Do you need to Work with a Blue Chip Company to pursue an MBA?

One myth that seems especially popular currently is that you can't get into a top business school unless you've worked at a blue chip firm. Don't even try to apply to Wharton or Harvard or Chicago, the advice goes, unless your resume shows employment at a Fortune 500 company. This implies that, anyone who's interested in going to b-school should make employment at a blue chip company their  top priority.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, a lot of b-school students have worked at Goldman Sachs, Citibank, etc. But there are reasons for that fact that have nothing to do with admissions bias.
Think about it. Big companies employ a lot of ambitious people, so it's not surprising to find greater numbers of them in any representative group. The numbers alone don't mean anything.
Sure, having blue chip experience can give your application an edge – up to a point. Blue chips are competitive employers. They do a careful job of screening and testing applicants, and of training the people they hire. A good track record at a blue chip firm suggests you're someone to be taken seriously. But blue chip experience in and of itself won't get you into business school, and lack of blue chip experience won't keep you out.
Business schools don't accept or reject applicants on the basis of how prestigious the person's employer is. They accept or reject applicants on the basis of how much promise each person shows as a graduate business student. Someone who sucessfully turned a struggling business into a profitable one, or who helped a small family business find a niche, shows promise. Someone who's gone to work at a big investment bank every day for three years and dutifully carried out a set of structured tasks over and over again might show competence and ability – but not necessarily promise.
In fact, you might even have better chances of gaining admission to b-school with experience at a small- or mid-sized company than you do with experience at a large one. Why? Because a smaller employer gives you more opportunities to see how an entire enterprise works, to understand different operations, to try things, to take chances and learn from the experience.
When it comes to b-school applications, the crucial thing isn't where you worked but what you did. My advice to MBA applicants is to identify what is special about their work and life experience.
So ignore that advice about blue chip experience and b-school admissions. It's an urban legend. Business school admissions committees will be sizing up you, not your employers. The only 'trick' to b-school admissions is to be true to yourself and your goals, and to seek out opportunities that allow you to develop to your fullest potential.