Profile evaluation for Yale, Berkeley Haas, Tepper, Emory Goizueta, Ross (Michigan), UVA Darden, Consulting background, from United States

gmatclub

Comments 5 comments

2 years ago

So, crazy idea. As you probably know part of the evaluation are your goals. The more elaborate goals you have the greater risk you are and therefore more scrutiny it brings. I know you’re trying to pivot from healthcare but in case healthcare is a backup plan, one way to ease into business schools would be to say you’re planning to stay within healthcare…. a number of people have used that strategy and got into Fuqua only to pivot to management consulting and never see healthcare again. However, healthcare was a backup plan for them in case things didn’t work out to help pay the loans…

something to consider as you evaluate your chances. But I wouldn’t lie on the application if you never want to see healthcare again.

PS. Education and nonprofit consulting are very competitive. These fields don’t pay well and they are very few spots available. There’s a highly desirable projects that some people even do pro bono. So I would probably recommend, if you consider it feasible applying with healthcare as your main industry for recruiting and you can totally follow your dreams recruiting will be challenging for these industries without prior work experience.

menos74

Thank you for reading my profile! I’m not totally excluding healthcare or any specific industry. The “problem” is that my primary extracurricular is a volunteer + board member of an education non profit. I enjoy the work and that’s why I want to focus on education, but I do get your point - my entire professional experience has been entirely healthcare.

Got it! Makes sense. That's the piece of info I missed about non profit. It is awesome you are doing it already - that's very helpful that you are doing this work already. AdCom will like it and feel it is safe but they will also likely wonder how you are planning to pay off your $200K in student loans so if you have some $$ saved that will not have them choosing between Admit with $$ or ding as you wont' attend without a scholarship, that can help.

At the same time, do you really need a top tier MBA program to have a non-profit career in Education? I don't know actually the answer to this question but if you don't, there are many options of getting a significant scholarship by going to a Top 20-30 program. Not sure if that is of interest or not. I know some areas are very sensitive to brands and rank.

-BB

How much does adcom weigh the applicant’s ability to pay for the program? I have some savings but I’m relying on student loans outside of scholarships. I’m comfortable with taking out student loans - I believe those schools are worth the investment.

And you’re right, I don’t need a top tier MBA program to pivot to education. I could go for Teach for America or start working in education, but I want to understand the entire sector first. I think joining a consulting firm such as Tyton Partners or Parthenon will help with breadth, which will help me to discover an area that I want to focus on and eventually transition to an industry company/organization that focuses specifically in that area. It’s tough to enter a top tier consulting firm without the name brand.

Usually it’s not the biggest consideration in admissions whether an applicant can pay the tuition bill, but schools like to admit people who go and would choose them if admitted and if they feel that you will only attend if they offer you a big scholarship and they’re not able to offer you a big scholarship, then why admit… You don’t need to be paranoid about it or anything like that, you just need to show your commitment and interest and that while you would love to get some scholarship dollars, you’re totally fine paying with loans and savings.

I think you approach to consulting and education career makes sense. 👍