My Admit Story

Will u join Ross or wait for CMU?

It depends on the financial aid packages. Right now, out of the schools I applied to Ross is my 1st choice. Tuck is a close 2nd.

3. Darden
4. Tepper
5. Indiana

congrats , whats your GMAT score ?

I applied to all 6 schools during the 2nd deadline. All of my applications were completed by December 15th 2004 except for my GMAT score. I was scheduled to take the GMAT for the 1st time on December 20th 2004; I thought I was going to score a 680+.

However I scored a 630 and was not going to send in my applications. After looking at the 80% GMAT range for each school, I sent in my applications.

solid application with a good score and experience. congrats once again.

Have your heard from your wait-listed school yet? I was a bit confused about your GMAT score? What was it again. I am thinking about applying for class of 07, and your list is so similar to mine (at least my inclination).

Wonderful that you are in the game.

630 GMAT score;

In regards to the wait list: I will receive an email notification from Tepper once my status is updated.

thanks for the info. One correction on my part, I am thinking about applying for admission for class of 08 (fall of 2006 admission). Like I said, you list of school and possibly career interests are so similar to those of mine. Best of luck with the wait list and keep us updated.

P

Well I have decided to attend Michigan (Ross) this upcoming Fall!

Congrats!

What factors led to your final decision?

1.Michigan has a great reputation. Its program is 1 of only 4 to be ranked in the top 10 by BusinessWeek since the magazine started its ranking system in 1988. Michigan is currently ranked #6 by BusinessWeek and #10 by USNews.

In addition, Michigan's MBA program is currently ranked #1 by WSJ (Wall Street Journal) primarily because of its Multidisciplinary Action Projects (MAP).

MAPs are projects that occur during the last 7 weeks of an MBA student's 1st year. The MBA students will work in groups for major corporations within the US or overseas OR for entrepreneurial firms in the Detroit area. Via MAPs the students will apply their classroom knowledge in a real world setting helping the sponsor companies solve a problem; similar to the role of consultants. At the end of the 7 weeks each group of students will receive a grade and start their summer internships.

2. I like big colleges. As a result, I went to UT (Austin) as an undergrad and will attend Michigan.

3. I received a full tuition fellowship to attend MI, which will cover about $78K of my $112K total cost for the 2-year program.

Congrat,

At Michigan, how is the allocation/reward of tuition fellowship determined? Did other schools offer you any forms of financial assistance?

I am interested in the award packages as well.

I have the following break down

Ultra Elite: Applied:1; Not Accepted

Elite Applied: 3; 2 Accepted, 1 Not Accepted

Transelite: Applied 1; Waitlisted

Near Elite: Applied 1; Accepted

It is interesting that one elite and one transelite waitlisted or did not accept yet another elite provided full tuition.

Keep in mind that my file was very, very unique and that different schools have different people on the admission committee and they all weigh things differently.

For example, I applied to an undergrad summer internship to research at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas (which was ranked #11 in the nation) and to the University of Texas Galveston medical center (which was not ranked in the top 30 in the nation). However I was rejected by Galveston but accepted at Southwestern.

In regards to my application packages: Throughout undergrad I worked 24 hours a week with individuals with physical and mental disabilities, participated in 14 hours of community service a week via a few school organizations, and participated in a pre-med course load at the same time. My academic advisors warned me repeatly against doing this and thought I was going to flunk out of college. However I finished with a 3.25/4.0 GPA.

In regards to my work experience, I developed the ability to utilize the Yellow Pages to find leads, cold call these leads, establish appointments, set up and conduct presentations over the phone or in person, and most importantly close sales. For example, I am currently using the Yahoo! Yellow Pages to sell advertising to rural independent and franchise car dealership owners in Oklahoma and Louisiana. A lot of people hate buying cars at dealership and I am pitching to some of the best sales professionals in the nation.

In regards to my sole proprietorships: I sold and marketed weight loss and nutritional supplement products via a website that I created and got listed in a Yahoo! directory and at one time ranked in the top 10 of a few major search engines for certain very common keywords.

I developed the ability to utilize the county records to locate potential yet solid real estate leads that were experiencing problems such as foreclosures, tax arrears, probate, divorce, etcetera.. Afterwards, I had the ability to go to these individuals homes, knock on the door, and to eventually get inside to conduct a presentation and find the best solution to solve their problems.

In regards to the GMAT, I underestimated the difficulty of it and did not fully prepare. Likewise, I scored a 630 and took the test at the last minute (about 3 weeks before the Round 2 deadlines). However I had no doubt in my mind that I could have aced the GMAT if I had to take it again.

Most importantly, I put my marketing and sales skills to the test and wrote some rather unique essays to make up for my not so great GMAT score.

So overall I believe that the schools I was rejected from placed a lot of emphasis on my GMAT score. Yet Michigan looked at my overall package and saw enough potential there to offer me a seat in the 07 class with a full tuition fellowship and loans to cover my education costs.

Maybe this info below may help to explain this all:

"Be Unique
When I work with applicants who are consultants, I ask them not to write about the mundane tasks that everyone does at the analyst level but instead to focus on one or two of their assignments that were unique and interesting. I ask them to go into detail about that work. Tell me exactly what you did and why you think it was important work. Convince me, as an admissions officer, that your experience will be valuable to my students and I'll let you in.

That's the key to getting into top business schools. Convince me in your essays that you have something unique to share with your potential classmates, and I'll ignore your not-so-hot GMAT score and undergraduate GPA. I see it all the time. People with modest GMAT scores but valuable experiences are regularly admitted to top programs."

https://www.mbaapplicant.com/2_essays.htm

congrats ghangis for your acceptance and fantastic scholarship. Your advice is great and clearly, you have a unique profile which certainly justifies your acceptance! Good luck with everything!

ghangis1,

Thanks for the detailed account of your background.

Your account illustrates some important points including the importance of applying to a wide variety of school and not fixating on just one. Admissions is a highly stochastic process in that the outcome can change based on who is reading your file, what they read immediately before it, how many people "like you" they have already admitted, who the alumni and recruiters are pressuring the school to recruit that year, etc. Further, your experience shows how applicants should not over-emphasize any one factor such as grades or GMAT. Nonetheless, these factors are still important as suggested by your impression that you might have been accepted to the other schools if you had higher standing on the academic factors.

Other factors include one's ethnic background and gender. A student who is female or african american has a better shot at scholarships due to a smaller applicant pool.

Was this a factor for you?