My first admit

Question

I have not been on the boards much since taking the GMAT and working on apps but, today I was accepted to Boston University on full scholarship. 


B.

chriswil2005 · Answer

Congrats B. What other schools did you apply to? What is your background?

Thanks

bsmith75 · Answer

Thanks Chris. I also applied to HBS, Sloan, and BC (can you see the Boston angle here?). Those decisions won't be available for about 2 months though.

I am 30yr old w/ a B.S in Biochemistry with a 2.9 GPA. I have worked for small biotechs since graduation and moved into new product development about 2 years ago. At matriculation I should have about 7.5 years of experience. Beyond work, I am on the executive board of local youth mentoring non-profit. GMAT was a 730 (48Q, 44V).

I applied second round for all schools, but BU e-mailed with a notice that if I finished by Dec. 15th they would send out a reply by Jan 15th. 

Interestingly enough I never filled out any finiancial aid forms or anything of the sort. So needless to say the full scholarship came as quite a surprise. It certainly makes the wait for the other apps much easier to stomach!!

B.

tkkoh · Answer

Congrats!

chriswil2005 · Answer

Interesting B. I also have a biochemistry degree with a 2.9 GPA. I have been working for a large firm (Abbott Laboratories) for over 5 years. As you know, biochemistry is a very tough major, hence the lower-than-the average-applicant GPA. How did you angle your GPA when applying? 

I have applied to Stanford, Kellogg, Chicago, Haas, and Michigan (all second round). If I was to look at my own application (I know, slightly biased), I would say that I am a strong candidate for these schools, but I am worried about my GPA. I addressed it in every application, but I am curious as to how others did it.

bsmith75 · Answer

tkkoh -- Thanks!!

Chris --- I addressed it by focusing on the successes in my career. I am on several patent applications for new anti-inflammatory disease therapies and was recently promoted to manage a portion of my companies largest signed collaboration. Most importanly the pervasive theme throughout my essays was my career that bridged the divide between business and science and my desire to use the skills from an MBA to carve out a career in the Pharma BD/Biotech venture capital sector. I felt that with a successfull track record of promotion and such, I would be able to easily show the reviewers that my old college GPA should be of little concern.

My strong GMAT certainly helped take the heat off as well. In addition, I had taken courses at the Harvard extension school and recieved A's and B+. But most importantly I never once refferred to my GPA as a negative, in fact I never even once draw the readers attention to it (I never talk about it directly at all). On Harvards first essay regarding the undergraduate experience, instead of pouring out excuses for my bad GPA I wrote about the unique project based learning of my college. Then in every optional essay I reiterated my dedication to academic disciplne and my expectation to be a top performer in my MBA class.

It was a pure positioning effort to prove to the reviewer that I have a proven track record of performance ever since graduating from college. My current boss and VP of Operations at my company told me to stop obbsessing about my GPA. He wanted me to instead focus on the great achievements since then to prove I have taken the necessary steps to academically mature.

I feel I submitted very strong apps to all schools and look at the scholarship offer as proof of that. I certainly hope to be in the lucky situation where I can evaluate multiple offers in the near future, but at least I can say for certainty that I am going somewhere next fall. :-D

B.

B.

Paul · Answer

congratulation bsmith75! It is a great relief to have a full scholarship. Enjoy your time in Boston.

greenandwise · Answer

Hey bsmith,
 I know I'm a little late, but congrats on your admissions to BU. I am a chemistry major with a 3.0 and a 670 (48Q, 34V) GMAT. My GPA is just OK (but in my school good for a chem major) and unfortuantely my GMAT is not so high that it would offset my GPA. But throughout my application I chose to focus on my accomplishments and hopefully that along with my rec. letters will be good enough evidence of my intellectual capacity for the schools I applied to (Anderson, Fuqua). I was a little worried that I never addressed these components of my application as an "issue" because like you I felt like that they were not. But it is encouraging to hear how you chose NOT to focus on your GPA as an "issue" and how that was a sucessful strategy for you with regards to BU. Let's hope that this strategy continues to produce good results for you and results in an acceptance to atleast one of the two schools I applied to!!! Please keep us updated!

bsmith75 · Answer

Thanks green. I think you took the right strategy not adressing it as an issue. With such limited space you should be telling the reviewers everythign you did right not apologizing for something you did wrong.

Plus you and I coming from pure science backgrounds are competing with a bit smaller of an applicant pool which really helps us out as well. You GMAT is plenty strong, hitting that 48Q shows your strong techinical background. Good luck, I hope we can trade even more good news in the future!!

B.

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