LBS MFA Masters in Financial Analysis Sept 2021 Intake

Hi, I did

Hi guys!

I have applied for the MFA at LBS in round 1.

Could you give me some feedback on my profile?

Italian, Bocconi BSc in Finance - GPA 28.5/30.
GMAT - 740 (q50; v40; IR7; AWA4). I am quite worried about my AWA score (any idea?).

Three internships:
- Corporation (nothing special)
- Boutique italian M&A (IB)
- Largest Italian VC firm (focus tech/healthcare)

Since I had some health issues last year, I am graduating one year late (still have 5 exams to take).
I did not point out to my health issues in m application and so I did not explain why I am graudating late... do you think it will be much of a problem?

Do I stand any chance at getting into the MFA at LBS?

Hai un gmat altissimo secondo me non dovresti avere problemi. Fammi sapere com’è andata poi!

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Yes I have applied! Did anyone receive any communication from the school? Coming Thursday is the last day for interview decisions?

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Could you please give some feedback?
Prpfile- 22 years old.
Under grad - bachelors specializing in accoutning and finance - GPA-6.49/7
CFA level 3 cleared
Chartered accountant- cleared all three exams.
8 months internship with Deutsche Cib, mumbai
Recently joined YES banks corporate banking team as a deputy manager.

Pre grad- had a couple of audit and and tax internships
I completed my Unger grad 2018- but couldn't apply in 2020 intake due to my CA final exams and covid.
Will this become a problem for my application?
I also have a part time entrepreneurial experience at Jain Jewellers, a retail, whole sale and manufacturing unit. Have been working on a startup within the venutre.
I was also co founder of a pronobo medical clinic and healing aid.
Lead a team of 10- during my junior college at Umang- Asia's fastest growing festival.

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LBS typically sends interview decisions on the last day itself.

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Hey CrubOfWallStreet

First and foremost, your overall profile definitely comes under a stellar category. Speaking of your CGPA of 28.5 in the field of finance surely works in your favor as it showcases your academic prowess. Furthermore, your GMAT score of 740 is quite impressive and it most certainly allows you to target most of the top-notch B-schools in the world. Additionally, you have also shared your concern regarding your AWA score which honestly speaking, you shouldn’t really worry about since the schools are more focused on the overall GMAT score and the quant score especially when applying for a master’s in finance.

Talking about your internship experiences, you have got specific internships in the field of finance which further strengthens your profile as the admission committee of top B-schools tends to favor applicants who have had experience in relevant fields. Moreover, to portray a differentiated profile you could talk about the kind of projects you undertook, the skills you honed, and the kind of knowledge you were able to gain throughout your internship experience. Along with this, you can also mention why you chose these companies so as to justify the lack of big brand names under your profile. This aspect of your profile is very important for the simple reason that you’ll be competing with applicants who have worked or interned in the big four companies like KPMG, EY, DELOITTE, and PWC.

Here you have not mentioned any details regarding your extracurricular activities or participation that hold equal importance as schools are looking for a holistically developed profile. When it comes to depicting your extracurricular activities, you should always focus on highlighting how you went above and beyond in your endeavors and how you will be a great value addition to the school.

To give you a brief idea of how to go about with this, you can maybe talk about the clubs and associations you were involved in, the teams you led, certifications you undertook, and most importantly your volunteering activities along with Ngo’s. This part of your profile will basically highlight your soft skills paired with the socially responsible aspect of your personality which can ultimately vouch for your ability to be a great future leader.

Most importantly, you have talked about your one year gap during your undergraduate education due to health concerns. Here, you have mentioned that you didn't include this information in your application which unfortunately creates a minor loophole in your profile. Any major changes in your academic and professional life should always be highlighted with proper justifications as it would avoid any chances of misinterpretation and unwanted assumptions on the admission committee’s part. So, from here on, you should always be on the lookout for any such blunders and make sure there are no loose ends of any sort in your application.

Since you have targeted LBS which comes under a dream category school wherein the possibility of your acceptance can be ending anywhere around 50%.
In addition to this, I would suggest you hedge your bets wisely by targeting a good mix of dream, competitive and safe schools to ensure a fruitful outcome

Under the dream category( 50% chances of acceptance) you can target schools such as LBC, LSE and HEC.
Under the competitive category( 70% chances of acceptance) you can target schools such as ESSEC, ESCP, EDHEC, FSFM, IE and ESADE.
Under the safe category( 90% chances of acceptance) you can target schools such as GRENOBLE, SKEMA, CASS and UCL.

All in all, judging from the information you have provided, you have done a great job in building your overall profile though, you missed certain spots in your application for LBS. However, let's hope everything works in your favor. Nonetheless, if you do decide to go for a second attempt, we recommend that you go for our expert counseling and editing service where we will be able to provide you with a more comprehensive and personalized application.

Most importantly, we will help you to build your application in a way that provides proper justifications of your strengths and weaknesses which are an integral part of your essay and LOR, thus, avoiding room for any kind of ambiguity in your application from your side.

To avail of our service in the form of multiple editing, proofreading, and up-gradation of your application which consist of your Essay, SOP, LOR, and resume that hold a 30% value in the selection procedure, you can check out our All in One service that has proven to help over 2500+ applicants get into their target schools!

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Hope this helped!

Hello all,

I've received and invite for the interview. Has anyone some tips about it? I heard it was mainly focused on motivation and personality fit and not really technical financially speaking, can someone confirm this?

Best,

LH777

Hey Rish12021917,

You have a well-rounded profile.

To start off with the strong suits in your profile, your GPA of 6.49/7 in undergraduate is very impressive and showcases your academic prowess.
Another significant aspect that schools focus on is extracurricular activities as they are looking for a comprehensive profile. Hence, it is essential to shed some light on the endeavors taken up at any clubs, associations, sports, fest, or events you managed or participated in during your undergraduate. Volunteering initiatives, certifications, or internships undertaken during the course of your study would also count towards your extracurricular initiatives. Herein, you have mentioned that you have had a part-time entrepreneurial experience at Jain Jewellers, a retail, whole-sale, and manufacturing unit. Then you have also worked for a startup within a venture. This showcases your versatility and proactive nature. Further, you have mentioned that you were a co-founder of a pronobo medical clinic and healing aid, this embarks your leadership qualities. All in all, you have diverse activities in your profile. These are the very traits that define a great leader and would most certainly help in conveying why you are a good candidate for the school.

Coming to your professional front, you are recently working as a deputy manager for Yes Bank which is excellent as it is one of the big banks in the world, this brings you at par with the competition you will face. With that, you also have a good number of tax and audit internships. You ought to explain and highlight the major projects of your work and how these experiences helped to develop and further groom your skills and knowledge. Highlight why you chose these internships, what projects are done so far, how you have gone beyond the role, any initiatives you took, and any kind of impact created to establish a connection with your goals, and portray the knowledge gained from these experiences. Explaining all this well can be a differentiator for you, and help you stand out in a crowd.

To boost your profile, you can further highlight CSR activities to showcase responsibilities taken up and the impacts created by you. Following this approach would allow you to showcase a well enriched professional experience, bringing you at par with applicants adorning big brands on their CV.
Moreover, you have mentioned that you have cleared CFA level 3. It further compliments your profile by showing strong quantitative background and your inclination towards the field of finance.

Lastly, while you have a good profile, you need to be aware that you will be facing competition from equally good or even better profiles, which is why, you need to complement your profile with a strong application that includes essays, letter of recommendation, statement of purpose, and resume that highlights all your strong suits, gives reasoning for the weaknesses and displays how you’d be a good addition to the cohort. As a matter of fact, your application can boost your chances of acceptance by 3x!

Since you have not mentioned your school choices, we recommend you to take our free profile evaluation service. This will help you to get more insights into the B-schools and courses that will be compatible with your profile and needs as well as help you receive expert suggestions on how to upgrade your current profile.

The link of our FREE PROFILE EVALUATION SERVICE is given below:

https://www.mim-essay.com/profile-evaluation/
Hope this helped!

Just got rejected. It really kinda surprised me. I assume the interview was not as good as I thought it was. But I feel down mainly because they didn’t even offer a WL.
Here’s my profile:
School: US Top 20 Liberal Arts College
GPA: 3.84/4.00
GMAT: 780 (v47, q50)
Internship:
2 short Big Four (Tax, Deal)
5 months Accenture (MC)
2 months CITIC Securities IBD
Currently working at AlixPartners (EI)
Activities:
Regional Case Comp finalist (4 out of 90)
TA for Econ intro course

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Hey KQ,

To start off with the strong suits of your profile, your GPA of 3.84 is very impressive and showcases your academic prowess. Also, you have graduated from US Top 20 Liberal Arts College, which would work in your favour as schools tend to pick students from top 15-20 schools of each country.
In addition to this, another significant aspect that schools focus on is extracurricular activities as they are looking for a holistically developed profile.

Hence, it is essential to shed some light on the endeavours taken up at any clubs, associations, sports, fest, or events you managed or participated in during your undergraduate. Volunteering initiatives, certifications, or internships undertaken during the course of your study would also count towards your extracurricular initiatives. This could have been one of the drawbacks in your profile. You need to make sure you emphasize on what events you have led, what were your roles and responsibilities, what were your major takeaways. Elaborating them in your profile will showcase a holistically developed profile and would vouch for you being an apt candidate for the school.

Moving to your professional front, you have interned at all the top organisations which is pretty impressive. While you stand at par with the competition faced, you ought to differentiate yourself by highlighting the major projects of your work and how these experiences helped develop and further groomed your skills and knowledge.

To boost your profile, you can take up certifications in finance such as CFA, FRM, and stock exchange certificates. This will show you are highly inclined and passionate towards the field of finance. Also you can further highlight CSR activities to showcase responsibilities taken up and the impacts created by you. This will help portray the socially responsible side of your personality and convince the adcoms of your abilities to be a great future leader. I’d suggest you begin working on this aspect if you lack experience in this sector.

Speaking of your GMAT score, it is really impressive. 780 with Quant 50 and Verbal 47 opens the door for most of the top B-schools in the world.
When it comes to LBS, the school tends to favour international experience and I believe, this could’ve been a major drawback in your profile. International experience is all about showcasing your adaptability skills and your broadened perspective, thus you either ought to build on this aspect or focus on drawing attention to the interaction with diverse nationalities in the past.

Apart from these reasons, LBS falls under the dream category, which means it has a very stringent acceptance rate of about 8-12% as the adcom picks out the cream out of the applicant pool.

On this note, while you need to strike hard with a strong application, it is always recommended to go for a mix of the dream and competitive schools to hedge your bets wisely and ensure a fruitful outcome. To help you understand better, I’ve suggested a few schools that you could be targeting according to the different categories.

DREAM:, HEC, LSE
COMPETITIVE: WHU, Babson, Warwick
Since you have a good profile, you don’t need to look for safe schools.

These dream schools have a stringent acceptance rate of 40-50% whereas competitive schools have 60-70% acceptance rate.

Lastly, while you have a good profile, you need to be aware that you will be facing competition from equally good or even better profiles, which is why, you need to complement your profile with a strong application that includes essays, letter of recommendation, statement of purpose, and resume that highlights all your strong suits, gives reasoning for the weaknesses, and displays how you’d be a good addition to the cohort. As a matter of fact, your application can boost your chances of acceptance by 3x!

On this note, you can check our flagship service- All-In-One Solution to see how we could assist you in preparing a polished application and highlighting your strengths so that you can boost your chances of acceptance by a minimum of 3x at these schools!

Link to our All-In-One Solution-

https://www.mim-essay.com/mim-all-in-one

Here, you can even Book a Free Consulting call to connect with one of our consultants.

Thank you so much for your long reply! I just got my offer from INSEAD so life's getting better

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Anyone knows how the interview is like? Any technical questions?

It is up to your interviewer. I didn't get any technical questions at all. It was all about my background and motivation. At the beginning of the interview he mentioned he would ask me some financial questions, but he never did. From what I read, they are mostly about the subject you're interest in. If you say you want to study the MFA because you want to work in IB then you should be prepared to talk about recent deals in your country or industry specifics.

I received the shortlist email more than a week ago, but the interview has not been scheduled yet. Is it normal? How long does it take usually?