Ask ARINGO MBA Admissions Consulting

Hi, waiting a year might increase your chances; but it might not – it depends on how you would use that year, and what accomplishments you would have that you currently don’t. If you are rejected this year, you can re-apply the following year; it would be wise to do some research to make sure that the school is friendly to reapplicants. Most are, some aren’t.

I recommend working with a reputable consulting company to help you strategize, position yourself, choose the schools wisely, etc.

Good luck!!

Joy

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Hi Aringo,

It will be great if you can review my profile, as my education background is slightly unique.

Gender: Male
Nationality: Malaysian
Current location: Vietnam (on secondment)
Age: 26 years old (27 years old in Sep 2017)

GMAT: I will be sitting for the exam in early September 2016; aiming for 700

Target schools (Sept 2017 intake): 1 year MBA in Oxford Said Business School or Cambridge Judge Business School or Imperial College Business School (I am applying for R3 in January 2017). Open to any suggestions for US based schools aswell

Why MBA: Career progression in financial services industry. Moving from Investment Banking in ASEAN to SME development either in a financial services firm or Crowdfunding / P2P operators; To dive into innovative financing / alternative financing to grow and support SMEs in ASEAN

Working Experience (Total @ 5 years):
1) Top 5 Banks in ASEAN (present): 2 year rotational leadership program in Investment Banking Division; Rotations in Corporate Finance department, Assistant to Deputy CEO of the Investment Bank and secondment to Vietnam to get a taste of SME development)

2) Big 4 audit firm (1.5 years): Specialising in the audit of financial services companies

3) Family-owned hotel business (SME) (2 years): Business development (Note: Before heading to university to pursue my tertiary education)

Education (unique)
Pursued a slightly different educational pathway, that lead me to an offer to pursue a top UK based Professional Accounting Qualification (similar to CPA in USA) under a scholarship in South East Asia without the need to having an undergraduate degree. Average score @ 70% for all papers.

I was part of the pioneer batch in ASEAN to complete the professional accounting program in 6 years, accumulating 3 years of working experience and 3 years of full time classroom training in one of the leading university in my country. My country lacks 60,000 accountants, and this is one of the programs that was meant to fill the gap to develop my country in the next 5 years.

Completed CFA level 1 & qualified Chartered Accountant in 2015

Extra-curricular activities
Quite a number of volunteering activities (President of Omega Leo Club, math teacher in an orphanage house) all the way to being a Project Director for a national level CEO Speaker Series / networking sessions and Project director for a Fintech community + organized a regional fintech competition in 2015. Enjoy traveling around South East Asia. Currently mentoring a team of social entrepreneurs under a Leadership Academy to build a P2P platform.

Questions

1) As I am professionally qualified as a Chartered Accountant, am I eligible to apply for MBA in my targeted school to facilitate my career progression in the Financial Services industry?

2) Is my education background the biggest hurdle for me to pursue MBA? If yes, what can I do about it? (Note: Spending another 4 years to get an undergraduate degree is definitely not an option)

3) Is there anything else that I can do to improve my profile?



I'd appreciate any feedback or comments on my MBA application or if you can share any successful stories by applicants with similar educational background as me.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Cheers.

Hey sir
Apologies for troubling you again but i have a specific query now =>(regarding my debrief - ask-aringo-if-your-gmat-is-or-might-be-below-109261-720.html)
Is my profile good enough for notre dame ?
and additionally if not should i skip applying this year in R2 and apply in early round next year so that my work ex will be more than 2 years and 4 months?
i want to get into notre dame or georgetown..!
Actually Notre dame is my top priority.

Can you please shed some light on the notre dame 2 year mba/ms programme
will it be considered a stem programme?
and if i do apply this year and dont get in - then being a reapplicant next year would it demean my chances?
and what can i do to improve next year from notredame point of view
I want notre dame pretty badly
and thank you once again for the wonderful insights above
really helpful

cheers
stone cold

Dear Team Aringo,

It would be really helpful if you could suggest some schools to apply.

Please evaluate my profile and suggest some schools USA.

Nationality: Indian
Gender: Female
Age: 26(will be 27 when i join)
Expected start date: Fall 2017
GMAT: 700 (Q50, V34, IR3, AWA 5.0)

Graduation: Graduated with Bachelor of Engineering degree with majors in electronics and Communications engineering. GPA: 9.78/10

Work experience: Slightly more than 4 years as an R&D Engineer in one of the world's largest Consumer Electronics Company

Strong quantitative, analytical, interpersonal and decision making skills.
Effective team player and led team on need basis.
Module leader in a project.
Mentored interns and new joinees in the team and provided on the job training.
Published technical papers in renowned technical journals.
2 promotions in a span of 4 years.
Co-worked with teams in China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, USA and Europe on critical projects.

Goals:
I have mostly been involved in technical work so far. I want to expand my horizon and move into technology management and product lifecycle management, preferably in consumer electronics and/or digital technology. I have worked with several Product managers and their work has inspired me to pursue this path.
Long term i would like to get involved in technology related policy making and serve as a consultant to Government organizations.

Could you please suggest some good schools that fit my goals and that also provide scholarship of some sort.?

Dear all,

I was accepted at Harvard, Wharton and INSEAD with a GMAT score of 650. I received a full, merit-based scholarship at Wharton upon admission and later became a member of the Wharton Admission Committee.

Following these experiences I founded ARINGO, an admission consulting firm with particular specialty in countering low GMAT scores. ARINGO employs the series of essay tools I originally developed as an applicant.

The results followed: our clients were accepted to Harvard (MBA) with GMAT’s of 580, 660 and 670; to Wharton with GMAT’s of 640, 660 and 670; to Duke with GMAT’s of 600 and 640; to INSEAD with GMAT’s of 630, 640 and 650; to MIT with GMAT’s of 660 and 680; to LBS with GMAT’s of 630, 650 and 660; to Kellogg with GMAT’s of 640 and 680, and many more…

Any questions out there about the admission process?

Regards,
Gil Levi
ARINGO.com

GMAT: 740 - 49/41
GPA: 3.95 accounting from a decent state school
Age: 26, 27
Jobs: 2 Years I-Banking (brand name but not bulge) - promoted, 3 Years Corp Dev. highly acquisitive company - promoted twice
ECs: Solid at minimum, Chairman of YL Board of small NFP, President of Social Frat in college, mentorship programs, started Volunteer programs in foreign country
Post-MBA Goal: Financial Services PE.

Now, I'm concerned that since I don't have prior PE experience, the schools will think I'm a long shot to get a PE job and ding me for not having realistic career goals. But having worked in M&A in IB and Corp Dev, I think it should be still a compelling case. What do you guys think? Should I shoot for a consultant role to increase my chances? Would that even increase my chances? THANKS!!!!

Hi Aringo,

Please evaluate my profile;

Male
27years old
International student from Africa (I have noticed this is an advantage as most schools like to be considered diverse)

GMAT; 630 (yeah I know its low. this is my second attempt so not sure if I can really improve on this within the time frame to make 2016/2017 application deadline)

Work experience; Chartered accountant with over 4years working with one of the big 4 accounting firms here in Africa

Professional qualification; ACCA. (won an award for one of the top 100 exam results in the world)

Extra-curricular - Help out with a few charities (educational based and welfare based charity)

Differentiating factor - Grew up with two parents, both entrepreneurs. Spent summers working with both parents (small scale businesses) but grew to love my fathers accounting practice hence I became an accountant. Unfortunately he recently passed away hence I was responsible for the practice he left behind. Took some time off work and tidied up the practice (this shows my first hand experience working as an entrepreneur). I want an MBA (preferably but not compulsorily from an Ivy league) to equip me with the necessary enterpreneural and management skills needed to come back home and take control of his business. Based on my experience of boths parents businesses, I will also like to set up a consulting arm aimed at assisting small and medium scale businesses.

Schools aiming for (in order of importance) - (1) Any top tier school (Top 15) in the USA (2)Any top tier/second tier canadian business school (3) any top tier/second tier UK business school.

NB; I applied and got waitlisted to 2 schools which were in the top 15 last year with a 620 gmat score. Unfortunately I didnt get into any

Dear Team Aringo

I need to know about my chances for a full time MBA program in these colleges( Short term - Management Consulting)

LBS, Tuck, Georgetown, UNC, Rice, MCcombs, Ross.

Age: 25 Yrs

GMAT Score:710 Q49 V39 IR 7

EDUCATION:
Sept 2008 – Jun 2012: VISHWESHWARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY, India

Bachelor of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, April 2013
Graduated First Class with Distinction. GPA obtained: 8.56 on a scale of 10

Internships indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and General Electric, Dubai

Work Ex

Experience:
Honda, India Bangalore, India for 4 years

Roles Held:

Customer Relations Coordinator – South India
Cross functional working among area, zonal and regional managers for customer complaint resolution
Trained dealership manpower and dealer management.
On site visit for complaint reduction parameters, customer handling and legal case handling
Won award for best performer (top 5% of my department) of more than 80 people.


Area In Charge – Customer Services
Acted as a liaison between company and 14 dealers, was responsible for claim settlements, technical
feedback, manpower development, new dealer appointment
Was responsible for the business development by order and sale of parts, and after sales services (generating 1.5 mn USD revenue).

Others:
• Fluent in Hindi, Kannada, Konkani.,Tamil. Basic fluency in Spanish. (Pursuing intermediate)
• Activities: Piano, Guitar, Soccer,reading Science Fiction Novels, and travelling.
• Countries travelled: Thailand, Singapore, United Kingdom. France, Italy, China, Qatar, and the UAE
• Adopted and maintained trees in Trichy, India through the Tree Credits Foundation.

What are my chances? How can I strengthen my profile?
Are any other schools suggested??

Thanks in advance

Hi,
I am planning to apply Round 1 this year for the fall 2017 session. It would be of great help if you could please evaluate my profile.

Nationality/Gender/Age - Indian/F/23
GMAT- 620 (45Q, 31V, 4.5AWA)
Academic qualification - B.E(Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering), Pune University.
GPA - 3.75

W.E:
Working as a software engineer at an IT company.
Will be completing 2 years by the time I join.
Lead the web development department of my team
Received an award for the best web developer of my batch
Organized training sessions for different courses at my company

Extra –Curricular:
Was the sponsorship team head of the national tech fest of my college
Won a pool tournament at my company
Volunteer for an NGO that helps underprivileged children
Captain of my college volleyball team, represented it at national level
Conducted various events under IEEE during college
Part of a team in my company that conducts many 'Go Green' drives

Post MBA plans: work for a consulting firm initially and then move on to leadership roles in the industry

Target schools:
Wisconsin Madison
University of Florida
Texas A&M
Texas Dallas
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign

Please let me know if I have a good chance with these target schools? If not, what can I aim for?

P.S. I know my GMAT score is too low, so if I need to improve on that part, how much do I need to improve, given that I have to apply soon.

26 yo female (Asian)
5 years of work experience at time of matriculation
Undergrad GPA:3.37 from top 20 private school (studied business)
Career: Human capital + analytics + M&A consulting
Company doesnt sponsor (not sure if this makes a difference)
2 promotions in 4 years (early promotion this year - managing 2-3 people)
GMAT: 690 (Q42 V41)
ECs: Volunteer/mentor organizational involvement; Undergrad leadership positions
Post MBA goal - return to consulting

What are my chances right now for:
1) Wharton
2) Sloan
3) Booth
4) Kellogg

I understand that my gmat score is below the mean for these schools - is there any chance I can get an interview with my score as is? I am considering taking the GRE as well but not sure i have enough time before the deadline.

Thank you!