What Do B-Schools look for in an Applicant?

Business schools, particularly for the MBA, often look for three to four years of full-time work experience. Sometimes, they will also consider internship or co-op experience as long as it’s relevant to business. They often look for leadership potential, so it’s important to put leadership positions you have held on your application or resume.

A strong academic record and GPA are important. In considering this, they will look at what classes you took, the rigor of your undergraduate institution, how well you performed in various classes and at varying levels of difficulty or specialization, etc. GMAT scores are often required and many schools will list average scores or ranges of scores for applicants that were offered admission on their Web sites.

It’s important to have a good foundation of classes, but schools will certainly look to see how well you did in business classes, since you’ll be taking more business classes at the graduate level. Other classes, such as communication, statistics, and English classes, are important too since professionals must be effective communicators and must be able to analyze data to some degree.