josemnz83 wrote:
Hi everyone! I'm new here and will not be applying until new cycle. I'm interested in the Consortium and hope one of you is willing to give me some guidance as to what I should do from here until this fall.
First of all, I have a 3.61 gpa from Texas A&M University (BA in POLS). I'm first generation high school/college graduate. I earned my BA in two years and graduated at age 20. I have been been working as a bilingual teacher at a Title I school for the past six years. I have excellent LORs, wherein I'm credited for playing a leading role in transforming our school from failing student achievement scores (and risking state clousure) to one of the top 2 schools in our school district (out of 35). I scored a 640 on GMAT (V: 44; Q: 34). (97th and 35th percentiles, respectively). I have not taken any math level courses since taking AP Calculus in high school.
Since my professional experience is not in business, I feel that I may be at a disadvantage when it comes to gaining admission to a competitive business school. What suggestions do you all have for me to improve my chances of gaining admission? I have about 6 months to work on anything that you guys believe may help my application. Thank you and best of luck to each one of you in your applications! Congrats to all of you who are in!!!
Cole's post is spot on. You have a lot of great things to build on (your background, bilingual teaching experience -- very good for gaining admission into the consortium, GPA from good school). Just a couple of suggestions...
#1 -- You likely will need to get your Quant score up for a more balanced GMAT score for admission into most (if not all) Consortium schools. Considering you did AP Calc, I'm guessing you're pretty solid as far as math goes. That being the case, I'd recommend going the self-study route and using all of the Manhattan Quant books used in conjunction with the Official Guides. Also, some schools (such as CMU Tepper) want to see that you took a quant course in college, so I would maybe look into taking a supplemental university math class as well (money/time permitting).
#2 -- I wouldn't be too concerned about your non-traditional background; in fact, this might actually play to your favor in your essays as you discuss why you feel that you need an MBA. Just be able to talk about how your teaching experience has allowed you to build up skills that can be leveraged in a business setting, and of course put everything in the context of your career of interest (marketing, finance, non-profit, etc.)
Just spit balling here, but for an education background, I'd imagine the following skills from your current profession could all be readily applied in business: communication/speaking skills, project/class management, ability to coach others, taking creative approaches to drive home key ideas/concepts