Hi Maria - I am an user of the lab and enjoying it so far! I have a question on the HBS essay - I have created a structure around major leadership learnings in my life (Have been involved in EC leadership in college and post grad) and as well as an alternate structure around major moments self discovery (generally explaining lessons the drove each career move incl. internships, internships were varied but post grad experience is just 2 yrs Deloitte risk & 2 years T2 consulting). I know you caution against writing an autobiography - do you think either structure works? Or how would you think about talking about your experiences without reading like a autobiography?

Hi Maria - thank you so much for the work you’ve done on ApplicantLab! Been really helpful as I walk through the applications process.

Hi there! It sounds (?) like maybe option 1 is stronger here ... explanations around "what drove each career move" is a bit of a waste of time for the HBS essay, since the *application form* itself gives you a "reason for leaving" box. So, I’d focus on the structure that lets you explain the "greatest hits" of your leadership, without worrying so much about tying it all together in a chronolgocal package

Age 32 Black, Male, United States First gen college student, first gen American Education: University of Maryland Global Campus, B.S. in Cybersecurity Technology, 3.69 gpa Work Ex - United States Navy- Senior Intelligence Analyst- 11 years (enlisted, 6 years of technical and management experience within. Direct reports: 30) Booz Allen Analyst- Associate/Senior Cyber Intelligence Analyst- 2 1/2 years GRE Score - 321: 158 quant, 163 verbal, retaking soon Aiming for around 325+ to up quant score Post MBA Goals: PM in tech (specifically in the trust and safety/privacy sector to fight disinformation) Long term: entrepreneurship in the tech space Reaches: Wharton, Stanford, Harvard, UChiago, Northwestern Target: UCLA, Duke, CMU, NYU, UT-Austin Question: are my scores, background, goals in line with my reaches and targets? For reaches, what do I have to specify to stand out more especially as a veteran?

What is your recommendation for someone who works a consultant who is specialized in cybersecurity especially when we are in competition with strategy or management consultants who are also applying from the same firm?

Demographics Age: 20 Gender: Male Ethnicity: Asian (Citizenship: India) Education and Stats Bachelor’s Degree: Business Administration (Amity University Noida) CGPA: 8.40 GMAT: yet to take Internships: 1. RecruitNXT (Startup): Worked on a startup as a team lead helping create a Web Extension for HR professionals. 2. Unnati (NGO): Worked on writing informative articles for various social media pages of the organization. 3. Metvy (Startup): Contributed to the selection criteria of potential interns and helped filtering people out. 4. IBS Software (Coorporate): Learnt data validation and contributed towards filtering of unbilled and unearned revenue (Accomplisments of star performer and letter of reccommendation for each) Cocurriculars: 1. College Football Team Captain. 2. 3 Times Nationals Tennis player. 3. Taekwando Red Belt certification from World Taekwando Federation 4. Diploma in classical music (Degree) Work Experience: yet to get Post MBA Goals Target: T15 Questions: Would getting experience from a company with a big name in the market be comparatively better at contributing to my selection or having experience helping with the growth of a startup? How big a weightage do accomplishments in co curricular activities have while considering my profile for selection ?

Hi Maria, if someone has a low GPA (international student, but GPA is considerably less)- would you suggest a high GMAT to offset it, or will a high GRE score suffice (Q168, V165)?

I am asking for Cambridge judge business school

Thank you everyone for joining us, This chat is officially over

Age 34 (intend on applying R2 2023 for 2024) Male, Peru Education: Electronics Engineering, Top 1 University in Peru Work Ex total 10 years De Vicente Constructora (Construction) - Senior MEP Estimator 5 years Termo Sistemas - HVAC Supervisor 1 year Constructora Inarco (Construction) - MEP Estimator 3 years COSAPI(Construction) - Budget Trainee 6 months ABB (Automation and electrification) - Process Automation Services Professional Intern 6 months Applying with a test waiver Extra Curricular: Member of IEEE PUCP Student Branch Passionate about E-sports Post MBA Goals: Product/Brand Management at Technology. Question: What are my chances of getting into Michigan Ross, Johnson, Darden, Anderson, McCombs, Foster, Goizueta, Kelley, Tepper, McDonough, Scheller, Owen, Mendoza, Jones, Simon? Is there anything I can do to strengthen my application? Are there other schools in which I would have more chances to be admitted?

I’m requesting a profile evaluation for myself. This is information at the time of matriculation - please let me know if you’d like me to add anything! Demographics: Age 26, Male, Born in India but lived in Canada for the majority of my life (Canadian citizen) GMAT: 760 (47 verbal, 47 quant, 6.0 AWA, 8 IR) Academics: Bachelor of Applied Science in Industrial Engineering (with a Minor in Business) from the University of Toronto with a 3.67 GPA out of 4.0 (Rank 9 of 128) Work Experience: 4 years at Deloitte Consulting (Business Analyst -> Consultant -> Senior Consultant) on the Workday Implementation team. Early promotion to Consultant and multiple workplace awards (Gold Dot, Applause, etc) Extracurricular Experience: Content creator and writer focused on hockey (in collaboration with local sports media), social impact consulting, animal shelter volunteer, mentorship and recruitment experience, entrepreneurship awards, mobile app creator Reason for MBA: Pivoting from Technology Consulting in Canada to Management Consulting in the US in the short term, and moving to an education non-profit in the long term Target: Full-time MBA @ M7 + Haas/Yale/Tuck How does my portfolio line up with my target schools? Any areas for improvement or emphasis based on what I’ve written above? And would I be bucketed against other Indians or other Canadians? Thank you in advance!

Personal Information: Age: 25 Gender: Male Ethnicity: Asian (Chinese) Education: University of Minnesota Major: Economics Minor: Asian Literature, Business Management GPA: 3.33 GMAT: Not taken official GMAT Scored 650 on GMAT Focus Edition practice test Professional Aspirations: Seeking a senior or director-level role in product management within the AI industry post-MBA Long-term goal to launch a tech startup in the AI space Work Experience: 1 year as a Consultant 2 years as a Technical Product Manager in AI and ML space Currently Lead Technical Product Manager at United Healthcare Optum Achievements include launching products impacting millions, leading EfficientPivot project, and implementing NLP-driven search solutions MBA Program Preferences: Interested in Northwestern’s full-time AI MBA program Also considering Stanford and MIT for their strong tech and entrepreneurship focus Looking for programs with robust entrepreneurship labs, clubs, and networking opportunities to foster skills necessary for future tech startup Extracurricular Activities: Peer Lead Mentor at work, supporting new employees Assisting in family food business with project management and marketing Strengths and Contributions: Expertise in AI and ML product management and development Demonstrated leadership in guiding cross-functional teams Innovative approach in integrating AI solutions to enhance user experiences Entrepreneurial mindset, evidenced by contributions to family business and workplace initiatives

Ok so first of all, there should be a tonnnnnn of ppl at Deloitte that can help you with a lot of this? Isn’t there even a grad school application council thingee there (or is that only for the US employees?) -- anyway, your resume twins at Deloitte would be a great help here. Are you sponsored by Deloitte? re: the career goals, why the move to wanting to do consulting in the US, other than money? If it’s just about salary (it RISKS lookling like MAYBE it is...) then I would instead favor a career vision that goes into "industry" (related to waht you’ve done at deloitte) ... ... I do not advise the "moving to an education nonprofit in the long term" story... I don’t see enough evidence of that... "social impact consultig" as a side thing is fine, but I don’t see enough here for a jump ALL the way to non-profit to make sense (?) -- since you have not worked Full Time for a nonprofit beofre, I would choose something esle. re: your competitiveness, your peers at Deloitte should have a ton of "resume twin fodder" to help you !

Hello everyone, Myself aged 25 having 2 yr work exp as developer Undergrad computer science from vtu University. 10th: 9.6 12th:75 Grad:75 Achievements: Zonal level football player( school) Content / creative head at DSC google ( managed all content related work for different seminars for diff colleges under dsc) Captain football team Volunteered ncc with credible certifications School college level debate winners Lead cultural fests Product based company intern ship Can someone suggest which schools to target? Preferred roles: consultant, marketing, product management

Is the focused edition, cross sectional adaptive or adaptivess is restricted to each section individually?

The new Focus Edition is question adaptive not section adaptive.

Can schools see the gmat scores of papers taken online if you decide to not send them?

Hi Tyler - that’s an interesting profile you have. You’ll automatically stand out from the pile--your challenge will be to convince the adcom through your story that you are perfectly suited for an MBA, and will be able to contribute to your classmates’ experiences as well. As far as the schools you’re considering in R2, I’d say UCLA and Georgetown look like solid targets for you. The rest are reaches for pretty much anyone, but if you’re able to articulate your story really well, I could see things going well for you somewhere on your list. At the top programs, it becomes a bit of a crap shoot and doesn’t hurt to apply to more, so long as you have capacity for quality apps.

Hi Cristhian - Are you applying for EMBAs? With your work experiences being outside the typical 3-8 year window, I’d recommend it, it would make more sense for your story and the network you’d gain would be more relevant to you. Given your list, I believe you would have a good chance at an admit at the last 5 schools, but your story is going to need to be dialed in to overcome your work experience # of years.

Hi MBA2024 - good questions! Your profile is an interesting one. I think the schools you added to M7 are really good fits for you. The M7s I’d probably cut are HBS, MIT, and Booth. So long as you’ve been working on your extracurriculars recently, there’s nothing I’d add. Different schools do ethnicity/citizenship bucketing differently, so I can’t comment there.

28 Male Black 1 year tech unicorn, 2 years startup founder, 2.5 years consulting 3.7/5 GPA, STEM GRE: taking it next week; target 320+ Post-MBA goal: Investment Banking

Hi Gulluhullu - with your excellent GMAT score, leadership experience at work, and graduating from an IIT, I think you’re well poised to get in somewhere T20-40. Especially closer to T40, you could see some generous scholarship offers to help increase a program’s GMAT. In your story though, you should clearly articulate how you’ve been working in community-minded ways through your coaching center, to overcome your lack of extracurriculars.

HI, I’m requesting a profile evaluation for myself. Demographics: Age 24, Male, Born in Algeria GMAT: haven’t taken yet Academics: Bachelor of Automation engineering. rank : 20 . gpa : 12/20 Master of automation and industrial computing. rank : 2. gpa : 16/20 Work Experience: i worked in the family business as a product designer for 5 years. I built a website for the business, and i run the social media platforms. Internship : 6 month internship at the Renewable Energy laboratories. Started a startup during my last year in university as part of my graduation, managed to create prototypes for renewable energy adapters. the project was one of the top ranked project in the state. helped me graduate with a 19.6/20. Reason for MBA: gain experience by working for a tech company in the US in the short term, and expanding the family business and my startup in the long term Target: affordable top 50 B-schools in the US or Canada How does my portfolio line up with my target schools? what are my chances for round 2 ?Any areas for improvement or emphasis based on what I’ve written above? And would the competition be lower since there are only a few Algerians in B schools? Thank you in advance!

Nice! Good luck on the GRE. What’s your question that I can help answer?

Hi RivenSun - solid background for a vet, good luck on your next GRE! Did you consider Consortium? Currently your GRE is below your reach schools’ medians, so I’m glad to hear you’re retaking. Your GPA is excellent, but from a non-feeder school. To improve your profile, what are you doing for extracurriculars? And how soon are you planning on applying? Your # years work experience is already outside the typical 3-8 year duration, so I’d get your app in R2 if possible.

MBA Spotlight in full swing

could you please help with profile evaluation ?

in that case do i use the 2022 OG for my prep??

Anywhere else I can post this? Really don’t want those books to go to waste since they’re untouched