Hello,
Thank you for the detailed profile information. I would say that with your current profile, Harvard, Stanford and Wharton are going to be stretch schools for you. Even if you were able to score a very high GMAT score, I believe your leadership profile would not be competitive enough for these schools. Let's break this down further and think through which schools might be more realistic targets:
Top MBA programs will evaluate you on a few different dimensions, including but not limited to: your academic profile (can you keep up with the curriculum?), your professional experience (have you demonstrated that you have the potential to lead an organization), your community leadership (are you a proven leader in your community who makes positive change/impact?), and your extracurricular activities (are you a passionate and engaged individual who follows their dreams and creates opportunities for yourself and others?).
Academics: your GPA in undergrad and grad school are strong and your coursework was likely pretty science heavy, which is good. For top programs, you want to aim for a 700+ overall score on the GMAT, with an 80th percentile (at least) on each section. It's a rule of thumb not a hard and fast rule, but that's what you want to aim for. Obviously, the higher the better!
Professional experience: your professional background is very nontraditional. This is not always a bad thing, but my sense is that it would be difficult to demonstrate the same level of leadership as a consultant or banker is able to demonstrate. That said, I don't have a ton of knowledge about what associate vets do or what your leadership experience in that role has been like. Still, my sense is that the role is somewhat more routine, patient oriented? Correct me if I'm wrong!
Extracurricular: I didn't see mention of any extracurricular activities (e.g., marathon runner, opera singer, etc.), so this would be a gap in your profile.
Community: It's great that you volunteer at HH and local facilities, but for HBS/Stanford/Wharton, you want to be able to demonstrate that you are a leader. Especially if you haven't had as much professional leadership experience, they will look to your extracurricular and community activities for evidence of leadership capacity, and if you're not in a leadership role in these organizations, it will be a tough case to make.
I know this probably wasn't exactly what you were hoping to hear, but hopefully it helps you think through your next steps. One option you have is to wait a couple years before applying and use the time to further develop your leadership profile. Alternatively, you can consider different school options. I think Darden can stay on the top end of your list, and Purdue and UNC are fine as well. If you're really interested in entrepreneurship, you could consider Babson as well. There are a number of schools to consider between Darden and UNC range, but I'm not too familiar with ones that focus on veterinary medicine - that would be something worth researching (find a school that has a great graduate program in veterinary medicine so that you could take courses in both programs, perhaps)? Sorry not to be more helpful on this one -- the field you are coming from and looking to go further in is very non-traditional :/
As for scholarship opportunities, I bet you could find some Native American/minority focused scholarships that you could try for, but you'll have to do research on those on your own.
Best of luck,
Mili Mittal
Senior Consultant
https://www.mbamission.com Read the
mbaMission Insider's Guides (16 individual school titles)
Download
mbaMission’s Free Personal Statement Guide Visit the
mbaMission Blog Follow
mbaMission on
Twitter 
close
05 Aug 2012, 18:59
