Wharton v/s HBS, Stanford

[Guest]

Hey Alex, I regularly read posts on this forum and also read your blog. It appears that the trend at HBS/Stanford is clearly towards younger candidates with non-engineering backgrounds. Does Wharton also exhibit that trend? Are they more accomodating with regards to older candidates than the other two schools and also more willing to accept engineers from the semiconductor industry? Thanks in advance!

[MBAApply]

Wharton isn't as hardcore about the age thing, but they are trending younger. The problem with engineers (of any stripe) is that there's so many of you applying, and they have the luxury of selecting the younger engineer, even if he/she may not have as strong a technical background as the older engineer. That's the crux of the problem - a lot of the older engineers don't have substantively more leadership experience than the younger one - the only big thing they have a leg up on is technical experience. So from a practical standpoint, if you have a lot of leadership experience, you can transcend the engineering straitjacket regardless of age. If the biggest leg up you have on the younger engineers is just your technical experience, then your chances will be slim at Wharton since there are younger engineers that are more attractive to them.

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

[Guest]

Thanks for the explanation. So when you state that Wharton is looking for more leadership experience in older engineers, are they looking for people with direct reports, or would other forms of leadership such as coordination of large teams, mentoring etc. also be acceptable in lieu of direct reports?

[Saurav]

Alex,

A quick clarification if you please - When you say younger - How does that translate into number of years of work-ex?

thanks

apologize if I am drawing away from the main topic.

[MBAApply]

Around 3-5 years post college experience, or those who are around 25 - 28.

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