Hope you can help me with my profile and chances

Question

It sounds like you have an interesting profile. Your graduate education and GMAT should allay concerns about your performance in college. Accordingly, you should be a strong candidate for HEC M and York based on the information you shared.

Do you wish to return to Egypt after the MBA?
Which languages do you speak?
What sort of leadership exp. do you have?

Hjort · Answer

That was fast. 

As a gross overgeneralization, one of the advantages of US schools is that they tend to have a lot of money that they can spend on scholarships and other forms of merit aid. Some of our fellow GMAT Clubbers have earned large scholarships from name brand schools in the US. This is not to say that one cannot get aid outside of the US but it does seem to be more difficult. 

I think you might have underestimated the strength of your profile. Your background suggests that you have a perspective that would be valuable for most business schools to possess in class discussions and team exercises.

Hjort · Answer

Have you looked at Cornell?

Hjort · Answer

I did not realize that you were looking to begin a program in 2006 or early 07. I mentioned Cornell because Johnson is strong in International Business and has a lot of money available. 

Georgetown is another strong choice for International Business. Since you like Thunderbird have you looked at South Carolina? 

To be clear, I have a high level of respect for the MBA programs in Canada- I am suggesting these schools in addition to, rather than instead of, schools such as York.

Hjort · Answer

Yes, Oxford is a logical choice for you.

Paul · Answer

Sorry for the delay to your PM. I am, as usual, very busy with school.

First of all, if you come to LBS, do not expect the kind of scholarship which you could get through US schools, which have much larger endowment funds. Although LBS is highly ranked in the FT, its endowment is very low which makes it very unlikely to give out scholarships. Unless you have 760+GMAT, you might not get one. That said, there are however other kind of scholarships you can get. For instance, there are three scholarships given by Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. While the first two are given to women only(20k, 10k), the latter is 10k pounds given to the one who writes the best essay(on an assigned topic). The most important form of scholarship though is the one given by the British Council and Egypt, being a former Commonwealth country, would make you eligible. Just make a google search on the British Council scholarships and you should get there. The scholarship could go for more than 20000 pounds so it's definitely worth it. However, do not rely to much on any kind of scholarships: most students end up self financing their studies anyways.

All things considered, you do have a competitive profile for LBS and there are actually many Egyptians in my program(MSc.). They do bring a wealth of diversity to LBS and it is what makes LBS special in that sense: 95% are non-British students.

FYI, my classmate had 640 on his GMAT but he is in the program. Other parts of his essays were strong and given your strong graduate GPA and 80% range GMAT, you should give it a shot. I agree though that the application fees are quite high but it is a chance to take...

You asked me about the other schools in the PM but I might not be qualified to speak for them. Good luck.

Hope you can help me with my profile and chances

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