Ask ARINGO - if your GMAT is (or might be) below 720

Yes, you are right - many if not most scholarships are offered with acceptance. If a school thinks you will be accepted to a more selective program, they might offer a scholarship to tilt the scales in their favor. As far as showcasing your strengths, I think it's throughout the whole application - essays, recommendations, CV, online application - the works.

As for determining need, my main reference would be Haas' essay question for financial based scholarships:
They ask:

• Please explain why you need financial assistance.
• Discuss efforts you have made to secure supplemental funding
• Elaborate on any special circumstances or hardships you currently face as applicable to the scholarships you selected in this application.

So inside there, you would explain why your family wasn't able to help you, and any other circumstances that prevent you from getting help in other places. I can't think of other schools' questions at the moment, but I imagine they are similar to some extent.

Best regards,

Joy




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Is it preferable to send a thank you note to the interviewer immediately after he interview or wait for a couple of hours ? Is there a template you suggest for this email ?

Thanks in advance

I think waiting a few hours, or until the evening, would be best. If you send it immediately after the interview, it might seem as if you had prepared it in advance, and could appear less genuine.

I've seen many good thank you notes, each one unique. You want basically to thank them for their time, and for sharing whatever insights they had about the school. You would want to reaffirm your interest in the program, and point out anything especially meaningful that happened in the interview, so that is shows you wrote it after and not before. If you are using a consultant for your applications, make sure to send them the letter in advance, to check for any spelling or grammatical errors; if not, then have a friend look it over.

Good luck!

Joy



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I created a thread with this post, but I think this would have been a better place to post.

I would appreciate it if you guys could review my profile, and give me tips on improvement and advice on target schools.

1. Demographics:
White Male, will be 30 years old when applying for fall 2015 enrollment.
From NC, lived in VA, FL, WA, Afghanistan, Qatar, Japan

2. Undergrad:
3.35 GPA @ UNC, Kenan-Flagler
Major: Business Administration BS, Finance concentration
Minor: History
4 years perfect attendance- not tracked by the school but I'm proud of it

3. GMAT: 670(43Q, 38V, 6 AWA, 7 IR)
Finance concentration will hopefully offset the low Q, also I'm in the tactical aviation electronic attack community which is heavy in real time math, technology, etc. I studied for 2 months for 2-4 hours a day religiously before taking the GMAT in March. Should I retest? If I start now I could study another 1.5 months and take the test in August. I don't know if I'll improve. I took the test in 2006 and got a 650 without studying. All of my practice tests ranged from 650 to 690, so 670 seems fairly representative.

4. Work Experience:
8 years as a Marine Corps Officer. Attended prestigious Marine Corps Infantry Officer's Course as an aviator, graduated first in my flight school class. Flew $82 million USMC electronic attack jet, jammed air radars, earned Mission Commander qualification, developed cutting edge tactics after receiving upgrades to my jet, planned for use of my aircraft in future wars, worked in large groups consisting of different aircraft platforms and nationalities in order to plan missions and strikes in training scenarios. Worked as embarkation officer, logistics officer, four times planning for the movements of 150-200 personnel, 5 jets, 2 transport aircraft, and 100 tons of squadron equipment, maintained accountability for $600k worth of squadron gear and vehicles. Schedules and operations officer where I managed the training program for 30 aircrew, planned the day to day operations of a 5 aircraft and 200 person squadron. Deployed to Afghanistan, and Japan for 7 months each. Worked at CENTCOM in Qatar, exercises in South Korea, Nevada, Alaska. Organized squadrons base defense force in Afghanistan. I'm well liked by bosses, peers, and enlisted Marines. Next job is at the Wounded Warrior Battalion as company commander overseeing recovery, and reintegration into civilian and military forces of approximately 200 wounded heroes. I'll have approximately 1 year in this job at time of application. Looking at getting LOR's from Commanding and executive officers at my current squadron, but I'm not quite sure who else to ask. Any ideas? I have several friends with very successful parents who I could get LORs from. Is it worth using LOR's to name drop or should I stick with professional LORs? I also worked as an audit intern at a super regional accounting firm prior to joining the Marine Corps when I thought I wanted to be an accountant. My backup gameplan if I can't get into any solid MBA programs is a Masters in Accounting. I also worked at a sports store and a factory prior to joining the Marine Corps.

5. Extracurriculars:
I don't have a ton here. At work I often tutor enlisted Marines working through distance education college courses. I have a passion for personal finance, sports, boating, reading. I'm married with a child. Due to 4 moves, 2 deployments and multiple 1-2 month exercises I have not gotten very involved in the community, which is something I really wish I could improve. However, when I'm home I dedicate my time to my family. Earned a USMC sponsored lean six sigma green belt. I write articles for a popular military satire website called theduffelblog. I sometimes volunteer with work projects at the church I attend back in the states.

6. Why MBA:
I will have been out of the civilian job world for 9 years when I get out. MBA focuses my 9 years of unique military experiences into tangible job opportunities in the civilian world. Also, it refreshes the education and quantitative skills of my undergrad, and gives you instant credibility in a job application process

7. Post MBA Goals:
I do not have concrete goals at the moment. I think I would enjoy operations at a major company such as John Deere, Cat, etc. since I do have experience with planning squadron flight operations, logistics, and lean six sigma. I want to work in the Raleigh/Durham area, so I would also be interested in operations/supply chain management for a technology, biotech, pharmaceutical firm. I was a finance undergrad, so I am interested in the global financial markets also.

8. Target Schools:
Kenan Flagler then... Duke, Darden, Wake Forest

9. Weaknesses:
GMAT, I'm not sure if I should retake to improve and UNC's median is a 690-700 so I will be below average with a 670. Extracurricular activities could be improved, but hopefully I can find something I want to get involved with when I get back. I don't have much experience in the current business world, but I pride myself in being well rounded. I read a lot, study current news, watch the markets daily, and am always trying to improve myself. I don't have any academic LORs.

I'm currently deployed and after getting back I've still got a solid year before I will have to start the application process. Does anyone have any advice for me, are my expectations reasonable, what should I improve, should I retake the GMAT, any post MBA careers that I should look into, anything to strengthen my "why MBA" question, or strengthen my story? LOR tips? Thanks for the help!

Hi, Flewbye

You are asking some great questions – many of them require fairly in-depth answers, but I'll do my best to touch on them all.

1. Regarding your GMAT – absolutely you should retake it. There's no reason not to. the schools relate to your highest score, so you can't do any worse. You have so much time; you aren't applying for another year, so there's no application work to do now – definitely see if you can raise your score. Did you study on your own, or take a course? Consider the latter, if you haven't done so already.
2. Your leadership experience, international experience, all terrific. Academic record is fine. In my experience, military work in and of itself counts not only as professional experience, but as 'community service' – you are out there risking your life to protect the country, what more dedicated service is there? All the things you are managing to do while there – like tutoring, etc. – that's great, and I would put that under the 'extracurric' section on the resume, along with the duffelblog stuff and church volunteering. So you really do have material for that section. And you'll want to talk about hobbies – schools want to see that range of interests.
3. LORs – Ideal would be to get from two people who can speak to different aspects of your work, again, to show as broad a view of you as possible. Probably whoever will be your boss at the time you are applying, and your previous boss, or someone higher up who knows and loves you well, and indirectly supervised you by supervising YOUR supervisor. You only want to go with people who know you in a professional capacity and have preferably supervised you, so parents of friends are out. The only way you might use them is if they are alumni of the school you are applying to, in which case they might send you an internal email of support.
4. I recommend you start creating a solid career plan, which takes into account your history and strengths, and incorporates something you could actually see yourself doing. You mention some options below – what's important is to choose one, focus on it, be specific and commit to it for the purpose of the application. The 'Why MBA' comes afterwards – you need the MBA in order to fulfill your intended goals.

Good luck!

Joy
Senior Application Consultant
Aringo.com


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Thanks, Joy. You gave me lots of stuff that I wrote down on my to do list for improvement.

Hi everybody .. first of all thanks for your valued advice that helped me get admitted to my dream school . The problem now is the scholarship they gave me is not sufficient in my current situation to the extent that I might be forced not to attend the business school this year .Is it possible to negotiate financial aid after admission ? and how do you advise me to tackle this issue with them ? Thanks in advance

EDITED

What if someone at the age of 25years with no relevant work ex wants to make it into the ivy league. He is an Artist and has done theater shows(Stage/Street acting) from past 4 years. MBA with this profile looks impossible and stupid. So he started preparing for GMAT and got 720+ in mocks, he wants to take GMAT but still thinking to pay around 15k INR for the exam is it worth to take a shot?

He also dosent have good grades in graduation(44% out of 100) and has done it through distance learning, moreover he belongs to a below middle class family where people need good and extra ordinary reasons to study . Reason for MBA- Has learned to work hard in those 4 years and wants to get a good job and settle down.Now what should he do? Has anyone converted any top US bschool with this kind of background??

10th= 50%
12th= 66%
Graduation= 44% Bachelor in commerce Pass( Two reasons for doing grad. through distance learning one poor score so unable to make a cut in good government colleges, had no money to study in Private universities).

From school days he acted on number of street shows,so even after graduation he persuaded the same profession.But day by day its becoming difficult to survive as the per month income is too low.

Any suggestion/guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks

Congratulations on your acceptance! That's just fantastic. About negotiating for aid, you can always try - the worst thing is they say no. You can come out directly and tell them that without more aid, you won't be able to attend; if any other school accepted you and offered you more money, or it will be less expensive to attend, you can add this in; by not attending after they accepted you, you will be affecting their yield in a negative way. It's in their interest to have you matriculate.

Good luck!

Joy
Senior Application Consultant
Aringo.com


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Dear Africa,
I'm not an expert in URM candidates, but I can say that schools do tend to like candidates who succeeded despite hardships or challenges in their past - whether that's a parental illness, moving from a different country and having to adjust, sexual orientation issues, physical handicaps, or anything of the like. These stories show that you use obstacles as leverage for leaping forward, and also help you to stand out from the rest, in terms of your unique life story.

The schools you have chosen are all top5-top10. Depending how important it is for you to attend next year, you might want to choose a backup school or two. I do think you have a chance at these top 5 schools with your profile, but in the end, nothing is guaranteed. You are on the youngish side, with less work experience than many of the people you'll be up against, and you have no professional leadership/managerial experience, which will work against you. HOWEVER - you have leadership and entrepreneurial experience in your extracurricular work, which you should emphasize, especially at those schools that highly value this sort of initiative - Stanford and MIT, in particular.

About your mobile app - do your best to get it out there; perhaps in a limited beta version that could be in testing, and you could already be getting feedback from users?

Your career goals will also be an important part the most important part actually - of your application, and should be considered carefully. Finally, recommendations should come from people who supervised you in a professional, not academic capacity.

I hope this was of some help.

Best regards,

Joy
Senior Application Consultant
Aringo.com

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Hi Joy,
Can you provide info on European MBA?

Look forward to hear from you.

Hi Joy,
I thought it'd be helpful for you if I come up with some specific questions on European MBA...

So, my questions are :
1.Most of them are 1 year program as you know...so,should one consider these for career change (re: Industry change not job function change)?

2.Could you please let me know like INSEAD & IE whether LBS,Said & Judge also have rolling admissions and two intakes (for example, one in September 2014 and other in January 2015 for INSEAD)...?

3. LBS,INSEAD are top ones but in global b-school rankings (FT) b-schools like IE,Said & Judge are placed ahead of many top 20 US schools like Ross,Darden,Anderson (for IE only),McCombs...How do you see that for an International applicant & career changer?

4..For these European schools, is it always better to apply in R1 (if some of them don't have rolling admissions and/or two intakes) rather than in R2 like US schools...?

Would really appreciate some deep insights from you on these.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Hi, Debayan
Yes – it's much better to come with specific questions, so thank you!
1. I think the main issue of 1 vs 2 years is that the 2 year program offers an internship – so you would need to check out what each specific 1 year program offers in the way of helping you to get a toehold in your new industry.
2. Hi, INSEAD does not have rolling admissions – just the two intakes, and the various rounds for each intake. IE does have rolling admissions. LBS has one intake, 4 rounds. Said has one intake, four rounds, in which the first 3 rounds each have a deadline, and the 4th round is rolling – basically it's for the final spots of the program, so they read the apps as they come in. Judge has one intake, with 5 rounds of admission.
If you are looking for other schools with January intakes:

• Columbia Graduate School of Business
• HEC, Paris
• IMD
• IE business school (November and April intakes)
• Ivey (Ontario, Canada; April intake)
• Queen's (Ontario, Canada; May intake)
• Simon (University of Rochester; also September intake)
• Schulich (York University; also September intake)
• Thunderbird (Spring [late January] and Fall [late August] intakes)
• Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University)


3. Take a look at this article, I think it will help you as you research this issue: https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/educat ... -in-europe


4. Regarding which round to apply in, personally I've had clients with success in both rounds; I usually suggest people apply first round whenever possible, as long as it does not come at the cost of a lower GMAT score or a lower quality application. If you are concerned about timings, and are trying to juggle work, GMAT, applications, family, etc. – then I would not stress yourself out too much about trying to apply to all schools in round 1. Plan if you can to apply to a few of them in round 1, with sensational applications, and then do the rest in round 2.

Hope that helps some,

Joy
Senior Application Consultant
Aringo.com

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_________________

Hey Joy,
Hands down.......this is one of the best replies I've ever received in any forum related to B-School/MBA... Kudos Sir

What I understand from your reply and the article,based on that I've sent you a PM..I would much appreciate if you take a moment out to shot a reply on top of that...

Look forward to hearing from you over there!

Hi Joy,
This is in response to your reply to my PM on above post as #PMs are limited here in GC

Thank you so much for your PM's reply..I wish I could use kudos over there also...! Much appreciate it.

As you've mentioned, you'd go deep on that aspect and return with some insights..so looking forward to the same.

Hi, Deb - I've done some checking on your question, and it seems your intel is correct - new visa restrictions are making it very hard, if not impossible, for international grads to get work post-graduation. So it seems that if your plan is to get a job following graduation, in the country where you received your degree, you should look outside of the UK, unless you have some means of getting around the restrictions.

Regards,
Joy

Senior Application Consultant
Aringo.com

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_________________

Thanks Joy...!

Tough news. I hope it's only with UK...rest of the EU hopefully is not with such visa restrictions...

P.S: I'm not sure what wrong with UK authorities as they want to loose out some potential future contributors(especially Asians) towards it's economy..Eh? I guess it's not true for other Internationals like Americans.

Sir,
I would like you to evaluate my profile and help me narrow down on the best b-schools i could apply to.
Nationality: Indian
GMAT:710 Q51 V35. AWA&IR: Not received yet.
Work ex: Asst. Manager, National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd., India, 24 months (till july 31 2013)
Acads: 82.6%, BTech Electrical Engineering, Indian School of Mines.
Recipient of Merit scholarship in bachelors.
organized various national level sports,cultural and technical events.
Received an award from President of India for services to Bharat scouts and guides(high school level).