Admission by Industry & GPA

Question

I was recently at a prep admissions session where the speaker was talking about Harvard Business School and Wharton and mentioned that

1) the way adcoms look at applications separates applicants by industry so if you are a marketer you're really only competing against other marketers for spots in HBS - he said the same holds true for healthcare, finance, and consulting. 
2) If you have a lower GPA but the same GMAT, you would have a better chance at Stanford than Harvard from a pure admissions rate perspective and he cited MBAdataguru....So in this case with a GPA of 3.1-3.3 but a GMAT of 700+ --> would this mean that chances are better with HBS than Stanford despite the fact that overall admission rates are almost double at HBS vs. Stanford?

I wanted to check here if this is really accurate, are there any truths to this from your experience? thank you

Admissionado · Answer

Sooo
1) Yes, but its not that simple. Its true that your most direct competitors are in the same industry in the sense that theres not one school that wants to have ALL marketers so it will balance out. But its not as if there are REAL QUOTAS. Not at all. the evaluation process is a lot more holistic. So the question that the Adcom will come against might be "Do we want yet another pretty strong Big 4 guy? Or should we take a chance on this startup guy with weak acads?" And every year there is a different pool of applicants with a different breakdown.
2) This does not seem to be the case. Stanford has and has had the highest GPA average of any MBA school. Bow it is something like 3.73 whereas HBS is 3.66. Close, but still... Im not sure what the basis for this idea is.

Best,
Jon

arcticTO · Answer

Thank you Jon! I believe the GPA comment on HBS vs G GSB was based on: https://www.mbadataguru.com/blog/admissi ... -analysis/ https://www.mbadataguru.com/blog/admissi ... -analysis/

Admissionado · Answer

Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know the basis upon which the model was made or whether the model was a good one. The model seems to belie information that is here: admission-trends-at-top-bschools-over-5-years-223151.html But I haven't made any independent verification or model, so I'm not sure. But lets just put it this way, it's safe to assume that since the average GPA is higher in Stanford than HBS that this is not true. Plus I think you can't model just GMAT/GPA because it ignores just as important things like work experience, essays, volunteer work, etc, so I honestly don't think you can isolate the two and create a model that tells you anything significant, and its probably just more useful to look at published GPA and use that as a basis. Cheers, Jon

VeritasPrepDozie · Answer

All GPAs are not created equal. Every situation is different and factors like overall GPA, major GPA, GPA trend, quant clas GPA, university quality, rigor of major, etc all factor into how schools evaluate these things. Also keep in mind the relationship to your GMAT is also key here. The more positive these factors are the more the evaluation can swing your way

Admission by Industry & GPA

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards