Is volunteer work a must?

[AllanB695]

hi guys

background: I'm from Brazil, 27 yrs old, born in a ugly and poor place, managed to get a diploma from a local top business school , 4 yrs experience as trader working in asset management , first equities small cap then i moved to a global desk where i'm a generalist that trades everything (I know something about a lot of subjects, but not a lot about anything ), approved level 2 cfa (will get the 3 before application), decent but not amazing grades in college.... i'm really confident that I can get a +700 grade in gmat...

but I have never made any kind of volunteer work. I started working really early during college because I desperately needed the money ...in Brazil we are allowed to make an internship while in college, i started in the 2nd year. When I got my diploma 4 years ago I never managed to find some time to do it (i never wanted to, to be honest)

is that a problem? does business schools consider very important any kind of volunteer work or side projects? I focused mostly in my career and getting the CFA

[mbamissionjenK]

Hello,
Thanks for posting your q, and congrats on all you have accomplished so far..... understandable that you haven't had much time for volunteer work. That said while it's not a 'requirement', the challenge is that so many of your fellow applicants do have significant community involvement... so it really depends upon what caliber of school you are applying to, how competitive it is, and how you ultimately stack up holistically vs those other applicants. Depending upon when you are considering applying, it may not be too late to start something! Good luck and keep us posted!

[narsimak266]

I was sure that I will find something here, but I guess no. I was able to find good at http://sites.laveeneld.org/cwilliams/links/ , and if anyone wants to see it, then they can use it. It'll help us all for sure.