My Chances at Harvard - Post All Profile Evaluation Requests Here!

Hi, would appreciate any feedback on my profile competitiveness and potentially ways to standout coming from an over-represented background.

Background: I'm an Asian American male in Private Equity. Currently 3 years of work experience (4 at matriculation) and have been promoted a year ahead of schedule in PE (only early promote in the firm). Previously at a top investment bank. Was offered an opportunity to split time working across our Europe and North America offices, but when COVID hit the logistics of that got put on pause (that being said, I am staffed on European deals in anticipation for when we are able to begin travel again. Plan to return to my firm post-MBA.

Extracurricular: Active role in my family business (real-estate investing), junior board for a charity focused on creating a more equitable community in my city, and a basketball coach for at-risk youth.

Undergrad: 3.65/4.0 in finance from a top-50 university (recognizable name but not a feeder to HSW)

GMAT: 740 (Q49/V41); 8IR; 6AWA

Targeting HSW and considering Kellogg, Booth, Columbia

You have a competitive profile for your target schools and are applying appropriately. I can give you one suggestion now, along with several resources that will help you with the standing out portion of your question. Returning to your PE firm is fine as an immediate post-MBA goal. But the programs you are aiming for, especially H/S/W want to admit people who are going to leave an impact, hopefully improve the world. What do you hope to accomplish in PE, or in managing your family's business and/or serving on the board of the group focusing on increasing equity? is there any common thread? Make sure the schools you are applying to, especially H/S know about it.

Resources:
* Fitting In and Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions, free download.
* Get Accepted to Harvard Business School, on-demand, recorded webinar
* Get Accepted to Stanford GSB, on-demand, recorded webinar
* Get Accepted to Wharton, upcoming, live webinar .

Please let me know if you would like help with your MBA applications.

Good luck!
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Hello Everyone,

Below is my information. Please help provide some feedback! Thank you much!

Background and nationality:
26 years old, Asian American

Undergrad Information:
University of Houston, 3.75 GPA in Electrical Engineering

GMAT:
Taking this October (2020).

Work experience and leadership
1. 4 years at engineering consulting firm in the power industry straight from college.
2. Completed professional engineering (PE) exam and obtained license.

Community:
1. President of Non-profit Vietnamese Catholic Eucharistic Organization (3 years).
- Organize weekly lesson plan for leaders and youths in parish: 20+ leaders and 150+ youths, ranges from 7 to 18 years old.
- Coordinate volunteers and social events for youth organization.
- Part of organization as a leader for 10 years.
2. Volunteer at Houston Foodbank

Post MBA goals:
- Pivot into strategy and management.
- Start up an engineering consulting firm.

Application:
- Round 2

What you wrote above is competitive. You also need:

1. A competitive GMAT score.
2. Evidence of impact on the job and off.
3. Evidence of growth in responsibility on your job.

If you have those three items, you have a competitive profile for HBS. Given how competitive HBS is, also apply to other programs including MIT Sloan, Kellogg (consider MMM) , Wharton, Columbia, Darden, Haas, and Ross.

Best,
Linda
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Hey! I would be really grateful if anyone can evaluate my profile.

Why I want an MBA:

Short term: The goal is to get in Media + Technology Firm.
Long Term: The Goal is to Start my own Content Platform


Why I want one now: To transition into a business/managerial role from a creative role

Target schools: TUCK, Stanford, Harvard,CBS

Background

Work experience: A Filmmaker by profession with 8 Years of experience. Won awards like Forbes Inspiring Filmmaker.

My experience has mostly been working with Netlfix, Star, Hulu, and Lonely Planet in different continents.

GRE score: 325 (Q168, V157)

Extracurricular: Plenty of them!



Undergrad school/major: Bachelor's in Engineering. (7.17/10 CGPA)

Nationality: Indian

Age and Sex: 30/Male

International Experience: Travelled, and worked in over 20+ countries



Concerns: I am Concerned about the highly competitive pool of Indians and my age n the higher side.

Let me know if putting my application to Harvard will be a good bet?

Thanks!

Hello all,

I would love to have candid feedback and realistic insights about weaknesses in my profile. I guess the big adcom questions will be why do I need an MBA, especially now, and why not an EMBA?
I know that I am on the older side and that there are plenty of O&G people applying this time around, so I want to make sure that my story is right on point.

Thanks in advance!

Background & Stats:
31F, Black, Dual British & Nigerian citizenship.
Undergrad: King’s College London - Mechanical Engineering
GPA: First Class Honours (Seems to convert to 4.0?) + Jelf Medal (Most distinguished student in the school of Physical Sciences and Engineering)
GMAT: Averaging 720+ on practice tests

Work Experience:
1 year at ExxonMobil as UK Public and Government Affairs Specialist
2 years at Schlumberger as Senior Field Engineer
6 years at Shell: 3 years as Offshore Drilling Engineer, 2 years in a dual role as Contract Manager + Design/Ops Engineer and 1 year as Drilling supervisor
Have worked/lived in several countries and now manage an international team of 100 people on an oil rig for Shell in Norway

Extra Curriculars:
Mentor / STEM Ambassador / Volunteer for Nationwide Engineering Scholarship Trust. Presented at the London International Youth Science Forum and other conferences. Sit on interview panel to help select future engineering talent.
Chair of District H (Europe, Russia, Israel) for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
President of College Engineering Society.
Mathematics Mentor and Tutor for underprivileged kids.

Post MBA Goal:
Short term: Pivot into Clean Energy investing.
Long term: Become a leader at a company pioneering the energy transition.

Why now:
Last year my app/GMAT weren’t there yet. I’m now ready and while I’m lucky that employment is not an issue, it is the perfecting timing in terms of growth for my career.

Why not EMBA:
I want the two years full time immersion to maximise my development.

Schools & Application Round:
H/S/W + Haas + Columbia + MIT - Round 2

Thank you!

You are a little more experienced than typical, but given your grades, international experience, and anticipated GMAT, you have a decent chance at these programs. If you get your that GMAT, you'd be applying appropriately. YOu may also want to consider Duke Fuqua, which has a concentration in Energy Finance.

Your answer above to "why now?" is more about why not last year than why now. I suspect that the real answer has to do with your desire to switch into clean energy and the investment side of it and when you decided to change direction. Keep in mind the distinction when responding to that question.

You may be interested in Applying to Regular MBA Programs as an Older Applicant..
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Thanks for the prompt response Linda. Yes reading it back, I did not answer that question as clearly as I should have done.

I had what I wanted to say in my mind, but didn't articulate it well.

Thanks for sharing the link, I've started having a look through and it contains some very helpful things to make sure I address.

Thanks for the feedback!

Hi Lynda,

I'm glad you found my feedback helpful. As long as you answer that question clearly when it's posed to you, you'll do fine. This is good practice and doesn't matter really.
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Hello everyone, would appreciate a review of my profile for Class of 2023:

28 Chinese-American male

Undergrad:Top undergrad finance program, BS Finance (3.0/4.0 GPA)
GMAT:750 (47V, 47Q, 8 IR)

Work Experience: ~6 years upon matriculation
-1 year as an equity trader at smaller proprietary trading firm in NYC
-1 year as client relationship manager / business development role at one of the major credit rating agencies (think Moody's / S&P / Fitch)
-4 years active duty military logistics officer

Why an MBA now: My military service obligation ends in August 2021, at which time I plan to enter a full-time MBA program to transition back to the private sector.
Post-MBA goal: Strategy consulting, longer-term would like to help firms with business development in China / Indo-Pacific region and improve capital flows between U.S. and China.

Other schools: Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Columbia

Your a tough one to assess because of that low undergrad GPA. Your GMAT is excellent. Your work experience is strong and your military experience will add a lot. However, that GPA needs to be addressed in your app. What was the context?

You may be interested in "5 As for a Low GPA."

In terms of your target schools, it makes sense for you to apply to the programs you're aiming for with the possible exception of MIT Sloan, which historically has been less receptive to low GPAs from my experience. I'd add a few schools R2 if you aren't accepted to these programs R1. Consider Ross, Darden, Cornell Johnson,

Best,
Linda
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Congratulations on your high GMAT. You come from an overrepresented demo, so it’s helpful to have a GMAT score that’s over the schools average (usually around a 730 for Harvard) given that accepted applicants from your demo usually are associated with higher-than-average scores.

Military experience is sought after, especially by top-tier schools, for the leadership grooming it provides and because recruiting stakeholders select for it (especially General Management programs, for which HBS is known, and professional services firms like management consulting and banking). However, most of the vets hail from service academies, and that doesn’t appear to be the case with you. This may be because going into the military through a service academy is the most conventionally prestigious route and because of the leadership training that academy students receive during undergrad. All of this is to say that you need to emphasize your leadership skills and experience as much as possible to compete with these other vets. Did you lead troops over seas? Did you experience first hand combat? What sort of projects did you lead? This is the sort of material that you want to make sure you develop in your one (and only! - HBS has only one!) essay for HBS.

One differentiator for you is that you have both military and private sector experience. So you’ll want to make that dual advantage clear in your essays. You’ll be coming with real skills - finance acumen, credit knowledge, markets knowledge - rather than just raw leadership potential and raw intelligence like a career military guy with a STEM undergrad (many of the vets at HBS look like this on paper).

Equity trading is considered less prestigious than other forms of capital markets activity (IB M&A, DCM, etc.). It’s not really clear to me why this is the case - trading is super competitive and remunerative - but it is. There’s less appetite among top MBA programs for traders than more traditional sell-side bankers and PE buy-side guys with former IB experience. You shouldn’t apologize for or be ashamed of our equity trading background in any way, I just wouldn’t make it the feather in your cap or write your whole essay about it. Most b-schools will be more interested in your credit experience - there are a lots of people from S&P, Fitch, Moody’s at top B-schools. Many of them are successful in investment management or IB. I think you could make a good case for Infra IB -> World Bank or IFC if you wanted to given your global perspective as a military guy. You definitely seem to have international interest already given your stated long term goal and this could help you get there potentially.

Regarding your long-term goal, you need to find a way to tie this back to your prior success and interests somehow. Do you have personal ties to this region? Is this where you were stationed in the military? How will strategy consulting get you there? Why strategy consulting? Do you have biz dev experience in this area already? You need to have these breadcrumbs in order for your long-term goal to resonate. You also have to have an intermediate goal to help get you there so that your long-term global seems both very ambitious and imminently achievable based on your prior successes.

Strategy consulting is one of the most commonly espoused intermediate goals cited in applications. It’s great if you actually want to do it, but avoid using this goal just because you think this is what the AdCom wants to hear. It can come across as very generic-sounding in essay if you don’t develop your career arc properly. You need to have clear reasons why you want to do consulting given your long term goals and why you need an MBA to get you there.

Your GPA is a little low, especially for a non-engineering major. Your undergraduate institution ranking makes a big deal here. Having a 3.0 from UC Berkeley or UVA or UNC is different from having a 3.0 from a lesser ranked state school. I’m assuming that you went to a state school because those are the ones that would be “top-ranked” and still have a finance major available. Most private Ivy-league universities don’t have finance majors offered to undergraduates. If you have a 3.0 because you made mostly bs in all of your classes, then I wouldn’t say anything about it in your app. It’s obvious from your GMAT score that you can handle the academic nature of a challenging MBA curriculum. If, however, you have a 3.0 because you had a 4.0 until something devastating happened to you that blew up your GPA one semester, I’d explain that in the optional essay.

Lastly, I don’t see any extracurriculars on your profile. You need to demonstrate that you have passions and commitments to your community outside of the office. If you don’t have this already, and you are thinking of applying R2, then it’s not too late to get some of this on your resume. Ideally though, you’d want to have long-standing passions that show years of commitment to a certain issue -- after school mentoring, corporate ethics, industry focus groups, your musical band - whatever. You’ll want to show that you’re not just a footsoldier, either, but rather a leader who takes initiative. It’s better to be the board of an organization *and* a volunteer for it’s mission than to just be a volunteer.

If defining your strategic positioning might benefit from a admissions consultant as a sounding board, feel free to sign up for a free consultation with one of our admissions consultants here: https://admissionado.com/free-consultation/

Hi,

I am 29 yo Turkish male. I completed my Business Administration Undergrad in Turkey at top 3 schools in Turkey in 2014. (I was 1983th between 2M students)
Undergrad GPA: 3.36/4.0
Went to Netherlands for Erasmus study.
GMAT - Still working on it.

I worked for a VC fund for a year when I graduated. 500 deals prescreened. Helped for fundraising & establish a new funnel system for the fund. Also, I’ve contacted with many bigtech companies such as Amazon, Google etc. to get some perks for our portfolio companies. One of the portfolio company that I worked closely elected as Endeavor Entrepreneur within my efforts.

Later, I’ve noticed that I need much more industry & professional experience to bring more on table. So I left there and started to work for leading telco company. I’ve started at strategy department. First 2 years, we evaluate more than 50 deals to make feasilibity plans and potential benefits of those to company. Later, we have merged with subsidiaries team. My company has around 20 different subsidiaries and I entered all monthly board meetings of those subsidiaries. I collected & compiled financial and business data of those under single dashboard and presented this dashboard to C-Level. Some companies need further attention. So, I worked closely with their teams. Later , since April 2019 we are focusing on commercial projects and business development activities. Our New management team wants to combine external innovation with our company’s resources. This new duty really helped me to show myself. Because I have been actively involved in entrepreneurship ecosystem since 2013 from my university years while I was working as an Intern at entrepreneurship center in my university. I can really find eligible entrepreneurs easily by contacting with my network and my manager & director are always surprised that How I’m doing this.

Extracurricular

1. Board Member of a University club which organizes book fair that aims to bring discount priced books to school for university students & youth festival that is the biggest event of the year. 4 day lasting. ~600 events organized and doing this free for students by securing some sponsorship (Hundred thousands dollars per year)
2. Actively mentoring to Turkish Tech ecosystem. One of the company ,that I’ve helped, raised 500k USD and then he secured a joint venture investment from an American investor group. Also I helped him to develop & present his financial model. We also worked closely together to look for customer development strategy & changing business model from single time payment to recurring revenue model. Other one is an IoT company which digitizes everything. Some of my ex-directors started to work at municipalities and government itself. They called me about their needs & I find some companies which might be helpful for them. Still some negotiations & trials are ongoing. Hope they can help to digitalize infrastructure to increase efficiency.
3. Worked on technology committee at a political movement. They want me to help them in their technology policy making issues. We are still working on it. Writing policies & recommendations. Putting it into party’s future plans & programs. Cross functional team. It can closely work with other divisions such as economy, environment etc.
4. Started to write at one news blog during covid-19. Writing biweekly some tech articles into there.

Short Term Goal: Working at management consulting especially at public, finance & tmt practices.

Long Term Goal: By combining MPA - ID education at HKS & MBA at H/W/Sloan/Tuck and my experience at telecom & management consulting, I would like to work for government as a public officer. I want to increase prosperity, digitalization, entrepreneurship & education levels of my country.

One of my biggest passion is smart cities & infrastructure digitalization. It is an essential things for the world. Resources are getting more scarce day by day and we need to use benefits of technology. So we need to digitalize infrastructure as efficient as possible. I am recommending this to current administrators as well as the political movement leaders that I am actively involved.

I want to learn holistic approach of Public Administration & Business Administration. That’s why I choose to do MBA & MPA-ID. MPA-ID is a rigorous and math heavy program within developing countries. I will be working in a Turkey or other developing countries when I graduated. It is more challenging and has a great learning curve.

I would like to do HKS MPA-ID Joint Degree with HBS MBA or Concurrent Degrees with Sloan, Tuck or Wharton. Do I have any chance of getting into those?

Thanks for long reading and evaluation!

Posted from my mobile device

Hi everyone, could anyone help me ascertain if I have any chance of getting into Harvard. I do understand that my profile is a bit weak but if there's any chance at all than I'd love to apply.

Profile:
Nationality: Pakistan (Might be an underrepresented nationality)
Gender: Male
Age: 25 (soon to be)

Undergrad: 3.2 GPA (Lahore University of Management Sciences)

GMAT: 700 (Q48, V38, IR 4) - Online GMAT Hence no AWA

Work Experience: 3 Years
1 Year in a Burgeoning Startup Attempting to Create Livelihood for Local Farmer Population
2 Years in Friesland Campina as Assistant Manager Sales and Operational Planning

Awards: Topped Country in Additional Mathematics in IGCSE Exams

Co-Curricular: None - however a documented creative streak (write my own blog and have self published a small novella describing life in University, also delivered a University Level Talk on Video Game Addiction)

Internships: Multiple Local as well as Single International Internship in China

Letters of Recommendation: Planning on getting 2 from Directors at Pakistani OPCO's of Multi National Companies who I've worked with previously.

Background and nationality: US White Male Veteran
Undergrad Information: Public 4 year state school (2.9 GPA, took double courseload and graduated in 2 years)
GMAT: 760
Work experience and leadership: Special Operations Intelligence while in Military and afterwards as a civilian. Four deployments, three to combat zones. Experience with international politics
Community and others: Interesting volunteer experience (International SPCA)
Post MBA goals: Consulting with long term plans to transition back to public sector
Anything else?: Strong academic performance in military schools after undergrad (ranked first in class for several technical schools, selected for SOF community, etc). Good story to explain poor GPA during undergrad. Strong leadership experience via combat deployments. Intent is to end up in a DOD federal leadership position with intent to help fix diversity problems in the military, short term goal MBB consulting

Posted from my mobile device

If you have a competitive test score, it pays for you to apply to HKS and the MBA programs you are considering. You may also want to consider the Wharton Johns Hopkins program in International Studies or the joint programs at Columbia between its MBA program and SIPA.

Best,
Linda
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I can't say you'd have "no chance" of getting in, but I am not optimistic. If you tell me your post-MBA goal, I'm happy to recommend other programs for you.
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Obviously your undergrad GPA is going to be a hurdle. However given your GMAT, your military academic success, your military experience and leadership, and your goals, it makes sense for you to apply to HBS -- provided you also apply to other programs that support your goals. For the other programs, consider Yale, Kellogg, Duke, Darden, Georgetown, and Ross.
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Thank you for taking the time out to get back to me. I'll try and best answer the questions you've asked as well.
Before doing so however, I understand my chances are a bit limited with my current standing and my primary goals are actually in countries such as AUS, Canada and Singapore however I do want to atleast try my hand at some top US and European universities even if I get rejected down the line I can apply again when i have a better profile. I have a typical list made with some dream universities, some hopeful ones and then a few that i feel a bit more confident since I'm well above in terms of median GMAT and close in terms of GPA as well. I hope that's a good approach going into applications?

Some detail would help here in terms of work experience.
2018 - Mandi Express Pvt Ltd (eCommerce Portal connecting farmers producing fresh produce to consumers)
Primary Responsibilites:
1-Handling Website Operations and Backend from Customer Service to Completion
2-Designed Marketing and Pricing Protocols for new Vendors

While I could honestly host a list of achievements here my primary duties were simply to ensure that the front end and backend of the website was functioning properly as any problem resulted in business loss. My primary achievement was the role I played in acquisition of a massive eCommerce account that basically put the startup on the map - I was responsible for designing the pricing mechanism that we were using with the acquired account.

Mid 2019 Till Date - Friesland Campina Engro Pakistan
Primary Achievements:
1-Reduced OOS from a higher limit of 15 OOS days to a target of 5 OOS days for Value Brands (Brands driving Productivity Growth)
2-Demand and Supply Alignment to achieve growth of 16% in Volume base from 2018-2019 over a 300mn annual Volume Base
3-Responsible for Ongoing Digital Revitalization of Demand Forecasting (Ongoing - involves migrating from a manual forecasting system to an entirely digital solution)
4-Responsible for annual Corporate Planning

My referrers will also likely attest to the same achievements as above.

Creative Outlets:
1-University Blog - I used to contribute weekly to university literature and as stated earlier I wrote a small book describing the typical struggles of a university student back in Pakistan
2-Public Speaking - Delivered a talk on Video Game Addiction in collaboration with the Psychology Club in University.
3-Community Contribution - I have a strong sense of community in general, while it's definitely hard to document such instances because a lot of what I've often done is more informal however whichever University I am to be a part of will find that I'm among those who will often go well beyond the line of duty to contribute to anything either the university or the student body might require.

I understand that my application is weak and my career is in its infancy as well but that is precisely why I want to apply for an MBA. My interests lie in Marketing and Data Analytics and as it stands there is a lack of appreciation or work on generating Strategic Insights for growth on a national level in my home country. I want to get in a room with the individuals that will likely be accompanying me in this MBA journey and learn from them and be able to take that learning to wherever I join. My aim would be to start a Career in Marketing or Strategy with my primary interests being in Consumer Products or in Consumer Technology - that too preferably in the country where i graduate.

My recommendation to you would be to either wait a few years and improve your qualifications by doing excellent work professionally such that you can show the leadership and impact that top MBA programs want to see while also improving your GMAT score, or, enroll in a Masters in Business Analytics program. These are increasingly popular programs. They may give your the foundation your need, or they may give you the foundation to get a great job for a few years and then apply to an MBA. However, you may not need the MBA. Here are a few links to information about MSBA programs, many of which are online.

Check out:
https://blog.accepted.com/all-about-geo ... isode-378/
https://blog.accepted.com/nyu-sterns-ne ... isode-306/
https://blog.accepted.com/uclas-ms-in-b ... isode-208/
https://blog.accepted.com/data-science- ... loan-mban/

Or just google MS in Business Analytics.
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