Calling all Tepper Fall 2010 Applicants

Can only answer for myself, but absolutely yes.

Was it my first choice when starting this whole process, no. But, my top 5 have given me the boot, and CMU is now in my new top 4, and quite possibly my new #1. I'm looking to go down a finance route, particularly trading and hedge funds. Dave Tepper is an icon, and if one day I could have something half as successful as Appaloosa, I'd be thrilled.

Also, thanks for the compliment, but my profile really isn't all that great. Yes, I crushed the GMAT and went to a top school, and studied applied math, and do have solid work experience, but I have a 2.5 gpa to overcome, and it's an uphill battle.

710/blue collar/tier 1 indian engineering school/18 months manufacturing in canada/cfa level 1 / sub sub par GPA/ unusual career goals

what do you reckon my odds of acceptance are?

isnt tepper supposed to be LOW GPA friendly?

I'm not in any position to gauge your chances. All I know is that if you don't apply, you have a 0% chance of getting in.

I haven't heard anything about them being low gpa friendly. Every school is going to tell you that they look at the application as a whole. Write great essays, get great recommendations, and focus on the parts of the application you can control. The GPA is in the books already and there's nothing you can really do about that.

your reservations on passing judgement on my candidacy indicate that you are a bright guy .........could learn a lot from you at tepper-if accepted


i have already applied........havent heard anything yet from the adcom

I basically have to second everything that LetsGoMets said. In terms of pure GPA and GMAT score, we have very similar profiles (sub-3.0 GPA, excellent GMAT) and I'm expecting to get dinged from most if not all of the top tier schools. In fact, getting an interview from Tepper was never a certainty for me as far as I was concerned.

Like LetsGoMets, I hadn't considered Carnegie Mellon very seriously at first, but they have the dual degree program that I want (MBA+MPP, although they call it something different at their Heinz school), excellent connections in Washington D.C. and a rigorous quantitative curriculum. My undergraduate degree was in English, so I need to back-fill the stat/econ theory (what I haven't picked up on the job) for the policy side. All that fun stuff was my angle for the essays, but with your background, which is super-interesting by the way, I have to think the admissions committee would be even more intrigued. I hope you hear back with an interview date soon.

That said, if I could add one thing, it would be this. None of us are the absolute perfect candidates for any school. There's always something more we could have done to augment our application, or something an adcom could consider a negative. Take a step back, evaluate the range profiles at each school and apply to as many schools as you realistically could see yourself attending. Tepper is a wild-card for me (they offered a fee waiver so I couldn't refuse) but I'm applying to some schools I consider total reaches for me (Booth, Stern, Fuqua, Ross) and some where I think I'll be a lot more competitive (Graziadio, Loyola in Chicago). The advantage to these other schools is that many of them have much later deadlines. If you were feeling at all worried, you could throw a few more apps out there and tip the odds in your favor.

Good luck!

Sorry, boogs, man, I am both new and lazy so I don't know where here is for you. It must be some sort of major NA city for CMU to visit but..?

I actually do want to visit, though. If I'm gonna be there for two years, I want to see it before I make my decision. Same with Duke/Fuqua for me. I know off-campus is an option but I also know I would regret it later. Besides, I saw JetBlue was offering $39 fares to Pittsburgh.

JetBlue for 39 each... Sweet. I saw us air for 110 all in, but didn't see JB. Thanks for the heads up. TVs and Terminal 5, I'm sold.

I agree with you that I'd want to visit any school before signing up. I'll even go one farther and say that I think seeing the school helps with the application and interview process. I had visited Booth and Kellogg, and I feel that those were my strongest R1 applications by far. I had more talking points in essays and interviews, and overall made for a more convincing application (I at least got an interview with Booth). I actually haven't seen Emory yet, but a good friend is there now and gave me many talking points, and I'm going there in 10 days to look at the school.

I want to see Fuqua too. Hoping to get an interview there if not for nothing else, to see the campus and possibly play their golf course.

I'll second Coakley in that you're a very interesting candidate. I hope you get the interview email in the next few days.

Coakley, quick question. Why did you apply to Pepperdine? They send me emails weekly, and I think Malibu would be a lot of fun, but I can't find an excuse to apply. So, if there's a real compelling reason, I'd love to convince myself to apply there. BTW, I looked strongly at CMU for undergrad (I got in with a small scholarship, and really thought it was a better fit for me than Hopkins was, but went to Baltimore anyway), and the Heinz school is pretty awesome. Public policy has never been my thing, but I know they're top notch. I also think you'll be able to handle the quant - 47s on the gmat don't happen by accident (at least I keep telling myself that). Would love to combine my math with your verbal score.

Oh, I am in San Francisco. It's probably 8-10 hrs flying each way to PIT from here (no direct flights) and quite expensive. I would definitely like to visit before matriculating, but I am not sure about investing the time and money into visiting before getting admitted. But on the other hand, not visiting could affect my admissions result...

But yes, I am genuinely excited about the program. I wouldn't have bothered filling out their comprehensive app if I wasn't.

did u guys get anyone to review ur essays?

Remember the admission committee will base its decision on the full picture you present. Granted your GPA may be "sub sub par." Your experience and growth since the GPA coupled with the unusual career goals could give you an "IT" factor that they're looking for in potential students.

FYI ... I flew down to PIT from bayarea ... you can get some nonstop flights form OAK. If you book 7-10 days in advance .. you could get a ~$200 flight.

LGM--

Definitely agree about the visiting helping with the applications. The essays just flow better and I too feel more confident about the applications for the schools that had info sessions I was able to attend. Wish I had had a little more time to spend visiting campuses this year, for sure. I didn't decide to apply to b-schools until about September or so, didn't take GRE/GMAT until November and was building an alt transcript at Baruch with two classes last term. Very glad to hear that you got an interview at Booth. They're one of my top choices, of course, and it's exciting to see that they will at least kick the tires on applicants like us.

As for Pepperdine, I forget where exactly I heard about the business school. Actually, no that's a lie. I remember now. I was searching for MBA/MPP programs and Pepperdine is like one of the top three options when you Google those two acronyms together. The Pepperdine website and info materials are also very sleek and impressive, you have to admit. Better than most other schools' I've seen, even the big names. I checked out the admit stats, saw their ranges were very wide, figured they would be a good fit for me.

A little later, I attended the Idealist Grad Fair here in NY on Sept 10th and Pepperdine was there. The policy school had about four people waiting to speak to the admin rep but the business school table had only this lonely-looking guy behind it, so I introduced myself. I ended up having a great conversation and he ended up being the director of new student recruitment. Anyway, I decided to apply, when about 3/4s of the way through our convo, I casually mentioned that I was concerned about a low GPA during my undergrad. The recruitment director, unequivocally, was all like no, no, don't worry about that at all, we don't stress that as much as other schools, especially if you're strong in other areas; we're interested in unique candidates, etc. etc. Afterwards, they followed-up once or twice (one of only a few schools that did more than just spam me) and I got a good feeling about their program.

A little after the Idealist fair (which somehow counts as the Graziadio interview BTW), I saw Forbes' MBA ROI rankings updated for last year. FWIW, they calculated 75 business schools as "breaking even" within 5 years, and Graziadio was #75. I have no idea how they did their polling so I'm taking that with a HUGE grain of salt but it cemented the worth of applying in my mind.

Another important me-specific reason was the ideology of the faculty. I'm very liberal-minded, coming from an East Coast up-bringing and doing my undergrad at UMich. Their faculty is more-balanced than the faculty of some other schools. For example, Ken Starr is the Dean of the law school and the professor that teaches the foundational policy course published a book entitled "In Defense of the Bush Doctrine." For someone getting into policy work, I think having to defend my supported programs with my numbers and writing to a more critical professorship will be invaluable to my development.

I'm actually going to visit the school in three weekends, so I can give you more info then, if you'd like. The deadline won't have passed, either. Let me know if you're still considering it.

Which airline offers direct flights? I couldn't find anything via Kayak or on Southwest.

I am curious to know if any R2 applicant has already received or knows of someone who has? From several forums, it seems that folks with high gmat scores are getting interview invites the quickest, but that data may very well be skewed for several reasons.

Nevermind rao_1857, I think I found a direct flight from SFO. Unfortunately the itinerary is expensive and still would require me to miss a minimum of 2 days of work to make the trip

Have any R2 invites gotten a call back to schedule the interview?

Sorry man .. did the serch couldn't find anything. I am 100% sure I flew from OAK with jet blue and it was a non stop. I did it in fall some time.

I scheduled my interview this morning. I'm timing the trip to be in Pittsburgh at the same time as the Islanders. 10:30 interview, 11:30 tour, 12:30 lunch with current student , 1:30 sit in on a class. Admissions lady was as nice as they come. Really looking forward to it.

I saw an earlier question on whether essays were reviewed. I have a friend who I used to work with who is currently in his second year at Tepper. He took a look at them and gave me a few courses that would be good to name drop. I really tried to customize the essay to the school, and if I know that a specific prof does a segment on CNBC and teaches a specific course that I plan to take, I think it's all fair game.

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