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A look at what the Wharton School has to say on work experience: "The average student has worked for 5 or 6 years between college and the MBA programme. The Admissions Committee looks for individuals who exhibit professional maturity.
In other words, we evaluate work experience not in terms of years but the depth and breadth of an individual's position, his or her contributions to the work environment, and level of responsibility and progression. Wharton looks for diversity in the professional backgrounds of its admitted students just as it does in all other parts of our applicants' profiles. No one industry is favoured over another, and experience in a Fortune 500 company does not have higher value than experience in a small business or public institution."

However, in India, though work experience is preferred, most B-schools are happy to admit students, who have applied directly after graduation. Very few B-schools like Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, have made work experience mandatory for seeking admission.

Says Ali Khwaja, an educational consultant based in Bangalore, "There is not much of dignity of labour in India, and many jobs available to graduates may not really give them the necessary experience. Also, we do not have many people who go back to college after earning money, so the fear is that getting into the world of work may cut off the chances of the person studying further later. Also, in the West, many students finance their own higher studies, whereas in India, we are still used to parents funding education, even by taking loans."

"In India, the social security system is very weak. Parents are not left with much in their post retirement living. Indian society is governed by a sense of responsibility wherein parents take upon themselves the cost of their children's education. This is not so in the West where parents do not come in between children and their education." says Rajkamal Gupta, Vice President (HR) of RKJ Group, which owns Pizza Hut, Universal Dairy Products, Varun Beverages (Pepsi) Ltd. and Universal Breweries Ltd. (Mauritius).

According to him, there are three fundamental guiding factors for a student opting for MBA. "One, if parents have the financial capacity and their children have the potential; second is parents have capacity but their child lacks potential; third is where the student has potential but parents cannot afford the education."

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* Contributed by -
Oumkar Umesh,
Senior Correspondent - The Observer of Management,
Vol. 1 Issue 4 April 2006,
(With inputs from Prithvi Singh).