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Thank you Maria for such an honest answer. I know no one from my NGO who went to HBS but there are surely some because it is one of the biggest NGO. I will take another TOEFL exam. But what about my GMAT score?
Thank you Maria

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Hi there -- I'd prefer that the GMAT score be closer to the averages, but for INSEAD in particular it's not a deal-breaker. I had a client from Africa last year with a lower GMAT score get into INSEAD (a sub-700 GMAT). Thanks!

Thank you Maria. I thought that for INSEAD the first two rounds were the best for applying. Afraid to reduce my odds by applying R3 just for the TOEFL. Difficult decision.

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Yes, the first 2 rounds are DEFINITELY better, but there is no use in applying in R2 if your score is too far below their stated requirement? As an AdCom person I've heard of likes to say: "Why are some people in such a hurry to hear 'no'?" Perhaps you could contact their AdCom and see if a 101 is still acceptable. In my experience, especially for such a global program, where everyone is coming from around the world, it's VITAL that everyone be at the same level of English, so I would think that INSEAD would be pretty firm on this number, but you never know unless you ask!

Hi Maria,

I've called them and they say that the score will not disqualify me. The score is just 4 points below the recommended score. There is no minimum at INSEAD, they said. They will look to the overall quality of my application. But I still don't feel confident to apply for tomorrow (R2)

Thank for your usefull feedback

Hi ApplicantLab,

I would like to request a suggestion/opinion on a confusion I am facing. One of the B-School Forum Moderators suggested that I reach out to you for help as you people have a rich experience in the MBA admissions process.
I received an admit from a business school in Georgia, USA with a full scholarship and stipend/graduate assistantship. Therefore, I asked other MBA schools for which my decision was pending after the interview if it is possible to provide my application decision sooner as I already have a decision in hand and wish to make an informed decision before paying out the enrollment fee. The schools reverted with a request to send them a copy of "Admission Letter" and "Scholarship Letter" before taking the case to the Admissions Committee for decisions.
Now, I am little confused whether to provide the letters or details such as the name of program, amount, the deadline for payment, etc. to those schools. I am not sure whether this would put my only admit into jeopardy or help me.
Kindly advise. Hope to hear from you soon.

Hi there,

I see no downside to providing this information to the schools that asked for it -- I'm not sure why it would put the one admit into jeopardy? The other schools are probably asking for this to make sure that you're telling the truth, and since you are, then there's no downside to providing this information?


Thank you,
Maria

Hi Maria,

I guess you are busy since the deadline for Round 2 is near but appreciate your time to help evaluate my profile and answer some of my questions below.
• Profile: Female, 27 years old. From Vietnam, studied and worked in Singapore for 9 years and currently living in the Bay Area since Jun 2018.
• Interested program: Evening & Weekend MBA at Haas
• GMAT: 700 (Q 49, V 35, IR 6, AWA 5)
• TOEFL: 104 (R 30, W24, L 25, S24)

Undergraduate: the National University of Singapore, Bachelor of Science in Real Estate. Award full scholarship but my final GPA is not high, second lower degree (equivalent to B to B+, about 50-70th percentile).

Work Experience: ~4.5 Years (Singapore from 2013 to April 2018)
I’ve been with only one company after graduation and progressed from a local junior position to a more client consultative role at the regional level. 3 promotions within 4.5 years.
I don’t have a full-time job since moving to the Bay Area in Jun 2018 to join my husband but continue doing part-time to help a non-profit organization in Vietnam. The organization aims to help less previledged students to find scholarships, courses or internships that will help prepare them for a full-time job. Work includes training interns, writing proposals to seek funding, fine-tune their web design with IT and designer. All is done remotely via email or skype calls.

JONES LANG LASALLE PROPERTY CONSULTANT PTE LTD, SINGAPORE (JLL in short)
Asia Pacific Transaction Management, Senior Analyst (2016 – April 2018)
Asia Pacific Transaction Management, Analyst (2015 – 2016)
Manage and provide real estate advisory services for multi-national companies regarding commercial and industrial space in the Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe, circa 20 million square feet under management to date
• Managed executions of c.35 transactions per year, including holistic portfolio strategy for integration after merger & acquisition. Exceeded assigned revenue target in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
• Client point of contact to ensure cross-functional team collaboration and timely delivery among Lease Admin, Occupancy Planning, Project, Facility and Brokerage Management.
• Delivered regional portfolio optimization and strategic review, generated USD 1.5 mil annual cost saved in 2017.
• Developed with Senior Directors regional delivery platforms for new clients based on firm’s technology, streamlined process to enable standardized delivery, rolled out brand new playbooks for 2 first-time clients.
• Diverse client portfolio includes Procter & Gamble, Zebra Technologies, Cardinal Health, United Technology Corporation, and JLL in-house Corporate Real Estate.

Worked directly with APAC Managing Director and Head of Operations in building operation efficiency platforms
• Rolled out the first online regional revenue management platform for c.60 users across APAC, enabled live update and reporting to senior management.
• Built sales database and mechanism to identify sales leads to expand Transaction Management client based in APAC.

Lease & Portfolio Management, Senior Executive (2014-2015)
Lease & Portfolio Management, Portfolio Coordinator (2013-2014)
Managed retail and office portfolio of over 1000 owned and leased properties for the largest bank in Singapore. Achievements included:
• Raised occupancy rate of a premium office building in a prime location from 80% to 95% within 9 months during a market downturn
• Derived a streamlined approval process which was approved by the client to implement in Singapore and Hong Kong, saved time cost by 30%.
• Managed templates and led reporting on real estate budget and actual expenses for the entire portfolio

Other:
• 2017 till now: Worked remotely for a non-profit organization based in Vietnam to help less privileged students find scholarships, courses or internships to increase their chance of finding a job after graduation; trained team of 5 interns and led proposal to external organizations to seek funding.

Post-MBA goals: Work in consulting/management service position that involves more development and investment knowledge and work across multiple functional teams within real estate industry.

Questions:
1. I’m expecting a baby coming mid-Mar 2019 so I want to apply for Round 2 and finish interview before my due date. Having a baby is also the reason I want to apply for part-time MBA as well. Is that a disadvantage for me?
2. Do you recommend me taking the GMAT one more time to improve score before Round 2 deadline on Jan 15? I’m not certain if essay writing quality will be compromised if I include the GMAT practice in my schedule.

Thank you very much,
Annie

Hi Maria,

Thank you for your time! Originally, I was planning to wait until the fall of 2019 to apply to MBA programs to build up my work experience; however, I figured that applying to some programs this year would be a good way to get a feel for the application process (and perhaps get accepted to one of my top choice schools).

I chose to apply to Yale and Northwestern this fall, and got denied at Northwestern and waitlisted at Yale after an interview. I am not yet applying to any Round II schools, and I'm planning to enroll in the HBX CORe program in January to help strengthen my position on Yale's waitlist. (I expect to get my CORe results back in mid-April, which would fall after Yale's round II decision date (April 2) but before the round III date (May 21).

An overview of my background/experience:
27 y/o white American male
3.66 GPA (magna cum laude) from a top-5 LAC; graduated in 2013
Graduated from a Master of Social Work Program earlier this year and working full-time at a Catholic social services organization in Indiana
780 on the GMAT (Q50, V48, AW 6.0, IR 8) (took the GMAT in November 2016)
Work experience: worked for 1.5 years as an AmeriCorps VISTA member prior to grad school. I researched and gave presentations on unaccompanied child migration from Central America. I started my current position as a counselor in June 2018, so I will have about 2.5 years of work experience if I matriculate in 2019, and 4.5 years if I matriculate in 2020.
(I also spent a year in a religious order, and although I wouldn't really count it as work experience, I figure I should put it on my resume so schools aren't wondering what I did the year after I graduated from college.)
As I mentioned above, I am planning to enroll in the HBX CORe program in order to gain a background in finance, microeconomics, and analytics. I believe this coursework will help demonstrate to schools that I am prepared to take on MBA-level quantitative coursework.

Intern/volunteer experience: The MSW program involved about 1,000 hours of field experience. I interned at a mental health center for the first half of those hours, and for the second half, I interned at a homeless services agency in DC. I also interned at a men's transitional home in the summer of 2016, and worked on a project to assess residents' perspectives on the program. I also spent 3 months living and working with immigrants from Central America at a shelter in Houston back in 2013.

I am greatly enjoying my work as a counselor. However, I am ultimately hoping to pursue an MBA so that I can transition to nonprofit management. My goal is to help nonprofits grow and develop so that they can better serve their clients. Following graduation, my plan would be to work as the director of development for a medium-sized social services nonprofit, or as an associate director at a larger social services nonprofit.

Here are some questions I have at this time:

1. I would love ask Yale and Northwestern for feedback on my applications this year, as this could help boost my chances of acceptance the following year (or getting off the waitlist at Yale). Would it be a bad idea to reach out to them directly for feedback? I'm guessing the areas that I most need to strengthen are my work experience and quantitative background, but getting some confirmation on their end would be much appreciated.

2. Do you have any guesses about my chances of possibly getting off the waitlist at Yale after completing the CORe program? I imagine this is hard to answer, as the odds must change a lot from year to year.

3. I am greatly enjoying working at a Catholic nonprofit, and I hope to continue serving at a Catholic organization following my MBA studies. With this in mind, I have been thinking about Notre Dame and Georgetown, as both are Catholic universities that I believe will offer a solid nonprofit management education and a great career network. In fact, I have even been considering submitting an application to one or both of these schools for Round II of this year. What advice would you give about that option? Part of me feels it would be more prudent to wait until next year to apply (especially because I am still on the Yale waitlist).

4. If I don't get off Yale's waitlist, and if I don't apply to any schools for round II, then my plan would be to apply to a number of schools next year (ideally before the round I deadlines). Here is my list for round I 2019 applications at this point. I would appreciate any feedback you might have on my chances and on my goodness of fit for each program. I'm certainly open to adding other schools, but that may require taking some off this list (at least for Round I).
I recognize that applying to 8 schools in one round is a lot of work, but I think the deadlines for these schools will fit together pretty well, and I'll be able to start working on essays during the summer. I'm open to shifting to a 2-round plan, though.

1. Columbia (would apply ASAP to benefit from the rolling admissions process)
2. Yale
3. Northwestern
4. Michigan
5. Duke
6. Notre Dame
7. Georgetown
8. Harvard

Thank you in advance for your feedback!

Hi Annie!

First of all, congrats on the upcoming arrival

Secondly, before we even get into your candidacy, you might want to reach out to the Haas EWMBA program and see if you're eligible to attend, given that you are not currently employed. I'm not sure about Haas, but I know that some part-time MBA programs want students to be currently employed while doing the program, so that should be your first step.

Thirdly, given your career goals, I'm not even sure that you need an MBA? I think an MBA might be overkill. I'd advise you to instead look in to Masters in Real Estate, which are 1) shorter (and therefore cheaper) and 2) less of a hassle to get accepted to than typical MBA programs.

If I were you, I'd look into these things first (or, well, concurrently) with applying to programs.


Thank you!,
Maria

Hi there!

Ok, to answer your questions:

1) Northwestern will probably not give you any feedback, so I wouldn't even bother asking. Yale on the waitlist -- SOME schools will give specific feedback on why someone is on the waitlist, but MOST do not. The expectation is that you self-assess your candidacy and try to guess what may have been lacking -- note that nothing may have been "lacking" per se; it could just be: "We like this guy.....buuuuuuut.... let's see who we get in R2 who might be the same but a smidge stronger...." With a 780 GMAT, I don't think it's academics that kept you out -- so yes, sure, go ahead and take HBx Core for your own edification, but don't bank on it being "The Thing" that gets you off of the waitlist per se.

2) Odds of getting off the waitlist depend upon how many other social workers they get in R2 with a profile similar (but maybe a smidge stronger / a smidge weaker) than yours. Sorry -- don't have any numbers. I do suspect that Yale, given its relatively recent salivation over GMAT scores (they are trying to get their avgs up) really REALLY likes your 780, and I'm guessing not a lot of social worker types are scoring at that level.

3) I'd wait to apply until next year. And then yes, cast a wide net and look into the Jesuit programs as well. The reason I say this is that you JUST got your MSW degree relatively recently. You're "lite" in the work experience space, and I worry that THEY will worry: "Does this guy actually know what he wants? Or is he a 'degree-collector' -- someone who is never happy and is simply looking to get degree after degree to try to solve their existential angst ?" If you live in Indiana now, and you have a 780 --- my hope would be that Notre Dame would love you!

Over the next year, see if you can try to get involved in SOMETHING, ANYTHING on the "businessy" side of where you work. That will help prove to them that you actually WANT to work on the business side (not everyone does, when they deeply reflect on what would make them happy -- managing can be a real pain, ha ha), and that you're not just hopping to the next shiny object but really know what you're getting in to.


Thanks!,
Maria

Hi Maria,

Thank you very much for the prompt and detailed response! I think you are spot on about my need to demonstrate that I see the MBA as an integral part of my career development, and not as some trophy. I am looking forward to using the MBA and my MSSW together to help expand services to clients.

If you have any thoughts about what my chances might be at the schools on my list (or if there are any schools I should consider adding or dropping), I would greatly appreciate that too—but you have already been very helpful!

Thanks Maria

I asked Haas, and they said I would still be eligible to apply but my application would be less competitive than other candidates. They also advised to include my situation in the application with a plan to secure employment after graduation. This will most probably be my optional essay.

On Masters of Real Estate vs. an MBA, I have thought about it too (and the cost difference). One thing that made me want to do an MBA is that in real estate consulting, knowing contacts in other industries and landing new clients will help to advance career faster. Also, most of my global clients previously have headquarters in the US so learning "management" here will help me stand out in leadership team later if I go back to Asia.

The networking benefit of an MBA does sound cliche though so please do share your view if I over-value it in my situation.

Appreciate your feedback as usual,
Annie

Hello Maria,

Could you help evaluate my application and share your advice.

Female, 25 years old.
Study undergraduate in Vietnam (3.6/4.0 GPA) and Master degree in the UK.
GMAT: 670 (Q46-V39)
Working experience:
2 years in the Leadership Program of Unilever Vietnam.
6 months in the Assistant to Managing Director of a big local food manufacturing firm in Vietnam (annual revenue of $100M)
Social community:
More than 5 years as the Vice President of the biggest studying abroad forum of Vietnam and many other activities.
School apply: MBA London Business School.
Some other extra information:
My husband is currently working in London
My sister is an alum of LBS MBA.

My concern is that the local firm is my family business in which my mother is the Chairman. Therefore, should I use the Rec Letter from my current company or should I ask for LOR from one of my client in Japan/Hong Kong?

Hi there -- well, it sounds like they're telling you it's going to be a tough thing to get in, so your essays will need to be super-strong. ApplicantLab can help you there!

I'm afraid that I don't work in real estate so I can't comment on the value of the broader network of the MBA. I'm not sure that many of my classmates have needed commercial real estate consulting in their careers, so I'm not sure that it would be useful for you to know them, if you see what I mean? But this is where lots of research really pays off! Ask around and see what others say!


Thank you!,
Maria

Hi there! The main thing that jumps out at me is:



This is an easy one to answer -- it MUST be from someone who is NOT a family member. Therefore, your client sounds like the best bet.

The one thing that concerns me a little is your GMAT score, which is below their average. If your quant score was strong, I'm less concerned since they will give you (I hope!) some leeway on verbal. However, if quant was your downfall, I'd urge you to consider re-taking it if possible. If you can't that's ok, just write an optional essay explaining how the GMAT score does not fully represent your quant / analytical skills.


Thank you!,
Maria

Hi

I would appreciate any feedback you could provide on my profile for Wharton, LBS and INSEAD

- Age 22 at matriculation, Mauritian
- GMAT 740
- ACCA and CFA qualified. Completed ACCA at the age of 18 and CFA program at 21. However, no GPA given I did not attend any university. Wharton, LBS and INSEAD confirmed that my ACCA qualification will be equivalent to an undergrad degree.
- Spent 2 years and 4 months at Ernst and Young in the Corporate Finance Department with 2 promotions.
- Currently a Private Equity Analyst at the biggest bank in Mauritius - will have about 1 year of experience in PE at matriculation
- Post MBA goal is to work in PE
- Volunteer - Currently a volunteer at the round table association helping the homeless people and a mentor for the CFA research challenge to university student
- Member of the toastmasters club and regularly practice kickboxing
- Speak and write both French and English

Thanking you in advance for your feedback.