GMAT 720 - Profile Evaluation

Hi SS101,

Thank you for your post. (Please disregard any prior responses received in this forum as they did not come from any representatives of Avanti Prep.) What geographies are you interested in (e.g., U.S., Europe, etc.)? What types and duration of programs (e.g., Full-Time MBAs? Executive MBAs? Of what length?) And is finance truly your post-MBA career interest? These factors are essential to being able to offer you some preliminary thoughts on schools.

If you are in fact interested in full-time programs, then your age and heightened amount of work experience will unfortunately work against you. In the U.S., the most common work experience average is five years, and you'll usually see middle 80% ranges (i.e., 10th percentile to 90th percentile of students in a given class) of around three to seven years (sometimes three to eight years at schools that are slightly more welcoming to older candidates).

You'd seemingly have nine years of experience at enrollment, which pushes you up toward the very very front of the bell curve from an age and work experience at full-time programs. European programs tend to trend a bit older than U.S. programs, so you might have a better chance there if you do your due diligence and identify programs that "fit" from and age and work experience perspective (and geographic and career and other preferences as well of course).

It's certainly not "impossible" to get into full-time programs at this stage of your career, but it's almost always going to be a considerable uphill battle, and you will have do a ton of proactive work and communication around "why MBA" and "why now" and what your post-MBA goals are when you are likely already several years past the career juncture (e.g., first-year associate) at which finance- or IB-focused MBAs would join firms after graduation.

Along with doing the European research that I mentioned above, you might also look into a couple of targeted 1Y programs and executive programs. All else equal, mid-career executive programs would likely be the best fit for you now (or in a couple of years), but very few are full-time and provide sponsorship, so you if you want to pursue this MBA in another country, you'll likely have to piece together a strategy that includes a couple of European full-time programs, a couple of 1Y programs, and one or two of these full-time executive programs (e.g., USC IBEAR).

If you are interested in working together to build a school strategy that aligns with your interests and goals, please feel free to email me at greg@avantiprep.com. I wish you the best of luck!

Best Regards,
Greg