Mr. Early Career

Hello Mr. Early Career, this is Michael from mbaMission.

It is already clear you have the quantitative ability to succeed in the classroom, because of your GMAT score (which is right about the average of your target schools), and a solid GPA in college.
However, as you pointed out, your work experience is very light, given that the average years of experience upon matriculation is closer to five years. So while I am sure you have already been impressive at work as an associate, you will have to show the admissions committee that your work experience is comparable to many applicants who have been working full-time much longer. You will also be competing against applicants who have more extracurricular experience. Therefore, I would advise you wait another year or two, to give yourself the chance to take on leadership roles at work, and if possible, show that you have been successful in collaborating with your peers and mentoring/coaching others. Be sure to illustrate your impact outside of work as well, by perhaps becoming very involved in an extracurricular activity.
So assuming you wait until at least another year or two to gain more experiences, I see your odds at Tepper to be about the same as the average acceptance rate, close to 40%.
Good luck!

Hi Mr. Early Career, Melisa here from Stratus Admissions. Thanks for submitting a profile. I think you’ve hit my biggest concern on the head – I would love for you to have a couple more years of experience. As it stands, Tepper has 2% of their class with <1 year of experience which leaves approx 8% between 1-2.6 years. Another couple years of experience and I think you’d be very attractive. Here are a couple things to think about as you are putting together a plan. While your GMAT is above Tepper’s average, I’d love to understand how you did in any quant based classes in undergrad. Clearly you did well overall with your strong GPA – and schools will want to know that you can handle the quantitative rigor of a program. Ways you can enhance your quant profile would be to take an accounting or finance class – Berkeley Extension offers a good Math for Management course or you could look at HBXCore. You can also look for opportunities to take on quantitative tasks at work. Another thing that more work experience gets you is more opportunities for leadership. You mention looking to rejoin your current company potentially as a manager. Maybe you could work towards this promotion and then use the MBA to move into strategic consulting or further into management. The great news is that you have a great start and with a couple more years of experience, you’ll be ready to apply! I am rating your odds as of right now. They will increase with years of experience! Best of luck and reach out with any questions.