Hi poetsandquants,
Thanks for posting. In regards to your GMAT score, a 740 is a very strong score. It may be more valuable for you to spend time on other parts of your application.
As you wrote, the Tuck School of Business is very focused on fit. The best way to show your "fit" is through your personal essays. We have written an article on Tuck Business School essay tips here, which will be of help:
With regards to your leadership experience, Tuck will be looking for this. However, there are ways to demonstrate leadership experience. We had one client with one year of fairly basic experience as an analyst at an investment bank. As an entry level employee in an extremely large organization, she had very little opportunity to differentiate or demonstrate leadership.
We decided to use a relatively mundane example of overhauling an Excel spreadsheet, but dove into details that demonstrated some terrific qualities that the client possessed, such as initiative, detail orientation, can do attitude, ability to influence others, leadership and more. Although the task was not hi-tech – it did provide a stage to present all of this. She also discussed the layers of impact of her simple contribution – and the subsequent lesson that change is possible at any level of an organization, and even small changes can have substantial impact. In the end, she was admitted to HBS and Stanford.
This same strategy can be applied to your application. There are many ways you can express your leadership experience through your essays.
I hope this was of help. Please let me know if I can answer any other questions.
Best,
Stacy BlackmanThanks for the specifics about demonstrating leadership! I took a brief look at your website, and have 2 questions.
1. Do you have consultants specializing in certain schools?
2. You mentioned "initiative, detail orientation, can do attitude, ability to influence others". But do applicants actually use these phrases in essays, or do they use the show-but-not-tell approach?