Dbalks
That is fair then. Just want to make sure you arent selling yourself short. I do agree with you on a stats basis that it would be difficult to get into Harvard/Stanford, but you only get one shot at business school, so might as well throw your hat in the ring. Just purely on stats, only Darden/Johnson may be a little stretch for you, but there are no super stretches on your list..
And especially since you have all this experience writing apps, you are going to be better than the average Kellogg candidate in that respect. So best of luck with that one. I hear Booths marketing program is excellent as well, but it gets undermined by its finance rep.
I got lucky one day on the GMAT, but I really wouldnt believe I am any more qualified of a candidate than you. Never sell yourself short.
I was thinking of booth too, but i didn't want a heavy quant school like booth/mit/columbia/harvard (which i hear are heavy finance/consulting, which means it's heavy in quant) bc i know for sure i don't want to go into those fields. Kellogg i hear has a very collaborative/teamwork environment which i like so I chose to apply there instead of the other ones.
Hey there. As a current Boothie I just wanted to poke my head into this convo for a second and comment on the whole quant thing. I feel as though quantitative rigor/focus gets misunderstood a lot. Schools that have a large pipeline to consulting and finance do not necessarily have quant heavy curricula. HBS comes to mind as a school that accepts and spits out a ton of consultants but isn't exactly "quanty." The teaching method is case based so your nights really aren't spent building NPV models. So I would look closely at a school's curriculum and teaching methods to determine if there is heavy quant.
If you were giving some thought to Booth then I would encourage you not to let the "quanty" reputation deter you from looking into the program more. I-banking and consulting are popular career fields but they are hardly the only game in town. In fact, entrepreneurship is the 2nd largest concentration and the Kilts Center for Marketing has spawned some pretty impressive alums (and they give fellowships!). The leadership education is also very robust with LEAD and a ton of opportunities through student groups. I will admit that Booth has quant heavy classes. However, many of these are in upper level finance, stats, and economics electives. There are many classes that have nearly no quantitative aspects at all (Negotiation, Managing Orgs, etc.). Even in classes like micro and stats the quant isn't very high level. You might see some basic calculus. I never took calc and didn't do any math review before school and I'm not having any issues in my classes. I think that people interpret quant to mean number crunching. I would argue that it's less number crunching and more number understanding and acting. Booth isn't about quant for the sake of getting off on equations. It's more about the application. How do you, as a manager, use statistical data to determine pricing of a new product? Is buying this startup worth the investment cost? Numbers are a fact of business and being comfortable with them and knowing how to not only interpret them, but also communicate a story and action plan based on them. I know I'm talking a lot but I just wanted to clear up any potential misconceptions about what "quant heavy" means and also give a positive spin on it.