Ask Admit World/My MBA Admit

Hi Seema,
If you are thinking of applying with your current GMAT score, I think your list of schools is good. Additional schools you could consider include Michigan State and Texas A&M, which has a good M.S. in Human Resources management course.

Since this is a long list, here is how I would advise you to split it: 1/2 aspirational schools (besides UIUC, Vanderbilt has a good MBA in HR as well), 2 competitive schools and 2 sure-shot schools.

However, giving the GMAT again would probably strengthen your profile and give you a better shot at higher ranked schools. If you are going to do a MBA, the better school will always provide higher long-term value and I always advise clients to give it their best shot. Although your undergraduate GPA is fine, you also mentioned a graduate GPA. What was your graduate degree in? Having another graduate degree, and the field that it is in, also has a bearing on your candidacy.

You haven't mentioned extracurricular activities/community service, but keep in mind for MBA, especially for a concentration heavy on people leadership such as HR, your soft skills become especially important. Also, I am slightly concerned about your GMAT Verbal score. Effective communication is one of the main tools of a HR representative, and I would pay special attention to presentation in your essays and make sure your recommendation letters mention that your communication skills are strong. This would mitigate the concern that you might have an opportunity in your communication skills.

Feel free to drop us a line at mbaconsult@mymbaadmit.com to discuss how you can position yourself better in your MBA application. Check out our Volume Discounts and Application Packages tailored to your admission needs.

I’ve been on gmatclub for a decent amount of time now and this coming fall I plan on applying to some schools. I want to know realistically what schools I would be competitive at currently and what schools I would be competitive at if I reached my GMAT goal (I’m about half way through the mgmat books so I haven’t covered every topic).

Nationality: US- Negro (That’s what the census categorized me as so that’s what I’m putting)- neither one of my parents are west Indian or African. I’m straight up African American. Love fried chicken and everything.

Ugrad major: Economics/ Business from a big state school (biggest in my state actually)
Ugrad GPA: 3.5
-every human being says this part so let me join in on the fun: I had a steady upward trend. My gpa was a 2.75 my first semester and because I was a lazy bum and hung out with a bunch of lazy bums (out of the five of us I was the only one to graduate) I thought aiming for B’s was overachieving. Smh… I know. It’s a shame. My grades really started to climb when I joined student government and got around other people with dreams and realized that I was dreaming much too small for my abilities. Then I started busted my hump and did very very well especially in my major (I think I had 1 B and the rest were A’s in my major).

WE: IMO this is my weakest/strongest point depending on how you look at it. I’m not sure how an adcom would look at it. I’ve been working for an insurance company since I graduated (Jan 2008 – present) by the time I matriculate (if I matriculate) I’ll have 3.5 years. My work is great and the people are great but the pay is far below competitive. Still I liked the work and the company is kicking the rest of the industry’s butt & I get to play an important part in it & have a good understanding of the culture. Hopefully, I can spin this to bring a unique perspective to b-school (keeping my fingers crossed). I’m an analyst and I do all sorts of crazy stuff in Excel to make sense of the data. I created several sales, attrition, growth, forecasts and models to plot out and plan all sorts of scenarios to help us grow profitably. Luckily I got to do this in teams and present findings and ideas to big wigs. They liked our ideas but it was hard to come up with takeaways.

GMAT: I took this earlier this week and got a 650 (V37 Q42). Since I’m not done studying I’m fairly confident that I can break 700, hopefully I’ll get higher than that. I’ve just got to get used to the endurance the test requires and how wide my eye has to focus for the CR questions (these are normally where I’m strongest but because I had to span 12 inches rather than 3 or 4 to view the whole argument it threw my brain off a bit). I have until June 26th to take the real test and I’m trying to blow it out the water.

Extra curriculars:
In college, as stated above I was very involved in student government, particularly the student senate. I broke a school record for the most votes for any student senator in my school’s history (though it was broken the next year by someone else when I ran for student body president). I was also the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee (we decided how to allocate $640,000 to 120 student organizations which were requesting $1.2 million it was pretty cool for a 19 yo but I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what some have done here so I def won’t boast). After we would decide I had to present the decisions to the Senate and defend our reasonings. I think a lot of people who didn’t agree with me politically still supported me because they respected my character. I don’t show partiality to anyone or any group and I made it a point to look at every issue from as may perspectives I could think of.

Also, in college I was very involved in my church, particularly in two ministries: 1) Praise and worship (music) and 2) community outreach. No joke. My college years were terribly rough on my spirit and probably the roughest point came as a result of community outreach. A friend of mine, named Eric, stayed with me and my roommate for about 2 or 3 weeks one semester and he also assisted with the community outreach to housing projects north of my campus. It was basically to just be there for the kids of the hood because a lot of them have it really rough and never get exposed to much outside of the projects. And it’s not like folks are fighting to go into the projects to broaden horizons. Most people are very fixated on their lives and careers. Anyway, we would have basketball programs and what not on Friday nights. One night I had a sinking feeling and I was determined not to go but couldn’t for the life of me explain why. Sure enough, Eric had to escort two teens out of the community center. One of the kids didn’t like it and shot him in the abdomen. He bled to death. He was 23 and about to be a father and he was nobody’s gangbanger. It was just sad. Who dies at 23 doing the right thing? That and a bunch of other things really messed with my head and heart to cause me to question whether or not I wanted to continue in any sort of real ministry to God or my community.

I guess some kind of way my heart got over those rough days and now I’m back involved in my current church & the community. I sing on the praise team and am a member of the finance ministry. I love it. I’m probably too involved. I guess I came to the conclusion that I’m gonna die anyway. Since I have no idea when I might as well live to help out other people and be the change that I want to see.

Anyway, I’ve typed your head off pouring my heart out to you lol. Do you think I could be competitive anywhere if I cross that 700 barier? My gf’s going to Wharton this fall I can’t let her hog all the education!! Let me know what you think.

Thank you so much for your feedback, My MBA Admit. It’s a real encouragement to me to read what you replied and especially that it was an interesting read. I’ll try to answer your questions.

1) I thought my work experience could be considered a weakness because I thought adcoms tend to gauge the value you provide to your company by how much your company pays you. Since property and casualty insurance in general tends to pay less than most other industries and my employer pays very conservatively even among other insurers (part of its competitive advantage IMO), I am not sure if the adcom would or wouldn’t view this a weakness. However, I am not complaining because when I graduated undergrad, this was exactly the industry, job, company and even starting position that I wanted to work in and learn about. Thanks for giving me a better view of what the adcom would look for.

2) “What do I want to do with an MBA?” and “Where would I like to go?” are the two hardest questions to answer. I’ll try to answer them with a story. I started a business last year which would design and print poster-sized athletic calendars for high schools. They were really professional and polished athletic schedules designed to get students to post them on the walls of their rooms and spark school spirit. I planned to donate these to schools for free and give the schools large monetary donations (at least $500 per sports season). What provided the funding for these donations was ad space at the bottom of these athletic schedules/posters. I’d sell the ad space to local businesses and provide them with cheaper advertising for months than they would get anywhere else. Unfortunately, the business failed and not even from the parties providing the funding but from the schools. Perhaps I am just horrible salesman but I would like to think that it was more a matter of rapport and networking that caused what seemed like a viable and profitable business to fail. Because schools didn’t know me and were weary of others who were in this line of business I couldn’t get any of them on board (correction one came on board but then reneged). The most important thing I learned from that is that the more “exotic” your product or service is to a particular market, the more important it is for you to know someone who can help you connect with that market- preferably a mutual friend who can speak to your character. I want an MBA program with classmates who have a diverse exposure to industries, cultures, and passions so that when I see another viable profit opportunity in the future I will have a point of contact to increase the success of my enterprise. I want to go to a school that emphasizes entrepreneurship and makes me look at issues through paradigms I never would have considered. I visited HBS last year and was blown away by how the case method forces students to verbalize and kick the tires of their own positions and those of others to come to a decision. I also visited on International Day when everyone wore attire from their native country. It looked like a mini-UN in the classroom. My mouth salivated at the insight of venture opportunities in that room. Since I have only visited one potential school, it’s like seeing the first pretty girl and acting like you want to marry her. However, I have researched several others extensively. I’m also interested in Kellogg because of their one year program and Stanford because of their PMP. Honestly, Stanford might be a better fit than anywhere because of their focus on entrepreneurship but I’ll have to visit to tell. The two schools that aren’t “reach’s” like the others are Tuck and Darden. Much of where I’m competitive at will depend on how I do on the GMAT. That’s why my minimum goal is to crack a 700. I’m really aiming a couple points higher.

Your extracurricular activities are a bigger concern. Especially in this era, when there is a lot of emphasis on ethics and responsibility in MBA programs, an "involved" candidate is very appealing to the AdCom. That being said, a lot of candidates face this issue, and are helped by our experience. We help them evaluate their experiences without bias to identify any potential experiences they could have initially missed, and then help them present those opportunities to demonstrate an optimal fit with the program. Let me demonstrate with an example.

For your work experience, you mentioned that you weren't able to find a job till March 2008. Since you haven't put in a graduation date, I wasn't able to tell if you had a significant gap between graduation and starting your job. If this is the case, that is another aspect I would like to focus on and explain to prevent any unanswered questions.

Hi MyMBAAdmit,

Thanks so much for your response; I really appreciate the insight. I was sort of hoping for one of those bold text summaries though..

Glad we could help. Bold text summaries below

Just a few questions in regards to your comments:

Given that I have ~6 months until applications start becoming due, is there anything I can realistically do to mitigate this? I have done some volunteer work over the past few weeks, and am planning to do more over the coming months. I am worried however, that this will appear contrived to adcoms and may not help me.

What kind of volunteer work are you doing? As I mentioned in another post today, extracurricular activities serve two basic purposes - one, demonstrate personal attributes and soft skills with quantifiable results outside routine activities and two, show diversity in your activities to add a Wow factor. Although you can't go back in time to change what has already been done, clients often miss out activities in their own profile that can qualify as strong extracurricular activities and add a notable dimension to their profiles. This is something we have helped multiple clients with, so let me know if you would like to discuss. As for the activities you are currently undertaking, the best thing to make them count is to demonstrate your impact - depth of involvement and measurable results both in terms of money raised and people helped, are good ways of showing that you didn't sign up to be a member just to put something on your applications.



I graduated right at the end of May, 2007, so it was about 9 months until I began working. Part of the reason is that I went back home for about four months to visit and spend time with my family. I grew up in Tokyo, Japan and attended college in the midwest, so I was not able to spend much time with my family (especially my grandparents, who live in a different part of Japan) during the 4 years of school. At the time of my graduation, my grandmother had just been diagnosed with severe cancer, so I was especially eager to spend time back home. After returning to the US, I spent another four months searching for a job in Chicago but ultimately was unable to find anything. I then moved to New York and found a job within a month. When I was laid off from my first job, I found my next job in about three weeks. I've been wondering whether this will be a significant issue that I need to address. Will this be viewed as a strong negative by an adcom?

I think any gaps in your resume benefit by a proactive explanation. Your desire to be with your family is genuine and touching, and should be included in your optional essay as part of the reason for your absence. In the 4 months that you were looking for a job in Chicago, did you get involved in anything else - community service, extracurricular activities, even hobbies? If so, I would put that in. I personally believe that you have something to learn from every experience, and AdComs appreciate candidates with similar insights rather than those who try to excuse themselves - hence, it's important to always keep a positive spin.

In terms of other aspects of my profile, how much does having a unique-ish background help? I speak three languages (English and Japanese growing up, and Mandarin Chinese from college). I was born in Japan, moved the the US when I was two, and moved back to Japan when I was 9 (and spent my remaining pre-college years there). My father's parents are Chinese who immigrated to Japan shortly before World War Two and raised my father in Japan, and my mother is an American who met my father while studying abroad in Japan. I've traveled extensively (visited 30+ countries) and grew up in an extremely international setting (went to international school since I was 10 with diplomats' and other expat kids). I guess I'm sort of hoping to identify areas to strength to make up for my weaknesses.

I do think your diversity makes for an interesting angle, and should definitely be included in your application package, preferably in one of the essays. One of our recent clients was admitted to multiple programs, including USC with scholarship, in spite of having an unconventional background. His secret? He had tremendously diverse experiences, including extensive travels like yours, and we fully leveraged that in his essays to make his application pop.

Drop us a line at mbaconsult@mymbaadmit.com to set up a Free Initial Consultation. Also check out our Application Packages and Volume Discounts tailored to help with your admission needs.

I've been reading quite a bit from people on the forum as well as from your thread hear, and have a question about how my work experience might be considered against my GPA.

My undergraduate GPA from a small state school was 3.26 and I graduated December of 2008.

Graduated high school 2004 and moved to Germany and enrolled in a Gymnasium(German honors high school). After receiving an apointment to the US Air Force Academy I moved back home and enrolled in a small state university(January 2005) to take science and math classes I'd need at USAFA. I was on dean's list this semester.(December 2005)

After one semester at USAFA I decided to leave for personal reasons. I was on dean's list for the semester I was there.

Due to my late decision to leave USAFA the only place I could get accepted was the same small state school I went to before. Immediately after getting back in January 2006 I started working part-time at the Salvation Army. Realized this wasn't enough money and got a part-time job at a pizza restaurant. In May I was promoted to Assistant Manager and quit my job at the Salvation Army. I had this job working 40-60 hours a week taking 18 credits each semester and 4 classes each summer.

I worked like this until the following May(2007) when I had a really bad semester and realized I was letting work get in the way of my studies, left this job and got another part-time management position at the mall for the summer because I then studied abroad in Japan for a semester.(December 2007)

After coming back from Japan I got a full-time job again working in the payroll department of a multi-billion dollar company,(January 2008) and started taking classes part-time to finish my degree. Within two months of being with the company I received my first promotion, and then another month later my second promotion.

In July 2008 I left this company for my current job as a software consultant for a small niche German software company. Continued taking part-time classes(online) while training in Germany through November. Presented my senior thesis and graduated in December 2008.

I have since received a promotion at my current job and relocated where I now have more responsibilities with two of our largest customers. In the meantime I have completed a paralegal certificate with a 4.0 GPA.
How much will my work experience during college matter since it isn’t your typical part-time or summer employment and definitely the amount of time I spent working effected my grades. I know I’m capable of better grades(hence my two semesters on dean’s list when I wasn’t working full time), but obviously it’s too late to really do anything about that at this point, I just don’t know if my work experience will make up for it.
I took an initial GMAT practice test and scored 610, I imagine with studying I might be able to get to the low 700’s but would feel comfortable saying that I’ll get in the mid to high 600’s
Plan on applying in about two or three more years. I have some extracurricular and volunteer work, but nothing noteworthy since high school.
My ideal school would be Wharton(close to home) but what are your thoughts or advice overall with regards to my profile?