Nationality Dilemma and Post MBA Goals

Hi mbsingh,

Here are my answers:

First, schools don’t just club applicants into a bracket by their nationality and industry. They also look at the underlying details. In your case, your work in Canada will form the part of that ‘detail’. It’ll tell them that you’ve worked in different geographies and you’ve worked with people from different nationalities. So, your current work, in my words, gives more color to your profile, adds to the diversity quotient.

Second, private equity is a tough nut to crack even with relevant experience (PE, IB, consulting). There are few on-campus placements, and that too goes to the top B-schools. For the class of 2014, for example, 15% of the class at HBS, 17% at Stanford, 10% at Wharton, and 8% at Booth joined PE industry. In most schools, including top-10, this percent is 1-2% and less. And, like I said before, those who get into these industries invariably have prior experience in the feeder industries. So, in order to have a realistic crack at PE, you need to be in top3-4 schools and have relevant workex.

If you mention your post-MBA career goal as working in PE, the adcoms will have serious doubt about your ability to pull it off. They’ll get the impression that you haven’t shown enough diligence in finalizing your post-MBA career goals.

Third, although it’s nice to have a degree from a reputed, competitive, full-time program, a part-time degree on its own won’t hurt you. If you end up with a good GPA, have great performance in Quant courses, and, very important, if you can get 700+ in GMAT, then you would be fine even with a part-time program.