Community Service

"Community involvement is very important to the application process" - Stacy Blackman

"Extra-Curricular activities hold little importance (5-10%) in your selection" - Pawan Gupta

Two interesting take on the importance of Community Involvement and Extra-Curricular Activities for MBA Admissions. Read More!

Community Service plays a significant role in evaluating MBA applicants’ profile for the following reasons:

1. Values: Seeing how you spend your time outside of work is a good indication of what are the important things in your life (compared with your claims in other parts of the application)

2. Contributions to the program: MBA’s are student-driven programs; clubs are run by current MBA students and strong leaders make the MBA experience better by organizing events, adding new clubs/events/treks, and strengthening the relationship with alumni and recruiters.  If you’ve been involved in the past, it’s likely that you will contribute to such activities during your MBA. 

3. Leadership: If you perceive yourself as a leader but don’t manage people in your job, then community service will help you. Community work shows the schools your leadership potential and skills.

4. Consistency: MBA programs like people who are focused and have a long term view, so a 3 years involvement of 2 hours per month in your community is more significant than a 2-weeks volunteer project in Africa or another remote location.

1. Start as early as possible – college is a good time;  keep volunteering when you join the work force, even if you can spend only a few hours a month.

2. Pick projects that are important for you and that are in line with your interests and needs. To improve your public speaking join Toast Masters,  or volunteer with Big Brother Big Sister if you care about kids. Don’t be afraid to join a smaller less-known organization – you might get a chance to have a greater impact on it. 

3. Make it work – if you travel a lot or don’t have time to meet people in person, find community work that you can do remotely or as part of your work (recruiting, volunteer projects with the company etc).

4. Go for quality, not quantity - it’s not about the number of organizations you participate in, it’s your impact on them and how you were able o contribute to that community.

F1GMAT: Nearly all Business School asks about the applicant’s involvement in community service. What are some of the points to keep in mind while writing about the community service experience? What should an applicant do in cases where he doesn't have any community service experience?

Stacy: Business schools pride themselves in training future leaders, not just educating a bunch of people who know how to calculate an IRR and overuse the word “leverage.” This is why so many ask about an applicant’s involvement in community service. MBA programs look for individuals who are concerned about doing great work and improving the world around them.

Community service experiences are important for the following reasons:

1) They show that an individual is multi-dimensional. They demonstrate, interests, passions, personality. As such, they help the admissions committees get to know you beyond your professional goals.

2) Being involved outside of work shows that you can balance multiple commitments, and that you are the type of person who will be able to balance academics with clubs, conferences, recruiting, and more, once you are at school.