Many prospective business school candidates think that International experience can make or break their chances of getting into their dream school. Although it is true that international experience (especially traveling to other countries for work) can validate your ability to work with other cultures, the later is more important than traveling to other countries.
No International Travel experience
For candidates with no international travel experience, stress on the diversity of the team that you had to handle. A team with different nationality, languages and cultures can create challenging group dynamics. Explain how you were able to handle or work in such a team and the value that different cultures were able to bring to the table.
International Travel experience
Business school has a special affinity towards candidates with travel experience. Use the experience to your advantage. Project the challenges that you had to face while acclimatizing to the new culture, food, climate and people. The tone of your essay should be respectful and should show how you were able to overcome the cultural differences by sticking on to the mission of the project.
No experience working with diverse team
In this globalized world, it is highly unlikely that you would not have worked with people of different nationality. However, if that is the case, then focus your answer on the challenges that you had to face working with people from different backgrounds. Again, the tone of the essay should be respectful and objective.
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
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