tothedat wrote:
Hi, I have worked at McKinsey for one year as a BA after graduating from Yale (3.46 GPA). My leadership activities at Yale include tour managing for my a capella group and founding a charity organization. I am shooting for schools like Sloan, Wharton, HBS etc. I have 3 questions:
1. I realize that I will be in the low end in terms of working experience. But as you know, McKinsey typically sponsors people for MBA just after 2 years. Will my short working experiences lower my chances?
2. I just took my GMAT, and I scored a 680 (Q:48, V: 35). I am disappointed because I have been getting 720-30 on my practice exams. I understand that GMAT only forms part of the picture, but I should try to retake it to get a higher score if I can right?
Thanks!
tothedat,
Your work experience will probably lower your chances at most top-ranked schools, but several key ones -- HBS, Stanford, MIT, Michigan, and Cornell -- have been welcoming less-experienced applicants in recent years. That is, the middle 80% of their incoming class had two years or more of work experience, which means people with only two years of experience are not statistical outliers in their admitted pool and they also admit a few people with less than two years' experience. As you can imagine, these are generally pretty exceptional people.
Based on what you told me, you might qualify as a pretty exceptional applicant -- but only if you raise that GMAT score. Yes, you should try to retake it.
Good luck!
close
03 Aug 2006, 14:48
