Sure, I’ll talk a little about myself to get the ball rolling.
Some basic stats to start off with:
• Demographic: 27-years-old at time of application, Chinese-Canadian female
• Undergrad GPA: 7.75/9.0 which converts roughly to a 3.65/3.7 on the 4.0 scale
• Law school GPA: Bs across the board, probably a 3.0/4.0
• GMAT: Q50 V45 IR 7 AWA 5), written once – if you’d like to read about my experience, I posted about it here :
770-q50-v45-self-study-first-time-writer-195300.html#p1508533 • Industry: Government
• Function: Law/Policy
My current job, which I’ve had for about 2.5 years, is in cultural and copyright policy and legislation for the Canadian federal government. Basically, we drive the statute that governs copyright and manage stakeholder relationships (artist groups, MPAA, Google, that sort of thing) in between legislative amendments. My academic background is in law, where I specialized in intellectual property and technology law. Some highlights from my JD days include an exchange at Stanford University where I got to work with some really cool start-ups and doing pro-bono work for the department I currently work for. On the extracurricular side, I have been heavily involved in the arts for a long time, particularly in music (for example, I’m on my 6th year volunteering for music festivals and I sit on the board of a music magazine).
I decided to apply to business school because I wanted an effective way to transition into the private sector. More specifically, I’m looking for a corporate strategy role at a media tech company (e.g. Spotify). I actually tried to do this without going back to school – I applied to jobs and even interviewed at an MBB consulting firm as a way to gain the business skills I would need. MBB firm told me to go brush on my quant skills and apply again in 18 months so I just started studying for the GMAT. Then I started going down the business school route until I ended up with an acceptance from Columbia a week ago (the only school I applied to and since it’s early decision, the only one I will apply to). Technically, I can still go interview at MBB next April (that’ll be 18 months from my last interview) but I think I’d like the business school experience even though it’s going to be a huge financial strain for me (the weak Canadian dollar is REALLY not helping).
In terms of the application, I did pull out all the stops. I spoke to two students on the phone in fields that I was interested in (one is at Disney, the other at an MBB firm). One of them invited me to attend the graduation ceremony and it was perfect timing because there was also a campus info session shortly after. So I flew to New York, went to the ceremony and saw Sallie Krawcheck give an amazing commencement speech and went to the campus info session the next day where I spoke to the admissions director that would call me four months later to give me the good news. I also spoke to a Columbia alum currently doing corporate strategy at Spotify (aka my dream job).
I worked with an admissions consultant, Alice Van Harten, who is amazing. (I wrote a review for her in this thread if you’re interested:
best-admissions-consulting-companies-2016-season-205934.html#p1576899) She was an enormous help for the essays which turned out quite good (if I do say so myself). I think the recommendations, which I received from my immediate supervisor as well as one above him, were also very good.
All in all, there was no reason why I would be denied an interview. I received an invite exactly three weeks after I submitted my application. The actual interview was pretty unremarkable, we chatted about my reasons for wanting an MBA and specifically at Columbia. He asked me what my backup plan was if I couldn’t get that corporate strategy role (I said I’d give management consulting another shot) and I would say over 50% of the time was him giving me advice on how to make the most out of my MBA. I received my offer a week after the interview report was submitted.