Thanks for sharing your profile @Euphenium1 . You have a good early-career consulting profile (work experience + ServiceNow work for a provincial ministry) with language skills, volunteer consistency, and a clear pivot to FP&A, all attractive to the target schools. Your immediate priority is to tighten the transition story into finance, quantify any financial/FP&A-adjacent work, and ensure your recommenders can speak concretely about analytical and stakeholder-facing finance skills.

Strengths to highlight: Consulting pedigree (Deloitte + current gov tech/ServiceNow role): good signal for client-facing analytical work and process transformation. International profile / multilingual (French, English, Arabic): excellent for global cohorts and international recruiting. Volunteer consistency (hospital volunteering > 1 year) and first-generation student status, humanizing, diversity, and resilience signals. Quantitative & technical foundation (computer engineering; ServiceNow / automation), conveys comfort with numbers and systems used in FP&A.

What adcoms might want you to prove: Concrete finance / FP&A readiness. Admissions want to see modeling, budgeting, forecasting, pricing, P&L exposure, or direct commercial-finance projects. If you have already done a financial analysis, quantify it. If not, show current steps to get this capability. Short-term post-MBA role clarity. Which FP&A roles/employers do you target (corporate FP&A at BigTech, FP&A at a bank, or FP&A in government / public sector)? Be specific. You mentioned you have a “decent” GRE. Can you please share the exact score? Schools use scores as one quick filter; if your GRE is below the median, you should compensate via work and course evidence. Your recommenders must quantify financial/analytical impact and leadership.

About the school selection:
McCombs values consulting, technology, and corporate finance placements. Your consulting + technical background can be a good match. Apply Round 1 to maximize scholarship chances.

Marshall (USC) is a target or competitive. Marshall places many grads into consulting, tech, and financial services; a West Coast network, and competitive salaries. Your Deloitte/ServiceNow experience and multilingual sign-on are positives.

Cornell Johnson can be a target or a slight reach. Your 4-year experience is acceptable but slightly below their average; a crisp finance pivot story and strong LORs will be essential. Johnson places a decent no. of grads into FP&A and investment roles.

Duke Fuqua can be a target or competitive. Fuqua values team leadership and consulting backgrounds (average experience ≈5.8 years, strong class diversity, and first-generation representation). With strong essays and quantified impact, you can be a good contender.

Collect 3-4 metric bullets showing any finance-related work (even internal): budgeting, forecast variance analysis, cost-savings you influenced, pricing analysis, cashflow modelling, financial dashboards you built, or anything showing P&L exposure. If you lack finance examples, you can create a short project: build a forecast model for your current org (even if hypothetical) and present it to a manager; it can be good evidence of initiative.

To position the consulting > FP&A pivot in essays, show transferable skills: stakeholder management, forecasting instincts, modeling, scenario analysis, and communicating to executives.

Just an example for short career plan: “In the 0-2 years post-MBA I will transition into a Corporate FP&A role at a global bank or in the finance function of a technology firm (like JPMorgan Chase FP&A / Google Finance), using the MBA’s accounting, corporate finance and internship pathways to gain domain credibility; by year 3-5 I will lead commercial finance for a regional business unit.”

We would love to learn more about your academic background, extracurricular activities, professional experiences, and personal journey so we can offer a more tailored assessment of your profile and evaluate your chances at your target schools more accurately. Feel free to book a profile evaluation session.

You can take a look at this YouTube ESSAY WORKSHOP on Fuqua, Ross & Darden it might be insightful.

Cheers!
Shantanu Sharma
Founder and Admissions Consultant, MBA and Beyond

Thank you so much, for the GRE score, I have 320 (162Q, 158Verbal). i dont know where i stand with my score for GRE

You’re already in a strong position for the schools on your list. Four years of tech consulting experience across Deloitte and your current cybersecurity role provide solid brand recognition and impact, and your multicultural background, multilingual ability, first-generation story, and consistent volunteering give you several angles to stand out beyond academics. Your post-MBA goal of moving from consulting into FP&A makes sense, but the biggest boost to your candidacy between now and Round 1 would be gaining even a small amount of finance-adjacent exposure. anything related to budgeting, forecasting, profitability analysis, or business case modeling will make your pivot more direct and convincing. In parallel, focus on leadership stories rather than only technical execution; admissions committees will want evidence of situations where you owned outcomes, influenced stakeholders, or mentored others. Quantifying impact on your resume (costs reduced, hours saved, revenue generated, clients onboarded, etc.) will also strengthen your narrative significantly. Your recommenders are fine as long as they can speak to growth, ownership, and leadership rather than just technical skills. Overall, your target programs McCombs, Johnson, Fuqua, and Marshall align well with your profile and career goals, and with the right execution in essays and a stronger finance connection, you should be a competitive candidate at all of them. Good luck, you’re moving in the right direction.

Hi @Euphenium1
From an academic and work ex point of view, you're in a strong position as a candidate. There's good brand credibility and you have exposure to high-stakes workflows. That said, when your're planning to switch into FP&A, the schools will want to see a clear inclination and some level of pathway-adjacent exposure. This could be through any projects you've worked on etc. You need to be clear about why you want to work in FP&A in your application citing relevant experiences that have brought you this decision.

As for the score, 320 is good as an entry point but as you know in top-notch schools, the competition is intense. While your profile does its part, what would really cement your competitiveness is a little boost in your score, somewhere in the 325+ range. This will help a lot with Cornell and Fuqua. Your current score could work for McCombs and Marshall. I would suggest you also expand your list to include those schools that you can apply to with a 320 score and then a few competitive schools which will require a 325+ score, because your profile is strong enough for these.

The recommenders you're planning to reach out to are fine. If you've worked with any international manager, then that also would be great. Also, if you have any experience working on cross-border projects then do emphasize that. And since you're a first generation student, this will make a good narrative for the personal essays (questions on how personal background has shaped you, challenges faced etc.)

So, right now you have two priorities: map out the FP&A transition and career plan and increase your GRE score by another 5-10 points for a stronger shot at more competitive and selective schools.

If you want more detailed insights into the market realities of FP&A hiring, schools that have a good feeder for this and strategies to develop your application, we'd be happy to discuss the same via a free 1-on-1 profile evaluation.

Feel free to reach out to us at the coordinates below!

Phone/WhatsApp No: +91 88502 49409
Website: https://thembaedge.com/

Warm regards,
The MBA Edge Team