Pre-MBA industry: Finance: Investment Banking
Post-MBA industry: Finance: Investment Banking
10 months ago
8 Jan 2025 09:01
Underrepresented ethnicity/race:
I began my career with 2 years of back-office experience and faced challenges breaking into front-office investment banking. Through persistence and hard work, I was fortunate to transition into investment banking, where I have since gained 3 years of front-office experience in M&A. Recently, I have also spent a few months working in lower middle-market private equity (LMM PE).
Post-MBA, my goal is to return to investment banking, with the longer-term objective of transitioning into private equity, focusing on a different investment strategy.
I attended a non-target undergraduate school, graduating with honors. This background contributed to the difficulty of breaking into investment banking, which took 2 years of determination. Additionally, I was an NCAA Division I athlete on a scholarship, balancing the demands of athletics and academics throughout my college career.
I think you have a really good chances. You have strong track record from the same point of an exclusive and competitive work experience/job as well as athletic accomplishment.
Your undergraduate prestige does matter to an extent as that sort of set your trajectory though you can absolutely have a low start and then great work experience and results along the way but admissions teams tend to play it safe and like to reward continuous success so the better your undergrad, the better chances you have.
Finally, it does help being a minority from the diversity standpoint. Schools always like to build diverse classes and so the more boxes you take the better but again it all depends on the competition so it’s not like you can just walk in being a Everest candidate you need to bring quite a bit of other value.
Another plus, staying within the same industry is a big plus and the fact that you have demonstrated success here and moved around and hopefully gotten a promotion indicates that you’re in a certain path and you’re planning to continue and build on those strengths and leverage the networks you have Build a recruiting will be a lot easier for you than some for someone moving from abroad who has never done finance.
Not having a score for you is likely not a valid or a significant data point though it would help to offset a weaker undergrad but admissions will basically consider you applying with an average or so score and that hardly makes a big difference. Even if you had a high score it wouldn’t make a huge difference at these programs But potentially makes you more attractive as you add brownie points to the average GMAT core and help set some of the weaker candidates who may bring other values....
Sorry for me entering profile review and feedback, I think you have a lot of strong points. I think at this point you’re hunkering down and waiting. If you decide to reapply for any reason, we can chat more about ways of strengthen your application for next season such as engaging more with current students and alumni or adding a score but at this point I would be preparing for interview and making sure you come off personable and likable and a good team player that would impress employers and also positively impact the class