Being a young MBA (from Stanford)

One of the biggest issues I find I have to deal with whilst being a business school student is being at the young(er) end of the scale relative to my peers. To cut to the chase, in general 28 year olds behave very differently to 24 year old like myself- this behavior can be amplified when in an MBA environment, especially when trying interact with a predominantly American crowd. I find that my interaction with some MBAs tends to be rough- they tend not to listen to your arguments, discount your "lack of experience" heavily like you were born yesterday- essentially treating you in disbelief. Let me just get things straight here, I am young for the typical MBA not because of a freak of nature, I happen to be 4 years younger than the average through a cumulative saving of years and a strict family who have always wanted me to put my academics/career first, in light of their high investment in my education relative to western students, I obeyed in satisfying them. When I graduated from high school and people were taking gap years for traveling, I went straight to university (1 year saved), rather than take a year to "see the world", I took a 3 year Bachelors in Engineering the UK when most take a 4 year course in Engineering in the UK and 4 years for most degrees in the US (1 year saved). I did not waste any time with regard to getting a job post graduation- within 3 months of graduation I had started my first job (allow 6 months). And then got 3 years work experience, when most MBAs get 4 years (1 year saved) in what was essentially an excellent rotational program for a prestigious technology company that was a former government R&D agency that needed young motivated individuals to span the organization fast and take on a commercial savvy approach. This breadth of experience essential gained me another half a year or so with respect to most 3 year jobs. This is all in the face of being an international (work-permit & security issues), and what I would say are fairly mediocre grades at top engineering school- I would not call myself a boy genius by any stretch, and I'm not just being modest- I once had to repeat a class in digital electronics because I failed- my parents came down on me very hard for that blip in my academics! All I am trying to say is that there are a lot of factors that contributed to me being 4 -5 years younger than normal. I just applied to the business schools that I think would value me for who I am, and I was fully aware of the business schools that would not even take a minute to evaluate my applications. If any older MBAs are reading this from schools outside Harvard and Stanford- please, don't discount younger MBAs simply for their age- take time to get to know them, we may not bring what is classified as "normal" b-school career paths- some schools value a diverse student body- if you meet qualifying requirements and can contribute to the educational process and experience for the student body AND HAVE LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL, why not an MBA? The world of "time served" to earn a promotion has largely gone any place that has that kind of value system will not see the likes of Mbwana- I'll always navigate away from that no matter what- and explains my success in where I am now relative for my age now. Socially this can create some difficulties, it means that I tend to have two age levels of friends- friends who are 27-31 year old who respect me for who I am, in and outside the MBA, and I friends who are my age. Nevertheless, the two groups do behave differently and I end up being middle of the road, perceived or maybe even actually coming across as immature to the MBA crowd, and almost no fun or too career minded to my age peers who are just getting used to their first corporate jobs.