reasons for not having many extacurriculars

[Guest]

Hi Alex,

I have been working for about 7-8 years now but I don't have too many extracurricular activities to my credit during my professional career. However, I have several during high-school and college. The main reason is that I have a demanding job and I also had to go home (India) quite often to attend to family emergencies/poor health of my parents. Do you think admissions committees will accept this as a valid reason and pay more attention to my prior extracurricular work?

thanks very much,
Sid

[MBAApply]

Unfortunately, no, because there are other applicants with similar circumstances who still managed to stay somewhat active outside of work.

How fatal this is depends on your job. If your job is primarily technical, then you really don't have a lot of experiences to draw from for your essays that could highlight your management or leadership potential (or even your interpersonal skills). If you are being paid to manage people (instead of just managing processes), then the lack of extracurriculars becomes less of an issue.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com

[Guest]

Thanks. Do executive MBA programs tend to pay less attention to extracurricular activities than do full-time MBA programs?

[MBAApply]

They do, but they also expect more managerial experience as well, and the majority of the class are sponsored by their current employers.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com