3.19 UG GPA: Legitimate concern or am I overworrying?

Given (a) that you had multiple failing grades on your record and (b) that your overall GPA is ~3.2, my guess is that you did pretty well in all of your other classes. So, despite your overall GPA, there might be some hope here. Here are some basic rules to how MBA admissions interprets situations like yours:

- They will look at your overall GPA and will expect you to provide an explanation as to why you failed these classes. Please do not go into intense details about what went wrong; keep your discussion focused and direct. These are people reading your application so they understand that all lives do not happen in perfect harmony.
- Admissions will look at your performance during the last two years of college as these grades are more reflective of the person that you are today rather than the person who you were when you were a freshman in college (remember that you were most probably a very distracted 18 year old at the time). So, if your grades do show improving trends, then this is actually a good scenario (it would be much worse if your grades started off high and then got worse over time).
- You are correct about your GMAT score being important and that you have to perform well on it; if you are shooting for the schools listed in your posting - I would say a minimum of 700 would be acceptable. Also try to make sure that you score above the 75th percent in both verbal and quant as this is the way that you can further demonstrate that you will be able to handle the academic demands of this program.

As for what you need to do in your application:
- Explain what happened with your academics; however, do not write a dissertation about it. Keep it focused and direct.
- Do not dwell too much on this matter on your application -- business school applications are much more about what you want to do than what you did.
- Make sure that you mention what you learned from your academic experiences (specifically the less than stellar ones) and how you have used this information to your advantage in both school and work.
- Do not make apologies about your performance - nothing is less attractive than an application full of excuses and apologies

I work with candidates every year who face similar problems and from my experience, the following schools seemed most receptive last year.
- Ross, Fuqua, Johnson, Booth and Anderson (although a bit less receptive last year than in the past)
- Schools that seem to have no tolerance to people in your situation include: HBS, Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley, Yale and Darden.
- Schools with mixed records on such candidates include; Wharton, MIT, Tuck, NYU and Kellogg

Good luck.

Kimberly Plaga
Senior Admissions Consultant
Manhattan Review