Ask Alex @ MBA Apply

A couple of things:

1. B-school admissions. Focus on the following stretches (Kellogg, Tuck, Booth, Columbia), and the following sweet spots (Ross, Fuqua, Darden -- or swap in Stern and Yale if you want). Basically you are competitive enough to shoot for 3-4 schools in the top 8, and 3-4 schools in the top 16. It really comes down to strong execution on your applications, as well as a bit of luck (as always).

2. Career planning. Regardless of what happens with b-school, find a way to get out of Canada (assuming you're still working in Canada - the fact that you say most of your colleagues at the Big-4 don't have MBAs or are discouraging you to go suggests that you're at a Canadian office). I'm guessing that you're applying to b-school as a way to get out of Canada, but I would suggest to find a way out of Canada regardless. I say this as a Canadian myself -- the environment is great to raise a family, but it sucks for building a career if you're young and ambitious: in fact, it can feel stifling in most industries, whether it's Big-4, finance, consulting, industry, etc. The business culture there in particular is way too rigid, stodgy and risk averse compared to the US, Asia or the UK. One path could be transferring to a US office within the firm, or maybe even to an Asia or Europe-based office. Just get out of Canada sooner than later, regardless of b-school.

Hi Alex,

Warm Greetings!

I have heard people saying great things about you so couldn't stop myself from seeking your advice on my situation. If your schedule permits, would you be so kind to have a quick look at my profile & suggest me a few colleges that will be a good fit for me. Please find below the details.

Demographic :
Indian I.T. Male, 25 years

Academic Qualification :
10th : 76%
12th : 66%
B.Tech(I.T.) : 74.6%, Honours Degree

Job Experience : Will be 4 years Full-time in July'13. I have worked for close to 2 years with an I.T. giant in India & for the rest with Principal Financial Group I.T. captive in India.

Extra-Curricular Activities :
I have actively participated in different types of oratorical events throughout the college & during the job. Have won awards at national level too.

GMAT Score : 740(Q50,V39)

Interest :
Information Technology

Soliciting advice from you on the colleges to which I should apply. Please do let me know if you need any other details from my side.

Many Thanks in Advance!

Regards,
Nikhil

If you're looking to remain in IT and in India, look at ISB as your top choice. As for US schools, I don't know if it's worth spending all that money if you're looking to stay in the same industry post-MBA, especially if it's IT. Keep in mind that the majority of Indian IT guys like yourself go to b-school to get out of engineering altogether, and often into management consulting, finance, corporate, etc.

Hi Alex,

I'd love to know what you think of my profile. My GPA and undergrad school is a bit low but I'm hoping my work experience and extracurriculars make up some for that.

27/M/African American with CPA

Currently I am a senior at a Big 4 in audit in Chicago and have regularly gotten high ratings. I am also heavily involved with firm events such as intramural sports, volunteering, and on campus recruiting

GMAT: 730

Northern Illinois University: 3.2/4.0 GPA with 3.9/4.0 in major (3.2 is a result of premed classes at different school while playing college football, A's in nearly all finance and accounting classes)

Started online network/forum for accounting and finance career advancement and help (site makes significant profit also). I started tutoring services for kids needing help with accounting (all free) and volunteer with inner city kids helping one get to and through college.

Any top 25 but specifically Ross, Farqua, Stern, Booth, Kelley would be great (#1 is Ross) and looking to apply R1 2014

I want to use the MBA as a career change into a consulting role with the long term goal of starting a hands on charity helping inner city kids get motivated for college.

I think you're targeting the right range of schools.

Top 8 are stretches for Big-4 guys but in your case worth applying to 1-2 (Booth, Kellogg, Tuck, Columbia, Sloan, Haas).

Top 16 are sweet spots where you should focus your efforts (Ross, Darden, Duke, Stern, Yale, Cornell, UCLA). Choose 3-4 from this list.

Safeties are in the top 30 such as Kelley, Georgetown, Texas, Tepper, USC, UNC, etc. Choose 0-1 from this list.

So yes in your case the list of schools you have is a good mix. Overall GPA is low-ish but not fatal for these schools, especially with a high GMAT. At this point it's really just doing the best you can on the applications, and you should be able to get into a few of the schools on your list.

Hey Alex,

Would you mind listing the optimal safety, sweet, and reach schools that I should apply to?

Here is a brief overview of my resume:

Background: US born white male
GMAT: 680 (q46 v38)
UG GPA: 3.2
UG University: Oklahoma State University
UG Major: BS Computer Science
WE: 6 years of experience in the healthcare information technology space for a large medical technology company, 3.5 years in Engineering and 2.5 years in technical consulting. Work has included international travel.
Reason for MBA: Transition into Management Consulting
Short term Goal: To obtain a management consulting job in IT or HIT strategy.
Long term Goal: Start my own HIT firm.
EC: Volunteer with various organizations, Medical Mission trip to Uganda.

I'm planning on retaking the GMAT with the hope of getting at least a 700. Any advice on target schools would be appreciated.

You have a solid profile - one that is handicapped right now by the GMAT. Your current score isn't fatal, but it's going to be an issue if you're gunning for the top 16 schools (as you should, since mgmt consulting firms recruit almost exclusively from the top 16 schools).

Here's where you stand (assuming a 700+ and ideally a 720+):

Stretch: Kellogg, Tuck, Booth, Columbia, Sloan, Haas (choose 2-3)

Sweet spot: Ross, Darden, Duke, Yale, Cornell, Stern, UCLA (choose 3-4, although Ross, Darden, Duke and Yale have the strongest consulting recruiting of the bunch in this group).

With your current score, the stretches are big stretches, maybe even long shots. The sweet spots are stretches.

That's why it's essential you nail that GMAT. Go into beast mode, you can do it. It's not a huge bump up from your current score (looks like the equivalent of yielding 1-3 more correct answers on the test). Good luck!

Thank you Alex!

EDITED

In terms of the quality of the student body at any top school, what will answer your question is to go through the profiles of club members at AAMBAA, or if you have time, go visit some of these schools yourself. You'll likely find that the caliber of the person has little to do with their nationality or ethnicity.

In any case, there's really no point as an applicant to dwell on it, because your ethnic background is what it is.

Now this is anecdotal, but what you may find is that it has less to do with affirmative action and more to do with simple diversity WITHIN the demographic groups. In reality, there's more than enough folks with strong GMATs, GPAs, solid work histories, leadership experience, etc. across all demographics (nationality, ethnicity, gender). So it's not like adcoms will be lowering the standards for one group for the sake of affirmative action or anything. In other words, the b-schools are trying to build a diverse class - and when everyone hears "diverse" they immediately think "race". But they are also looking for diversity of professional backgrounds as well. And within the African-American pool (again this is anecdotal), the folks tend to be more diverse: they're not heavily skewed towards one profession or another, and there seems to be a broader mix of bankers, consultants, engineers, military officers, non-traditionals, marketing, corporate, etc. Whereas the other extreme would be Asian-American applicants who are predominantly finance. Or Indians who are like 99% male engineers. Or Caucasian applicants who skew a bit more consulting than other groups. And even with all this said and done, you'll find that most b-schools still heavily skew white/Asian, and still skew consulting/finance. But the adcoms do try the best they can to diversify without creating totally dual admissions standards where the bar is lower for one group versus another.

Again, a quick scan of the student body and you'll find that you won't be able to say that one group is categorically more impressive (or less impressive) than the other.

In any case, I think you may be overreaching a bit - that is, unless you are fully prepared for the possibility that you may not get in anywhere this year (and reapply to a broader array of schools the following year). Top 8 schools are going to be a stretch for you - you have enough of a shot that they're worth applying to 2-3, but you would also do well at schools in the top 16 like Ross, Duke, Darden, Yale, Cornell, Stern, UCLA and Haas - these schools are not beneath you as there are plenty of folks of a similar caliber as you that are at these schools. It's not that there's anything wrong with you - but that simply put you're up against other folks (and yes other African-Americans) who will have more pedigree than you, especially those who are gunning for H/S/W (and these folks will also have strong leadership experiences, solid GMATs/GPAs and so forth).

Finally, you need to get recs from people you've worked with. Don't get one from your professor, because he isn't in a position to comment on you as a professional adult (he worked with you when you were still a student); the fact that he's a dean will have ZERO impact on influencing an adcom's opinion of you (in fact, it may actually be a negative because it becomes transparent that you're trying to use big names in the hopes that it's supposed to be impressive).

Hi Alex,

I'd love to get your candid feedback on my profile. Specifically, I'm curious to get feedback on how competitive and differentatied my profile is (come from a crowded cohort), as well as if you see my profile as HBS, Stanford, or Kellogg material.

24 year old, White, Male

Education: University of Notre Dame, 3.8 GPA, Economics
- Side Note: I was denied 3 times before finally getting into ND (transferred in as a junior). I think it is a good adversity story, especially considering that I was successful when I finally did get into ND.

GMAT: 710

Job: Strategy Consultant at PwC, 2 years (would be 36 months work experience upon matriculation)
- I also had an internship in Sydney, Australia for 3 months in college. The internship was for an international trade non-profit.

Extra-curricular activities:
- Tournament Director of Tier 1 college bowling tournament (1 of 2 largest collegiate bowling tournaments in the world, with 130 teams from 70 schools). Generated over $80k in revenue and $25k in profit through running the tournament.
- Pro bono consulting work with companies in El Salvador (virtual projects). Act as Team Lead.
- (college) Founder of Consulting Club at ND. Club is now one of the most popular clubs on campus.
- (college) Captain on Bowling Team -- 3 time Academic All American

Post MBA Goal: Continue consulting with one of the big 3 strategy firms (MBB). Long term goal is to set up a non-profit foundation to provide consulting services in developing countries (similar to the pro bono projects I'm doing on the side of client work now).

Thanks!

HBS and Stanford are long shots for Big-4 consultants unless you come from an Ivy/equivalent and/or were an outlier (i.e. D1 football/basketball/baseball/hockey, Olympic athlete, professional artist/actor). HBS and Stanford are able to fill their classes with mostly M/B/B consultants (and even then not all M/B/B get in). And this won't change even with an extra year of work experience.

You have a solid profile - one that is more in line with schools like Kellogg, Booth, Tuck, Sloan and Columbia. These schools are still stretches, but where you have more of a shot at (i.e. choose 2-3 from this list). Schools like Ross, Duke, Darden, Haas, Stern, Cornell, Yale and UCLA are sweet spots - schools where you have more of a reasonable shot at (choose 3-4 from this list) and where M/B/B still recruits at.

What if someone at the age of 25years with no relevant work ex wants to make it into the ivy league. He is an Artist and has done theater shows(Stage/Street acting) from past 4 years. MBA with this profile looks impossible and stupid. So he started preparing for GMAT and got 720+ in mocks, he wants to take GMAT but still thinking to pay around 15k INR for the exam is it worth to take a shot?

He also dosent have good grades in graduation(44% out of 100) and has done it through distance learning, moreover he belongs to a below middle class family where people need good and extra ordinary reasons to study . Reason for MBA- Has learned to work hard in those 4 years and wants to get a good job and settle down.Now what should he do? Has anyone converted any top US bschool with this kind of background??

10th= 50%
12th= 66%
Graduation= 44% Bachelor in commerce Pass( Two reasons for doing grad. through distance learning one poor score so unable to make a cut in good government colleges, had no money to study in Private universities).

From school days he acted on number of street shows,so even after graduation he persuaded the same profession.But day by day its becoming difficult to survive as the per month income is too low.

Any suggestion/guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks

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Hi MBA Apply,
Can you provide info on European MBA?

Look forward to hear from you.

I think the key problem is that you're overreaching - you were targeting schools where your chances were slim to none based on your profile (and no, it has little to do with your GMAT).

As a middle-of-the-road Indian IT/engineer, your stretch schools are in the top 16: Stern, Yale, Cornell, Ross, Darden, Duke and UCLA (choose 3-4 from this list). Sweet spots are in the top 30 (Texas, Tepper, USC, UNC, Georgetown, Emory, Maryland, Purdue, Indiana) -- choose 3-4 from this list. I think the top 8 schools are long shots: maybe look at Booth as the only one on that list.

Hi Alex,
I thought it'd be helpful for you if I come up with some specific questions on European MBA...

So, my questions are :
1.Most of them are 1 year program as you know...so,should one consider these for career change (re: Industry change not job function change)?

2.Could you please let me know like INSEAD & IE whether LBS,Said & Judge also have rolling admissions and two intakes (for example, one in September 2014 and other in January 2015 for INSEAD)...?

3. LBS,INSEAD are top ones but in global b-school rankings (FT) b-schools like IE,Said & Judge are placed ahead of many top 20 US schools like Ross,Darden,Anderson (for IE only),McCombs...How do you see that for an International applicant & career changer?

4..For these European schools, is it always better to apply in R1 (if some of them don't have rolling admissions and/or two intakes) rather than in R2 like US schools...?

Would really appreciate some deep insights from you on these.

Looking forward to hear from you.