Ward2012 wrote:
Yes, there are lots of things that you can do to help your chances:
1) take a quant course at a local college
2) visit schools and network with current students
3) network with current alums and ask them questions about their experience
4) extracurriculars. Getting involved in something you like to do is always great. You mention that you love community service. In terms of what community service to do, only you can decide that. If you like arts, then maybe volunteer at a museum. If you like sports, maybe volunteer for the Special Olympics. If you like being with kids, maybe Big Brother/Sister. If you like certain causes, maybe join the organizing committee for a fundraiser. The list is endless. You have to find something that you are genuinely interested in. Google is your friend here to find opportunities.
But it doesn't have to be service oriented. Sports, professional interests, personal interests (maybe you like to dance or paint, for example) or virtually anything else is all great. What I would say for any activity is to try to find something extra you can do with the activity. For example, if you're volunteering at a church to help feed the homeless, maybe you can take on a project and help them organize a fundraiser. Or if you're taking dance lessons, maybe you can enter a competition. Something to make your experience stand out.
5) take the gmat again. You don't give your breakdown. but if you think you can get 730 or above with more studying, go for it, since you have a year. But I'd say your time is better spent elsewhere if you think you can only improve by 10 or 20 points. The only exception I'd say is if your quant score is lower and you want to retake the GMAT to improve quant.
Although it's well-known that females get a little bit of a pass, ou still have to have strong numbers as a female. But I suspect that some schools would take the female if they have two profiles that are very similar, with the only difference being gender.
6) Goals/essays: Your goals of IB and consulting are very broad and common. Not to mention the two fields are completely different than one another. You may want to take some time to figure out why you like these fields. For example, do you like giving advice? then consulting is probably good. Do you like analyzing numbers? then IB is good. It's always very hard to explain why you like doing what you do, but if you can think about this, this will really help with your essays and make you stand out. You may want to talk to other industry contacts to get their feedback or read some books of business leaders in the two fields you mention and see why they like what they do.
7) Recommendations: If you don't have good people to recommend you, fix that now. you want to make sure you go above and beyond and make your recommender remember your achievements when it comes down to write them.
Hello Ward,
Thank you very much for your input. I appreciate it. I will think about all of this. As for the quant course, being out of college for a few years is making me rusty - this might be a good idea.
What do they look for in a recommendation? How do I know who to pick for recommendations because I think everyone I worked with can vouch for me, but I wouldn't know who would do me justice.
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08 Oct 2012, 10:48
