Ask ARINGO MBA Admissions Consulting

Hi brian,

i am kinda get stuck with my career and thinking about MBA. I am becoming 30 this year.

here is my profile:

Education Background:
I moved to united stated from china when i was 17 and attended 2 years of high school here. then i attended State U of NY in Binghamton, graduate with BS in Computer Science. My GPA was 2.9 (maybe 3.0, kinda forgot already...)

Work Experience:
after graduation, i worked as an IT consultant in a small retail company (the company has 6 stores and less than 20 employee).I started to learn more about the business side of the company, and get involved in the management team. After one year, i was promoted as an assistant manager of the company.
After another two years, i was promoted as the general manager of the company, directly under the owner.
So far I worked there for 6 years. It is a small company, so i was involved in many different area such as operation, marketing, HR, etc. However, because i don't have a solid academic background in business management, i was just learning things myself as i work.

Extra-cirricular:
Back in my college years, I was the guitarist, music coordinator and band leader in a christian fellowship's music team.
I am also a part-time photographer.

Language:
Fluent in english and Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese)


Why MBA:
Because the company i worked for was so small, and the fact that I don't have solid business management knowledge, i kinda get stuck in the career path. I am hopping by getting into MBA program, i can learn the solid knowledge, and able to have a career change.

GMAT:
I am still preparing for GMAT. I am pretty sure i can get 700.

Question:
1. I don't have a great undergrad GPA, and i don't have a impressive working experience in some big company. With a GMAT of 700, what kind of B-school can i get in? top 30? top 50? or not even?

2. i really like McCombs, because of their dual degree program. Do i have any chance getting in?

3. If i am applying school like McCombs, is there a big difference between a GMAT score of 700, 720 or 730?

thank you for your time reviewing my profile!

KChen,

Thank you for your profile submission. On the basis of the information as presented, and under the assumption of strong essays and recommendations and a GMAT score of 700 with a Round 1 application next year, our past experience indicates you would be between competitive and stretch (closer to competitive) at McCombs, Kenan-Flagler, and Marshall, and between competitive and stretch (closer to stretch) at Tepper. With a GMAT score of 730, you would be strong at McCombs, Kenan-Flagler, and Marshall, and competitive at Tepper.

In terms of your application, the following are a few points to keep in mind:

As you can see, the difference of 30 points in a potential GMAT score for you does make a fairly big impact in chances. We have seen plenty of candidates accepted into top programs without work experience at a brand-name firm. However, since your GPA is below the average for most top programs, and because you potentially have little extracurricular involvement after graduation (schools need to see this as well), you will need to make up for these gaps in other areas.

Perhaps the biggest issue I see is that you may need to give your future career plans a fair bit more thought prior to applying to business schools. Saying that you are "stuck" in your career, without explicitly stating a function, geography, and/or industry for where you want to go is not nearly enough - in fact, using this terminology in essays and/or MBA interviews would (in our experience) effectively nullify the rest of your application. In your essays you're going to need to be much more specific about how you can transfer the skills and experience you have gained into a different career. Based on what you have done, I can see you transitioning into an entrepreneurial job (if you like working in small firms) or perhaps into a CPG or retail marketing role with a larger company (if you really enjoyed the industry). But, that is for you to think about.

In terms of your work experience, you'll want to consider the positives that you can highlight in your resume and in your application (you've done some of this here, but you seem to come off as almost apologizing for your work experience). As far as I can tell, these would include a number of promotions and increasing responsibility, access to a number of functions in the company, strong recommendations from the owner(s), and presumably strong accomplishments tied to the success of the company.

Another opportunity to write about in essays is your move from China to the US at 17 - I would guess that it took time to improve your English skills and become acclimated to American culture. Definitely consider talking about this in a story in the essays.

Finally, since you are not a native English speaker, I would encourage you to consider having a native speaker help read through your essays and applications for spelling, flow, and grammar.

Best of luck,

Thanks a lot for this input!

Hi Brian,

I am an entrepreneur and have been managing my own company for a few years.
My questions are:
-Do you think it makes sense to use a client as a recommender instead of supervisor, which I don't have?
-Do you think it counts as full time work experience, even if there were periods when I wasn't working full time in my business?

Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks in advance.

Hi Brian,

I am 26 years old and hoping for an MBA at a top 10 school. Can you let me know my chances at a Harvard, Wharton, Booth or Darden? Here is my profile:

Education: 3.5GPA from tier 2 school
Chartered Financial Analyst

Work Experience: Corporate Financial Analyst - 5 years, Fortune 100 company

Extracurricular/Volunteer: One week volunteer trip to Africa, tutor children every week and other small events from time to time

GMAT: 750 Q49 V 42 (AWA: 6.0)

Do I have any chance or am I setting my sights too high?

If I am aiming too high. what would be my odds of getting into a top 25 school like Notre Dame, or NYU?

superstudent,

Thank you for your questions.

Question 1: My assumption is that you have worked as an entrepreneur for your entire work experience, and thus would not have a supervisor or executive to reference in any capacity. In that situation, I would say that a client would make some sense to consider as a recommendation, but that is not necessarily the only path to consider. Ultimately, you want to choose recommenders (you'll generally need at least two) who have known you and interacted with you for a significant amount of time and can speak to your strengths and weaknesses. Ideally, this person also should have given you evaluations and should be able to rank you amongst a peer group. A client could theoretically do this. However, if you are an entrepreneur, you might also consider any angel investors who have contributed capital into your business. We strongly encourage our clients to avoid any kind of academic recommender (e.g. a professor or academic advisor), because they typically lack the ability to speak to your experience and potential in a professional setting. At the end of the day, though, you'll need to be careful so as to not damage any pre-exisiting relationships you have with your client(s). In other words, would they be surprised and/or concerned that you are applying to business school, because perhaps the service and/or product that you provide would be at risk if you're no longer running the company?

Question 2: I'm not exactly sure the context behind the question, but again let me make an assumption. If you've been running a business on the side while in undergrad, I would say that may or may not be considered full-time experience. If you were working 10-20 hours a week and the revenues and client base of your business was relatively limited, and if you didn't have any other employees besides yourself, that would not be a full-time endeavor. If, on the other hand, your business had significant and growing revenues, if you had (many) full-time employees that you hired and were managing, and if your involvement in the business was more than 50 hours per week, then that might be considered full-time. Again, all of this is under the assumption that you were in school.

On a broader level, it is absolutely crucial for entrepreneurs to be able to speak to the scope and nature of their business when applying to business schools. The size of your firm, in relative decreasing importance, in terms of profits, revenues, number of and notoriety of key clients, and employees is critical to explain. Since it is relatively easy to set up a website and offer some kind of service, the adcoms need to see truly how dedicated and successful your business has been.

Best of luck,

Dbalks,

Thank you for your profile submission. On the basis of the information as presented and under the assumption of strong essays and recommendations and a GMAT score of 750, our experience shows that you would be between a stretch and competitive candidate (closer to stretch) at Harvard, between stretch and competitive at Wharton, competitive at Booth, and strong at Darden and NYU Stern. You would be very strong at Notre Dame. In all honesty, unless you had a personal reason to attend Notre Dame, based on your profile I would say you'd want to consider other top 15 programs such as Tuck, Haas, and Fuqua before you considered applying to Notre Dame. This is because you would have a good chance at these programs based on your profile.

The key in your application strategy and relative potential is how you frame your experience in finance at the F100 company. You have worked there for five years, so admission committees will need to see an increasing amount of responsibility and contribution to the company. You are not necessarily competing against other finance types like investment bankers or private equity associates; rather, you're somewhat competing more against other corporate employees at larger organizations. And, because your undergraduate institution and GPA are not necessarily stellar (they won't eliminate you from consideration, don't get me wrong), your work experience and success is going to be huge. In theory, you should be able to get strong recommenders because you've worked in the organization for five years and likely have built some strong relationships and 'champions' for your brand.

Best of luck,

Hi,my name is adhithya
Profile:
Indian male
age=24
Gmat1=640(q=49,v=35)
Gmat2=680(q=47,v=35)
Work ex=working in indain IT major TCS for last 1.3 years but at time of admission would have completed 2 years
Academics:very good.Have been a collge topper throughout my academic career.
Achieved a state rank of 14th in HSC(undergraduate)
Stood first in my stream in engineering(iam an engineer i Inforamtion technology)
extracurriculars:was a quiz champion in school.

Interested Schools
HKUST
NUS
Nanyang
ISB
IE-spain
HEC paris
Ross
UCLA
Said
thanks in advance

Sorry,forgot to add this question in the last post
1)considering the fact that work ex is gonna remain same i.e 2yrs at time of apllivation,
Will a higher gmat score improve my chances of getting into my list of schools .
2)are there any ways eg.comm service etc. which I can do to strentgthen my profile
3)will the fact that I have good academic credentials(especially in maths,was the uiversity topper in math and college topper in math continuously for 4 semesters/5)
add any weight to my profile
Thansk in advance

adhithya,

Thank you for your profile submission. On the basis of the information as provided and under the assumption of strong essays and recommendations and a GMAT score of 680, our previous experience indicates you will be stretch candidate at Ross, UCLA Anderson, and Oxford Said, and between competitive and stretch (closer to competitive) at HEC Paris and IE. It is harder for me to put an estimate on your chances for HKUST, NUS, Nanyang, and ISB as we typically provide clients with assistance to the top 30 global programs.

Perhaps the most important issue in your profile is not extracurricular activities or academic performance (although we'll get to those later), but rather your essays. This is quite common for many engineering applicants, as that applicant pool (and I was one of them myself) is not used to crafting a personal story. It's important for applicants to know that we see clients who come to us who have previously been unsuccessful in prior years' applications merely because of spelling mistakes and/or typos - even for candidates with very strong profiles otherwise.

On your question about whether being stronger in analytical components like math will help your candidacy, my answer is 'yes,' but only to a point. You have an engineering background, and competitive engineering applicants show a strong aptitude for quantitative skills. Holding your ground in these areas is not necessarily going to be enough. Rather, in the application, and this is especially true for a younger applicant like yourself, it's important to hone in on stories that show your leadership, communication, presentation, and persuasion skills. The Indian / male / IT background applicant pool is extremely competitive, and so you'll need to have a well-rounded application to break through.

Another key point in your application will be your future career goals. In our experience, applicants with fewer than three years of work experience at matriculation and who are not consultants or investment bankers have a more difficult time achieving admission. You'll need to have a very well-crafted and articulate rationale for why now is the right time for you to attend business school, especially as many applicants in your peer group will be applying with more years of work experience.

Please keep in mind that in your application and resume you'll need to provide the right level of context and comparison for your achievements. Being a "topper" is certainly better than being average, but saying that you finished 14th out of over 2,000 (or converting that into a percentile) is instead a good way to introduce to the reader/adcom the right level of context. Similarly, it's great that you were a quiz champion, but was this out of 3 teams or 300, and were you the captain of the team or merely a participant?

On your question about whether a higher GMAT will help your chances, the general answer is yes. It's perhaps a bit more important for you with less work experience to rely on, in the sense that schools are judging you a bit more on your potential rather than your accomplishments (just because you have not had as long to work to generate these yet). That said, we specialize in working with candidates with lower GMAT scores, and we see plenty of candidates every year who are admitted to top programs with a GMAT at or below your 680 level.

A few things for you to think about doing/achieving in the next couple of years:
- to get promoted at work (preferably more than once);
- to accumulate impressive achievements at work (especially leadership-oriented);
- to try to get to a situation where you manage people - preferably regular direct reports (and if that's not possible, then on a project or in a matrix);
- to boost your community contribution (preferably in a leadership-oriented context);
- to consider initiating/co-founding/setting up a project/department/organization (either at work, or outside of work) and making it successful;
- to mark a few potential recommenders and deepen/strengthen your relationship with them

In summary, I urge you to continue researching schools, career plans, and reasons to attend business school.

Best of luck,

Thanks a million for your great evaluation.
I would certainly practice your great suggestions
Thanks again

Dear Brian,
Your assumptions were correct. Thank you so much for the detailed answer!

Hi,

I will be giving the GMAT in a couple of months & haven't still touched my dream score but definitely try & join the elusive 700 Club for sure (currently scoring around 640 on practice tests ).

I am planning to major in General Management & Strategy & Operations during my MBA & pursue a career in the strategic consulting / general insurance space for at the most 10 years before I start my own venture in the Hospitality Sector

I however wanted a reality check & thought it be great motivator if I got my profile evaluated so here goes

Citizen : India
Under Grad Degree : Management Studies (BMS) Major : International Finance & Finance
Obtained First Class with Distinction
Placed 1st in Special Studies in Finance, 2nd in International Finance & Quantative Methods in Business at the College Level
Certification :
-> Certified Financial Planner (CFPCM), FPSB
-> AMFI - Association of Mutual Funds, India
-> Advanced Diplomas in General insurance (Licentiate/ Associate Levels) - Insurance Institute of India

Work Experience :

Currently working as a consultant in Risk Consulting Department within one of the Big 4's - 1.5 years
-> Constantly got accolades from various clients & have got 2 pay hikes
-> Idependently handled assignments from initial stage itself

Worked as a Relationship Manager at a Leading Financial Planning firm in Mumbai - 1.2 years
-> Wrote various articles & helped set-up the Insurance Planning Department within the firm

Independent Financial Adviser - 7 years (approx)
-> Started this practice right out of school (12th Grade) & have recently have given operational control to a friend. The practice has an AUM of INR 30 Million & caters to HNI clientele
-> I have also helped first time entrepreneurs in the financial service sector during their start up phase

Extra Curricular Achievements :

-> Awarded Gold Medal (Presented by Honorable Vice President of India, Shri Mohammed Hamid Ansari in New Delhi), Silver & Bronze Medals, in Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme (IYAP).
-> Awarded the Best Volunteer Certificate in Akansha Art Program, 2009-2010, 2010-2011.
-> Winner of The Maharashtra State Angling Association Fishing Tournament-1996.
-> Written various financial articles for Apnapaisa.com, Myiris.com, IFA Connect & other financial journals.
-> Attended Dale Carnegie – Training for Young Adults (4 Day Workshop).
-> Participated In The Intel International Science Exhibition for Students.
-> Competed in the University of New South Wales, Australia ETC International Competition for Schools from 1998-2001.
-> An active volunteer & member of The NGO Akansha, The Rotract Club of Churchgate & The Rotract Club of Dadar.
-> Active Sailor & life member of the prestigious Colaba Sailing Club & Bombay Sailing Association
I am looking at applying to the following schools this October
Booth
Tuck
Stern
LBS
Fuqua
INSEAD
ISB

Looking forward for your inputs & thanks in advance

Boomtangboy,

Thank you for your profile submission and your questions. On the basis of the information as presented and under the assumption of strong essays and recommendations and a GMAT score of 640, our experience indicates you would be a stretch candidate at Booth and INSEAD, between competitive and stretch (closer to stretch) at Tuck and LBS, and between competitive and stretch at Fuqua and Stern. It is harder for me to provide a specific chances indication for ISB, since the school's profile has been changing rapidly since its inception as a newer program.

Overall, since you are in the Indian (and presumably male) demographic, it will be important to optimize your GMAT score to the extent possible, as you're up against a competitive field. However, I would say the importance of you having a top GMAT score is somewhat lessened since your background and work experience is pretty differentiated relative to the large spectrum of IT applicants we often see from your demographic. Additionally, your undergraduate academic performance and the recent exposure (and performance) at a Big 4 firm gives the admission committees confidence that you have the intellectual horsepower and capacity to do well at a top program. Based on your background in client service and consulting, and from how you presented yourself, you seem to have an affable persona that will be great to leverage in interviews.

That being said, there are a few items to keep in mind and incorporate into your application strategy. First, since your undergraduate major was in a business-related field (and specifically, finance), talk a bit in your essays about how (to me, anyways) it appears you're looking more for a well-rounded MBA experience to get exposure to a number of functions. Second, although it's great that you've received praise from your performance at the Big 4 firm, try as much as possible to get a promotion on your resume before you apply. Pay raises are great, but are perceived less than a promotion would be.

In terms of your prior work experience in financial advisory, I'd recommend you convert your financial performance into the currency where the school is located (for you, either US dollars or Euros). Typically the adcoms will be able to convert major currencies but you'd rather not force them to look something up - same goes for any acronyms. I really like the story you mentioned about helping other people who were entering the financial advisory space. In your essays you could mention this and also speak to the fact that you could contribute to the MBA community by assisting your peer students who are looking to enter the private wealth management industry post-MBA.

As far as your career goals, I can certainly see the connection to the insurance industry for a consulting career, although I'm a bit confused at first glance with the connection that your background would give you for hospitality. Perhaps because you love client service and can see yourself applying in a different way? In any event, you'll need to provide some kind of tie-in with your past so that the adcom feels it would be a reasonable and natural (yet also exciting) future for you.

The prestige and difficulty of your undergraduate institution is also something to consider. I didn't see the detail listed in your profile - if it's not a well-known school, it makes it a bit more important to try to optimize your GMAT score.

Lastly, it appears you have a number of impressive accomplishments and a variety of interests. One "good" problem to have, that I think applies to you, is to organize your accomplishments when you speak to people and on your resume in a way that clearly articulates and prioritizes what are the top things you want to convey. I have absolutely nothing against an interest in fishing, but to list a fishing award (from 1996) adjacent to that received from a vice president may confuse the reader. I'm not sure I would list Dale Carnegie training for a week as an accomplishment, per se, especially for someone with the amount of work experience you have. Finally, it's always best to provide context associated with the accomplishment, so it's clear to the reader (e.g. first place out of how many participants).

Best of luck,

Hi everyone.
I gave my gmat in august. 1st attempt. Scored 750. q42 v49 awa 5.5
i have very good acads.
HSC- 95%
SSC- 88%
Engineering B.E. Computer science GPA 9.67/10
Current work ex- from july 2010 till date- 1 year, 8 months
Co-curriculars: organizer of events at fests in college for two years, member of cultural committee at office, was head of the hostel for a year in college.
Would be joining an NGO in March.

I wish to apply for ISB this year. Can someone please evaluate my chances and let me know where i stand..

amritgodofwar,

Thank you for your profile submission.

To all posters and viewers, please note that the more information you provide in a profile, the more specific I can be with respect to advising you as a candidate about your application strategy. If you are looking for a quick insight or general comments only, then you don't have to submit a full profile. But, I can give much more specific information and a much better estimate of your application chances with the following information:

Age, gender, undergraduate university (and/or reputation) and GPA (or percentile rank if outside the US), graduate degree (if applicable) and GPA, extracurricular activities in school and during full-time work, GMAT (including splits), length of work experience and extent of leadership roles, industry, reputation/size/prestige of your company, why MBA, post-MBA aspirations short and long-term, target schools or target school rank, interesting or impressive accomplishments/achievements, etc.

In this specific instance, without your undergraduate university, a description of where you have been working, and your future goals, it is harder for me to provide an accurate profile evaluation. Additionally, while Aringo has some knowledge of ISB, we are not able to provide a chances evaluation for the program because of the school's fast-changing profile within the last few years.

Best,
Brian

Dear Brian,

I have the following dilemma, wanted to ask if you know anything about it:

What happens if I apply to b-school in early decision round (for example, Columbia or Duke) and after I'm admitted I decide not to enroll? besides losing the money deposit, are there any other negative implications? any chance that the betrayed school will contact other schools I applied to and "trash" me? any possible negative implications on job recruiting later?