But many business-school officials don’t agree. Many M.B.A. programs require students to work for a few years first before starting their studies. This way, say officials, students get more out of the program and have more to offer other participants.

So which approach is better? Brian Poger, a student at Northwestern University’s J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, believes the answer is clear. Mr. Poger worked for seven years at Eli Lilly and Co., an Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company, before enrolling in business school.

Having full-time work experience has been essential to his gaining the maximum from the Kellogg program, he says. “I would recommend [you] get the best experience you can whenever you have an opportunity,” he says. “In most cases, that means working, learning how to interact in a business environment and developing your personal skill set.”

Getting the Most Out of B-School

Many career experts agree. Without full-time work experience, students have a more difficult time with business-school coursework and with job interviews, says Ann Browning, associate director of the career-management center at Kellogg.

Without working first, “I don’t think you get as much out of the classes,” says Kevin Nall, associate director for M.B.A. services at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Kellogg students have an average of five years of work experience. This gives them the background to “make what we teach here more relevant,” says Ms. Browning. They also have a better sense of what they want to do professionally. “It helps with career focus,” she says. “I’m not so sure that [someone without experience] would be 100% certain an M.B.A. is what they want to do in the long run.”

Mr. Nall notes that starting salaries are lower for students who lack work experience. He cites a Baylor survey indicating that the average starting salary for M.B.A. graduates with experience is 15% to 25% higher than for those who lack experience. “You do hurt your market value,” he says.

Aiming for a Top-Ranked School

Mr. Poger graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and could have gone straight into that school’s M.B.A. program. But he set his sights on attending a school with high marks in the published rankings — and this required experience.

At Eli Lilly, he transferred around to gain as much experience in different functions as he could. “The first two years [I spent] as an information-systems analyst, the next three as a project manager and the last two in a sales and marketing organization,” he says.

Moving from technology to project management to sales allowed him to develop different skills. “Those were self-selected moves,” says Mr. Poger. “I was consistently interested in business, and I felt like sales and marketing was the type of experience you need throughout life and would be good experience to get prior to going back to business school.”

Besides working first, Mr. Poger advises prospective M.B.A. students to enroll in “the very best business school that you can.” He says that the quality of business schools that require work experience is likely to be superior because about a third of the learning occurs by interaction.

Mr. Poger says he chose Kellogg because of its excellent academic reputation and because he would be “surrounded by peers I could really learn from.”

“Kellogg and many other schools work and meet in groups, which is very important, just as it is in the business world,” he says. “The more you develop those group skills in business, the better off you’re going to be and the more you’re going to learn from the people around you when you go back to school.”

The school’s strong student organization and government also was a factor in his decision, says Mr. Poger, who is president of the Graduate Management Association, Kellogg’s student government.

He spent last summer in London on a strategy-consulting internship with McKinsey & Co., an international consulting firm based in New York. Eventually, he may opt for a consulting career. “In all likelihood, if I don’t go into consulting, I’d probably be joining some sort of technology company,” he says.

Going to B-School at Night

David Carpe, an evening M.B.A. student at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., says the importance of having experience before starting graduate business studies is “huge.”

Mr. Carpe, 29 years old, worked in the capital-markets division of Fidelity Investments, a Boston mutual-fund company, then became an executive recruiter for Fidelity. Next, he founded an executive-recruiting firm, Thorn & Graves, in Boston. He started his M.B.A. at night in the fall of 1997 while working during the day as a search executive.

Having prior business experience isn’t as critical when taking courses like statistics and managerial accounting, says Mr. Carpe. “Those you can do right out of undergrad,” he says. But experience is key to getting the most from classes dealing with management, strategy, finance and organizational behavior, he says. “It’s when you actually [get] the real meat of an M.B.A. program,” he says.

A 1993 fine-arts graduate who studied sculpture at George Washington University, Mr. Carpe initially was concerned that the M.B.A. program’s math-related courses would be too difficult. “I feared courses like management accounting and linear programming,” he says. “Nothing I’d studied in undergrad had any value other than teaching you how to think and how to do critical research.”

But he soon learned that those courses weren’t as difficult as he’d imagined. Moreover, the core M.B.A. courses have been useful to his day work.

“The courses that were particularly helpful were really the business management-type courses like finance, marketing — real fundamental stuff that I didn’t take as an undergrad,” he says.

Further, graduate students who work full time relate to business-school professors as equals, not as teachers, and may learn more because of this, says Mr. Carpe. They “learn a lot from them as people, not just academicians,” he says.

On the other hand, students who don’t work often “just show up for class, complete their homework and leave,” he says. “They don’t necessarily get as much out of the coursework.”

Mr. Carpe says he met with several professors for advice when developing a business plan for an Internet firm he’s starting called everpath [sic], which will focus on the business needs of religious organizations. Meeting with the professors “was extremely helpful, like the ultimate sounding board,” he says.

Starting the new company has caused him to delay his M.B.A. graduation. “Since February I’ve been working 90 hours a week,” says Mr. Carpe.

Assume the interviewer will be evaluating you and prepare by heeding these suggestions:

“Know thyself.” Review your resume and ask yourself, “Why have I chosen to do the things I’ve done?” says Ms. Lannin.

Asking yourself “why?” about each professional move may be the best way to prepare. Be able to articulate your impact on various employers or academic institutions. For example, you should be able to say why you chose to attend your undergraduate school, what you gained from the experience and what contributions you made.

When examining your professional experience, an interviewer might ask why you chose to leave one company for another and the impact you had on these organizations. You won’t be asked, “Where did you go after you left company A?” because that’s on your resume, says Ms. Lannin. “Instead, you’ll be asked, ‘Why did you make the decision to go to Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. after Donaldson, Lufkin, & Jenrette?’ ” she says.

At Iowa, applicants might be asked to “give an example of when you thought you played a successful leadership role,” says Ms. Spreen. Working as part of a team is also an important theme at Iowa, and questions in that arena should be expected.

“Sometimes I ask them what accomplishments they’re most proud of and what characteristics they feel a good leader would have,” Ms. Spreen says.

Be informed about the school and its M.B.A. program and why it appeals to you. You might want to tour the school, attend a class or sit in on a group information session to learn about life at the school and why it might be right for you.

“We strongly encourage all of our prospective students to visit campus,” says Michelle Jacobson, director of graduate programs at Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. “We want applicants to really feel good about what they might be getting into should they be accepted.”

When visiting Ohio State, candidates tour the facility and sit in on a class before interviewing separately with a student ambassador and a staff member, then lunching with a group of students.

Review the essay questions on your application so you don’t make conflicting statements during the meeting. It’s common for schools to ask actual essay questions during interviews. Each school uses different essay questions. Stanford asks, “What matters most to you, and why?” while Harvard uses, “Describe your three most substantial accomplishments and explain why you view them as such” on its application. Other schools ask, “Why are you interested in getting a graduate degree in business?”

Ms. Spreen says she usually asks open-ended questions that are targeted to key themes. “I usually start off with an easy one like, “Please expand on your interest in an M.B.A. and your choice of Iowa,” she says. “Then I tend to ask pretty open-ended questions like, ‘Who do you admire as a leader and why?’ ”

Practice answering questions related to your essay and other potential interview questions out loud. It’s helpful to actually hear your answers, not just imagine mentally what you’d say, says Ms. Lannin.

MBA Strategies gives clients a list of actual queries from various schools to practice with. One applicant told Ms. Lannin that rehearsing the answers in advance was key to surviving an interview and being accepted at Kellogg.

Ask schools in advance what questions they’ll use during the interview. This information isn’t secret and schools usually want applicants to think about their answers in advance, says Ms. Spreen. “If they can’t find [that information] anyplace else, they can call us and ask,” she says. “We want them to be prepared, so we expect them to have thought about it.”

Dress appropriately. Wearing business attire is a must when interviewing at a business school.

Silence Isn’t Golden

Some interviews run short because applicants have little to say. This shows a lack of preparedness, says Ms. Spreen. When applicants don’t prepare, they have insufficient or poor questions. After 10 minutes, there’s nothing to say, she says.

An impressive candidate is one who comes armed with an array of intelligent questions. One recent applicant asked questions on topics ranging from job placement based on regions and types of companies to average GMAT scores to the names of the top five employers who recruit from the school. “He clearly knew what he was looking for and had thought out the questions for the areas he was most interested in,” says Ms. Spreen.

“This is very helpful to us in the interview so we know what that particular person is interested in and how we can best provide them with the information they need,” she says. “[It lets us] expand on the areas they’re interested in.”

Ms. Jacobson also encourages interviewees to ask a lot of questions. Ask questions that relate to something unique to that school, such as workload and curriculum issues or recent improvements. Don’t ask about obvious subjects that you could learn by reading the catalog or Web site, such as “What are your core courses?”

“The interview isn’t an opportunity to get smarter on the school,” says Ms. Lannin. “It’s an opportunity to show what you know and express why the school is uniquely positioned to meet your educational objectives.”

Remember that everyone you meet at a school is a potential evaluator. One applicant was eliminated after telling an inappropriate joke to a female student who was taking him to lunch on campus. “I wouldn’t recommend that,” says Ms. Spreen, “Everybody you talk to, if it’s a campus visit, is going to give feedback to the admission committee.”

Some schools try to gauge what interviewees will be like in two years and how on-campus recruiters will perceive them. If your answers don’t impress school interviewers, they won’t impress recruiters, says Ms. Lannin.

“The interview is a really great chance to assess whether this person is going to be of interest to the recruiters,” she says. “It’s basically a preliminary job interview.”

Typically, these sessions last 30 minutes to an hour and are designed to assess qualities that aren’t easily detected on your written application. “We’re using the interview to get a better feel for some of the more subjective elements of the applicants that are pretty difficult to get just by looking at the paper application,” says Mary Spreen, director of M.B.A. admissions and financial aid at the University of Iowa’s Henry B. Tippie College of Business.

Each school handles the interview process differently. “It varies dramatically from school to school,” says Sally P. Lannin, president of MBA Strategies, a consulting firm in Edina, Minn., that coaches aspiring M.B.A.s who want to get into top schools. At Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, for example, interviews are practically nonexistent, while at Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, every applicant is interviewed. Between these extremes, b-schools have a raft of different interviewing policies, styles and techniques. Even at the same school, interview tactics may vary depending on whom you meet.

The weight of the interview in admissions decisions varies from school to school as well. Because of these variables, the best way to make a good impression is to plan ahead, prepare thoroughly and abide by some common-sense do’s and don’ts.

While most interviews are face-to-face either on campus or in your home city, you might also be interviewed by phone. “Many people aren’t able to visit campus,” says Ms. Spreen. “In those cases, we generally screen the resume and application and if we feel that they meet the minimum objective criteria, then we would hold an interview either off-site or by telephone.”

Three Types of Interviewers

Start by learning with whom you’ll meet in advance of the interview and know their role. Interviewers usually wear one or more of three possible hats, says Ms. Lannin. The most important hat is that of “evaluator,” someone who recommends whether or not you should be accepted.

The second role is that of the “marketer,” someone who’s primarily trying to try to sell you on the M.B.A. program, school, placement office, city or region.

“Originally, when schools first started interviewing, that was primarily the role the interviewer played,” says Ms. Lannin. “Kellogg and the Wharton School were really in the forefront there.”

The third role is that of “counselor,” someone who primarily provides information about the program, school and application process.

Depending on the school, an interviewer could be an admissions officer, current student, recent alumni or an “alumni of stature,” someone who’s at the peak of his or her career.

“This is the type of person Harvard uses,” says Ms. Lannin. Students, alumni and alumni of stature usually are trained by the admissions office in how to conduct interviews, so you aren’t off the hook when meeting one of these folks.

How Answers Are Evaluated

At Iowa, “the basic qualities we’re trying to assess are related to communication skills,” Ms. Spreen says. “So, for example, when we ask people to talk about their career vision, we’re looking for evidence that they’ve thought about this significantly and that they can articulate that vision — recognizing that that may change once they’re here.”

At Ohio State, interviewers are interested in how much preparation and research applicants have done, as well as the clarity of their answers. They might be asked why they’re specifically attracted to the Fisher School of Management and why they want to earn an M.B.A., says Ms. Jacobson. Vague answers are perceived poorly.

“If they say things about our small class size, cohorts, team building, mentoring program and faculty, [it's] something specific about why it’s a good fit for them,” says Ms. Jacobson. “We’d know that they’ve done their research.”

Answers or questions that zero in on the Fisher School’s team-building approach are important. “Because we have an emphasis on team building, they would know that about us, and they might talk about situations they’ve been in that involve team building,” says Ms. Jacobson. The school also emphasizes leadership, so questions about it are a plus.

Examine “what in your past shows your team leadership, your ability to work with others or your ability to resolve conflict, [and] be prepared to either ask questions or talk about what you’ve done,” she says.

If you lack much work experience, discuss transferable contributions you could make based on volunteer or co-op assignments or organizational roles.

Mr. Burden opted not to work full time and began looking for a business school that would waive the work-experience requirement and allow him to enroll directly from college. He found it at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad Graduate School of Management in East Lansing. Mr. Burden enrolled in the program and graduated at the age of 23.

“I’ve always been the type of person who likes to get things done the first time and not put them off,” he says. “In a sense, taking a break between undergrad and graduate school fell in the category of putting off my education.”

Most top graduate business programs require students to work full time for several years before enrolling in M.B.A programs. The idea is that by working first, students can see how business-school theory can be applied to the real world. And, since much of M.B.A. learning comes from interaction between students, students with a few years of work under their belts are believed to contribute more during classroom discussions.

But some business schools bend the work-experience rule occasionally. A few even have programs that allow students to move from their undergraduate studies directly into the graduate business school with little or no work experience.

A List of Advantages

This, of course, raises the question: Is having full-time work experience critical to getting a sound education in an M.B.A. program? Students who have gone directly to business school say it isn’t. And some administrators cite advantages to completing graduate business school without working first.

Mr. Burden had just completed a double major in marketing and management from Loyola University in New Orleans before he started business school. He’s sure his lack of work experience wasn’t a liability at Michigan State. “To be honest with you, it totally wasn’t an issue for me,” he says.

He also thinks that coming directly from an undergraduate business school allowed him to make an important contribution. “I was coming straight out of an undergraduate business program, and in a sense, that gave me a lot to add for those who hadn’t been in the classroom recently,” he says. “It kind of balances all out. I didn’t at all feel disadvantaged.”

Kevin Nall, associate director of M.B.A. career services at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, says there are advantages to going directly to graduate business school. For instance, students complete their education by 23 or 24. At this point, they have few responsibilities and paying back student loans often is easier than it is later in life, says Mr. Nall.

Having already earned an M.B.A. also can be beneficial when seeking a new job because employers know you won’t be leaving in a few years to return to school. “Certain employers are going to value that you won’t have to interrupt your job service,” says Mr. Nall.

Making a Rare Exception

Michigan State has a two-year work requirement for M.B.A. applicants, say officials, but the school made an exception for Mr. Burden. He had good grades, leadership experience, two undergraduate business internships and a high score on the Graduate Management Admissions Test.

“I was told that they may make an exception every now and then, and it’s very rare,” says Mr. Burden. “If you desire to get into an M.B.A. program straight out of school, the odds are against you, but it can happen.”

Mr. Burden concedes that having full-time work experience is probably preferable to not having it while in business school. However, his two undergraduate internships gave him experience that allowed him to contribute during class discussions.

At first, he was concerned he might not fit in with students who had worked in business for several years. “I went in thinking I’m going to be with people who have worked some 10 and 20 years, and how am I going to relate?” he recalls.

But he decided that everyone has something to offer in a classroom environment. “The key is that we all got in for a certain reason, we were all qualified and we all had something to add,” says Mr. Burden.

Enrolling in a small, more intimate M.B.A. program also was a sound decision for Mr. Burden. “I really liked the program because it’s small compared to the University of Michigan and other schools,” he says. “My class took in only about 100. I like that personalized attention. [It] was all I needed to see” during a scouting visit.

Mr. Burden is now an assistant product manager in the Chicago office of Hormel Foods Corp., an Austin, Minn., food-products company, a position he landed through the on-campus recruiting process.

“I’m working with the sales force in Chicago to learn the products,” he says. “Within a year, I’ll be transferred to the corporate office in Minnesota to begin product-management responsibilities.”

0 Two Degrees in Five Years

Some schools have accelerated programs that encourage students to earn their M.B.A.s without working first. For instance, Jason Ludeke majored in engineering at Tulane University in New Orleans and was one of five students to move directly into the graduate school of business as part of a five-year program to earn undergraduate and master’s degrees.

He, too, says that not having previous business experience before starting graduate business school hasn’t hampered his learning. “I would say it hasn’t hindered me,” says Mr. Ludeke, a Houston native.

But like Mr. Burden, he says that working first might have been helpful at times. “It could help in a course in which the job provided thorough exposure to the course material,” he says. “For example, a person with accounting experience might have an easier time with external or managerial accounting.”

As a “start-from-scratch” approach that assumes incoming students have no prior business experience, the M.B.A. program at Tulane’s A. B. Freeman School of Business accommodates Mr. Ludeke’s lack of work experience, says the 22-year-old. “That’s why you’re not really at a disadvantage coming from a different background.”

He chose to complete his M.B.A. without working full time first because he plans to make a career change. “I wanted to move out of engineering,” he says. “I didn’t want to be in the field long term.”

In about 10 years, he may start his own business, but he wants to gain experience first. “It’s [not] really realistic to want to own your own business right away,” says Mr. Ludeke, who will be 23 when he graduates. “I have to start working for a company and learn as much as I can as quickly as I can so that eventually I can work for myself.”

Mr. Ludeke has been interning in the corporate-development department at corporate offices of WorldCom Inc., a telecommunications giant in Clinton, Miss., and had a prior internship with another telecommunications firm’s corporate-development group.

Given this experience, he may seek a full-time job in the telecommunications industry after graduating. “What exact job role I’ll be looking for I’m not exactly sure,” he says.