Harvard Profile Evaluation - Tools for B-School Profile Evaluation

YOu are a tough one. I'd recommend you apply to a range of programs and perhaps state your goal a little differently. MBB tend to prefer younger applicants for their entry positions. If you write in terms of consulting in bio engineering or pharma, that doesn't preclude from aiming for MBB, but it won't spook schools into thinking you are unrealistic or too narrowly focused.

In terms of schools to consider HBS is fantastic, but I'd also suggest you consider MIT Sloan, Tuck, Yale SOM, Kellogg, Ross, and Darden. If you'd consider west coast, also think about Stanford and Haas. My main point is given the non-traditional nature of your qualifications and path to bschool, apply widely.

Best,
Linda[/quote]

Thank you for your response, Linda. I am relieved that there could be a place for me in a traditional two-year program. I have also heard from folks who say I might be a better fit for an executive MBA program due to my age. But those seem to want significantly more status and work experience from applicants, compared to what I have to offer. It also seems that I might miss out on the critical internship after the first year that two-year programs feed into.

Would some executive programs be a better option in the near future? If so, which ones might be better for a candidate who has less experience? Thank you again for your help![/quote]

I share your concern that your lack of experience will be more of an issue at EMBA programs, but if you were to consider EMBA programs, look into Sloan Fellows at MIT and the MSx at Stanford (stretches), or the EMBA programs at Duke, Darden, and Ross. I'd also add Duke to FT programs I'd suggest you consider.

You might be interested in these two resources:

1. Applying to Regular MBA Programs as an Older Applicant
2.Are You Ready? MBA Admissions Calculator Quiz

Best,
Linda

Hello all, and hope everybody is staying safe! Would love a profile evaluation if possible. I am well aware that HBS is going to be a stretch, so I would love to know if you think I should even bother with an application or if I should save my time and money.

Background:
White Male
Age 26

College:
Finance degree from "Public Ivy" (but not one that's quite UVA/Berkeley caliber) with top 10 undergraduate business school
3.6 GPA

GMAT: 730

Work Experience:
4 years at top real estate mortgage banking firm (though unsure if MBA programs have a sense for what "top" mortgage banking firms are, so not sure how much this helps me). Have held multiple roles within the firm, a path I chose to broaden my skill set.

Extracurriculars:
Admittedly a weak spot. Outside of work I stay involved with a leadership role in my high school's alumni association, which is something I'm passionate about, but I'm not sure how this would be viewed by an MBA admissions office.

Post MBA Goals:
Move to investment side of real estate, leverage HBS brand and network to help source equity investor relationships. However a lot of the interest in pursuing an MBA is to explore the PropTech field, where I could leverage my real estate knowledge but would certainly be looking at it though a different lens that MBA classes and connections would really help with.

Other comments:
Would be nervous to seek a recommendation from a direct supervisor given economic uncertainty during the pandemic, but could get a good recommendation from a direct supervisor who now works for a competitor.

Hello gmatfan5,

How much leadership and impact can you show both on the job and at your high school alumni assoc? If it's significant, then I'd say HBS is worth the effort, provided that most of the schools you are applying to are ones where you are more competitive. Where else are you considering?

Please see Get Accepted. to Harvard Business School.

So let's give this a shot. Apologies for typos!

27 English, Caucasian, Male

Undergrad (UK)
B.A Humanities degree - 3.3 GPA equivalent
M.S.C Business degree - 4.0 GPA equivalent
Both at a top 5 UK university

GMAT
740 (47V, 45Q, 6IR)

Work Experience
- 5 Years - Founder of Security organisation.
- 4 Years - Global health care organisation, rotating between several business essential roles in Belgium, Singapore, London and Africa.
- (Extra) Whilst at university, worked as an assistant venue manager full time for one of the biggest nightclubs within the UK.

Extra Curricular/ Additionals
- Ex semi-pro rugby player with numerous caps as captain.
- Head of internal charity events at univeristy - representing every student as head of internal fundraising events, and leading over 20 events per year (Earning upwards of £400K).
- UK Samaritan - Working for a non-profit hotline which takes calls from individuals in desperate positions (Easier to think of it as a suicide/ depression hotline)
- International team leader - International experience working in villages in some of the poorest countries for 3-4months+ stretches, leading a team of up to 20 individuals.
- Actor/Director - Numerous performances for numerous societies at university and in each country I have visited.
- 1 of 8 UK colleges international sport leaders, chosen to represent my region in national events and abroad.

Essay
My essay is focused around my compassion to help people, and my drive to be involved and work through problems and solutions. My essay takes the story of what initially lead me to be focused on a desire to help people, leading me to take positions in numerous charity and 'action' focused projects throughout the UK and abroad, as well as pushing me towards my career in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. In addition, my desire and need to be physically involved, has meant that I have put myself forward for international as well as local roles where I can see a positive impact for my work.

MBA Goal
My main goal for the MBA is to become part of a school that will challenge my thinking, and put me into broader and difficult scenarios. I also would like the opportunity to take a moment after 4-5 years of work, to re-evaluate my career trajectory and change course towards something which I believe I can make a greater impact towards.

25M, Canadian citizen (born in Afghanistan)

167Q/167V GRE, 3.76 GPA

Hi All -

I am early in my thought process around the idea of applying to business school and as such, I wanted to post here to get some thoughts / insights. I plan on applying to HBS and Stanford GSB. I apologize if this is long, but I wanted to provide as much detail as I can.

Test Scores / GPA / School

I have an undergrad from a top Canadian business school (think Ivey/Queens), and I was a transfer student from another top business school (Schulich) (spent two years at Schulich, then 2 years at Ivey/Queens). My combined GPA is around a 3.76, but my GPA at the school I transfered to is around 3.85. I took the GRE a few days ago and scored a 167 on Quant and a 167 on Verbal and 5.5/6.0 on AWA.

In terms of my extracurricular activities while in school:
* I was the president of the asset management club, where I was in charge of organizing speaker series, educational events, and mentorship programs to over 250 club members.
* I was an investment analyst on the university investment club where I was in charge of managing a portfolio of stocks worth $300k. I was responsible for sourcing investment ideas and pitching them as well as mentoring general members of the club.
* I wrote a case study that is now on the HBS publishing website and is routinely used as teaching material for MBA and undergrad students back at the school I graduated from.
* Outside of school, I was, and still am, involved with a non for profit that helps provide mentorship and guidance to new comers to Canada (targeted towards new comers from war-torn countries).

**Work Experience**

* I graduated undergrad in 2018. Prior to graduating, I completed internships in Investment Banking (3 months) as well as two separate internships in Private Equity (PE). Including a 6 month internship at a smaller Canadian PE firm,and a 10 week internship at a large U.S. PE firm (very well respected firm, with a large asset base and several employees who attended HBS/GSB).
* I ended up joining the U.S. based PE firm as an Investment Analyst out of undergrad and worked there for about 1.5 years. As part of my job, I evaluated buyout transactions and was one of ~30 investment professionals.
* I had an offer to stay there for another 2 years as an Associate, but I ended up leaving to joing a long / short equity Hedge Fund in New York. The Hedge Fund I am at now is a very well respected fund with a track record of over 20 years. I am the youngest member of the investment team and I am responsible for sourcing, presenting, and managing investment ideas.
* Excluding my internships, I now have about 2 years of work experience. Upon matriculation, I would have 3 years of experience.

Posted from my mobile device

I'm assuming that your involvement in the Global Health organization occurred while you were working full-time for the securities firm. I'm also assuming that the securities firm has done reasonably well for itself.

You have a competitive profile for HBS and other top MBA programs. I really can't comment o the essay without reading it although the approach your taking should work for HBS' essay question.

A few suggestions: Sharpen your post-MBA goal or direction. Wanting to evaluate your career trajectory, is not something most MBA programs really want to here, although HBS is a little less demanding in this area than other programs. Re-evaluate your trajectory now and then determine that bschool, and this bschool is the path to achieving that goal. Also figure out direction in terms of how you want to make that impact. If it means you want to go into health care and pharma, fine but be prepared to say why that's your choice and again be more specific. Healthcare policy? Hospital admin? Drug cost reduction and distribution? Biomedical devices?

You might be interested in Why MBA?, a free download.

Best,
Linda

Your academics are strong. your extra-curriculars are competitive and perhaps you have a personal story of interest that fits with your community service commitment. You have a lot of strengths and pluses. As I'm sure you're aware, you work experience is on the low side, albeit it is impressive. IF the next year will be a year of growth for you on the job, from an admissions perspective, you may want to wait an additional year to apply. However, I can also understand where you may feel that you want to go know when the opportunity cost is a little lower and you can start your post-MBA career trajectory a year earlier.

So you have a choice to make: Apply now with a slightly lower chance of acceptance or apply next year with a higher likelihood of acceptance. If you choose the former, apply this year, but only apply to those programs that you really want to go to while acknowledging that you might have to reapply. If you aren't accepted, then reapply next year to a wider range of schools. And of course if you are accepted, you can happily join the class of 2023. However, if you want to minimize the possibility of a reapplication, then work for another year, advance professionally and apply in 2021 to join the class of 2024.

Best,
Linda

Please evaluate my profile. Details as follows:

Nationality: Indian Female
Academics: Xth - 82% | XIIth - 75% | UG - 75%
Undergrad Information: B.A. (Hons.) Psychology - University of Delhi
GMAT: 710
Work experience and leadership: Total 05 years of relevant professional experience. Details as follows:
1. VP Sales for an Edtech Startup [~1.5 years]
2. Worked as a Consultant at a Management Firm [2years]
3. Worked as a Strategic Account Manager for Zomato; handled large enterprise clients [2 years]
Community and others:
1. Started my own venture into healthcare space during the pandemic to help individuals who do not have adequate access to healthcare facilities [been 5 months]
2. Mentor at Policy Think Tank (Government of India Initiative) - mentoring school students into product development and entrepreneurship
3. Squash player

Thanks in advance!

Please do review my profile.

Background and nationality: Indian Female 26
Education: 10th grade 9.6/10, 12th grade- 95.6% r. Overall school topper, country topper in economics and accounting. Very active in extra curricular - Sports and literary
Undergrad- BCom from top tier commerce college in India. Completed CIMA ( All India rank 1 )and CFA ( Top 10 percentile for all three levels) GPA 3.6/4 (3rd rank)

GMAT:in progress

Work experience and leadership: A little over 4 years of work experience
- 3 years experience in big4. Client facing role focusing on real estate, manufacturing and retail. Role involved leading, executing projects.
- Currently working in a VC fund. Sector agnostic. Work mainly involves due diligence, valuation financial modellimg etc. Leading and managing a team of 5 for certain aspects of portfolio management.

Community and others: Affliated with a college in India for the undergrad programme as an assistant professor. Currently helping with things like paper evaluation etc and due to be professor for the next semester. Was suppose to be teaching for the current semester but COVID delayed the same

Post MBA goals: To become the CFO with a focus on M&A

Anything else?

Jane9412

You have a decent profile but it lacks quantitative content. For instance - you have worked in Big 4 but can u justify your work ex with stats . That plays a major role.
There needs to be leadership portrayal especially for HBS . That again is a missing factor - other than the 5 team management .

Though your GPA is good but without GMAT scores it’s very hard to say if you have a shot.

Average GMAT score for Indians is 750. You come from a over represented applicant pool.

You must nail other Application steps such as very strong essays.

A 760+ score could work in candidacy . However , suggest you to work on few factors such as leadership , quantifiable content .

Posted from my mobile device

Hi all,

Background and nationality : Indian Female, 28, Married.
(Applying with my husband to HBS - if that is of any value to the Admissions committee).

Undergrad Information : BTech, IIT (Petroleum), GPA - 8.44/10

GMAT: 700 (Q50, V34); Slightly low GMAT score is due to technical problems (with computer screen) that occurred during Verbal section. Hoping to hear a resolution from Pearson to re-schedule GMAT. Was averaging 730-740 in Mock tests.

Work experience and leadership: 6 yrs in leading multinational oil and gas firm; however, resigned recently due to slow down of business during COVID. Currently, seeking new job roles.
-Worked for 4 years as field engineer in various parts of the country
-Have 6 Industry Technical Publications to my name
-Led teams of 20+ on field
-Won topmost award at my firm last year in a competition having participants from all over the globe

(Husband still working in same firm, has similar Undergrad credentials as me & he got 750 on GMAT)

Community and others: Actively involved in Himalayan treks, sky-dives, scuba-dives (basically passionate for anything with adrenaline rush). Content creator for an NGO teaching underprivileged children.

Post MBA goals : Want to switch over to Finance

Want to know my chances with the current GMAT score and if I can hope for better chances with an improved score (+30 points).

Thanks!

Congratulations on your many accomplishments. At first blush, you do have many of the things that Harvard looks for - academic success, marquis employer plus buy-side experience w/ 4 years of work experience, CFA. These are the things that HBS selects for in students, but unfortunately they are often very represented in the applicant pool as well (so while you have a lot of the things that accepted students have, many students who possess these qualities are not accepted). As an Indian national, you come from a very overrepresented demographic, though it helps that you are neither male nor in tech explicitly.

Much depends on your GMAT, which you haven’t yet taken and therefore we can’t factor that in yet. I’d shoot for a 750+ for a reasonable shot at HBS. The HBS average is 730-740, but the general belief is that it’s higher for overrepresented demos. Top 5 schools like HBS expect not only excellent undergraduate academic performance (which you clearly have) but they also select for *top schools* in India, with IIT campuses being the most represented institutions.

No matter what you score on your GMAT, you’ll need to have well executed strategic positioning in order to gain admission to H/W/S or any top 10 US university. Strategic positioning outlines your prior successes and sells the case of your future success leveraging this prior success. The CFO goal may be reasonable, but not right away. You’ll need to have a *plan* with immediate post-MBA goals and how you’ll chart your path to your ultimate goal of strategic CFO. You’ll need to make sure that your immediate plans are supported by your prior success (in other words, that you already have many of the skills to be successful in whatever immediate career path you hope to take post-MBA). If you say that you want to work in investment banking or management consulting or a finance leadership development program in tech - or whatever - you’ll need to make a case for your strong suits in these areas and how an MBA will make you *even stronger* (e.g., why you need an MBA and why now). Keep in mind that HBS wants more than just people who can excel professionally. They want people who will be leaders and contributors outside of the office (and by extension, outside of the classroom while at HBS). It sounds like you have academic/intellectual interests that you make time for now. You’ll need to build those out in your resume and essays (you only get 1 for HBS) in order to convince them that your aspirations are bigger than yourself. Right now (and this could be just because you wrote this quickly and didn’t include everything), your ECs look a little light for an HBS accepted student. Often times our clients have better extracurriculars than they think - it just requires building out the volunteer work and hobbyist pursuits you already do.

If you want some more feedback on your candidacy and how to strengthen your strategic positioning, you might benefit from a free consultation with an admissions consultant where we can give you feedback on your resume and what angles might make sense for you to highlight: https://admissionado.com/free-consultation/

It sounds like you have impressive academic and professional experience (though that experience may be at firms with lower name recognition which could hurt you relative to similarly employed applicants at firms that are more recognizable). Your GRE score is very strong - equivalent to a 760ish on the GMAT, which is higher than the HBS average. As a Canadian international, your chances may be slightly lower all things equal than US applicants, but you don’t come from an especially overrepresented demo. It may be worth taking a practice GMAT test to see if you might indeed favor that exam. Can’t hurt and you’ll want to apply with as strong of a score as possible.

I’m worried your extracurriculars may be a bit dated. You don’t want to apply to b-school with extracurriculars that are all from college. Since you are 25, you are on the younger side and it’s acceptable to have some EC focus from undergrad, but you don’t want to not have current ECs. You also want to have continuity of ECs and you want to paint a personal connection to them. Your work with immigrant integration in Canada may harmonize well with your own Afgan immigrant identity in your essays if you position it the right way (which you need to do for a school like HBS). Keep in mind that top schools like HBS are going to expect LEADERSHIP from your extracurriculars, rather than just being a foot soldier or an active individual contributor volunteer. There is good diversity to your ECs - community focused, academic (love the case study being used at HBS), and pre-professional. That should help you but you need to make sure that you have current leadership outside of work when you apply.

Depending on what your career trajectory looks like over the next year (and things are obviously really up in the air with COVID), it might make sense to apply in a year rather than for the 2023 class. Professionally, if you can weather the storm of the likely upcoming recession, a pandemic might be a really interesting time to be at a long-short fund (to say nothing of the material that may come out of that experience for admissions essays!). If you do decide to wait a year, you’ll be closer to the average age/professional work experience among HBS and other top-5 US program accepted students. You’ll definitely want to use this time to improve your EC profile. Given the pandemic and your likely long hours working, don’t be afraid to innovate a bit and get involved in things virtually - immigrant mentoring, community organizing, advocacy - whatever. Taking initiative to *start something* in one of these areas (even if that commitment is 100% virtual) will also show your leadership and ability to innovate in the face of challenge. This will be an increasingly important selection criteria among pandemic-era MBAs.

If talking to an admissions consultant have having a review of your resume and proposed strategic positioning may be helpful to you, feel free to sign up here: https://admissionado.com/free-consultation/

Hi Jane9412,

Thank you for your post and for sharing your background. You have great accomplishments to speak of. As it relates to work experience, academics, and extracurricular, you are competitive. When are you scheduled to sit for the GMAT? And what have been your mock scores? Harvard is really interested in understanding how your unique experiences have particularly shaped you, and what you bring to the table, so be sure to highlight that in your application.

If you would like to discuss your profile further, please reach out: https://www.siaadmissions.com/complimen ... nsultation

Good luck!

Susan

Your academic background and grades are competitive for top MBA programs including HBS. Assuming you do well on the GMAT, your acceptance is going to hings on how well you how that you are a leaders of significant impact on the job and off, and also that you will contribute a distinctive perspective or experience to your class.

This podcast is with an Indian female MBA student at HBSand you might find it valuable.

Linda

Your current verbal score is an issue, especially at HBS where verbal skills are really important. I hope you can retake and raise it. If you do raise it 30 points, you have a competitive profile for HBS. Also apply to MIT Sloan, which is also excellent in finance, and as I'm sure you know, located very close to HBS.

Best,
Linda Abraham

Please evaluate me. Thanks in advance!

Background and nationality: Age 26, White Male

Undergrad Information: Top 30 Engineering School, B.S. Chemical Engineering 3.41 GPA; (3.6 ChemE specific GPA)

GMAT: 750

Work experience and leadership: 2 year Project Manager for an environmental remediation company contracting for the DOE. Projects included multi-million dollar, multi-year projects that were centered around the decontamination and demolition of legacy buildings that built nuclear reactors for the U.S. Navy.
6 Months Contract and Proposal Sales Specialist: Lead proposal efforts between the company and U.S. Navy to sell nuclear reactors for the United States' naval supply. Serve as the proposal manager and lead of negotiations for such contracts. Contract sizes ranged from ~$5M - $1.6B.

Post MBA goals: Short Term - work for a consulting firm to help develop solutions to make renewable energy sources more efficient and profitable to combat the reliance on non-renewable energy.
Long Term - Start a Design Firm that develops renewable energy technologies that can be used in industries that currently heavily rely on energy sources such as coal and oil&gas.

Anything else?
Passed all 3 CFA exams in the minimum time possible (18 months) and all on the first try. Passed level 3 June 2019
Registered Project Management Professional (PMP)
Passed the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam for Chemical Engineering.