Australia Exp or US experience more valid from B-school Perspective?

[jbanoop]

Hi All,
Sorry for the pretty odd looking title ... dearth of imagination

I have been a regular readr of the pagal guy forums. A brief of me is that I am an IT professional (like many of you out there) with around 4 years of experience planning for an MBA from a good US Bschool sooner than later.

My professional career sketch so far would be :

* 1.25 years in a product company doing the normal s/w engineer stuff (got an appriciation letter from the CEO for good performance and all but all just basic stuff)

* 1.5 years in another company doing more or less a more glorified form of the same.

I actually like the job (read not frustrated) however wanted to do new things, needed new challenges, life was getting to mudane, so i decided to strike out and swim.. So i landed up in Consulting .. technology consulting ..
* Did a brief stint in New Zealand as consultant to IBM
* Moved on from there to Saudi Arabia (yes :-D ) and doing the role of an EAI Consultant for the past year as a consultant for IBM Saudi Arabia for a telecom major here.

Now I am planning on moving ahead (guess the learning aspect here is running thin).
I have two options at present :
1. I have an offer to work out of Australia as a Consultant for IBM Australia or
2. I have the oppurtunity to go and do consulting in the US (though I would not have the cover of the brand name of IBM there).

Here the thing is I can do the US part even after one year in Oz also if required.

Now to the question:

* which experience would reflect favourably on me from a B-School admit perspective , working in Australia or the US or a combination of the two ? Also would like to know how far this could be a factor if at all it is one ..

I am planning to prep and give the GMAT during the job transition period (Read Feb-March 07) and would ideally like to apply for fall 2007 (total work exp around 5 years) but can push it if required to fall 2008.

any thoughts/opinion/suggestions/advice on the same would be very much appriciated.
Regards,
Anoop

[Hatori H]

Originally Posted by jbanoop

Now to the question:

* which experience would reflect favourably on me from a B-School admit perspective , working in Australia or the US or a combination of the two ? Also would like to know how far this could be a factor if at all it is one ..

I am planning to prep and give the GMAT during the job transition period (Read Feb-March 07) and would ideally like to apply for fall 2007 (total work exp around 5 years) but can push it if required to fall 2008.

any thoughts/opinion/suggestions/advice on the same would be very much appriciated.
Regards,
Anoop

Hey Anoop,
Looks like you've got some solid experience under your belt already.. If you feel you're ready for a B-school now, go for it.. Remember, it's all about selling your story. I can't stress how important this is - Sell sell sell... if you can sell yourself, the B-schools want you.. That's the core of business eh?

I don't think you'd find absolute answers to your question here, but I'll put down whatever relevant stuff I've understood through research, talking to Alumni and B-school's admissions people.

a) B-schools LOVE diversity... People who come from different backgrounds and have diverse experiences are more likely to be more open to new things, bring in different perspectives, have a more global outlook, etc etc. You know what I mean.. If you've traveled and worked with different people in different cultures, and learnt well, then you can be an asset to any organization.
I don't really think that the Australian/American work ex difference will mean as much as the Type of Experience you have... But given these schools thing for Diversity, I'd say go for the Australian thing.

B) Apply for 2007, give it a shot. If you get it.. great, if not, there's always '08. You'll probably be too late for a lot of 2007 admissions though.


-HH
(Just opinions, I'm by no stretch an authority on this stuff)