsure of exactly what you want to do by quitting it all and starting up a small business. Much of this, again, depends on your post MBA vision and how compelling a story you can build around what you want to achieve with the MBA. Hope this helps.