Ask Personal MBA Coach

As August comes to a close and we get closer to round one deadlines, here are few very quick reminders! Then stay tuned for more...

1) Recommendations - Ensure these are submitted by the deadline. While it is possible that some schools give an extension, do not assume this. Even if it can be done, you are always better off getting things in by the deadline. Give your recommenders fake deadlines to avoid any risk of being late.

2) Resume - Have you updated your resume? Yes the essays will take the most time but don't forget about the resume. If you plan to use the latest version you submitted for a job, think again! The MBA application resume should be different from the professional resume. Click below to learn more
https://www.personalmbacoach.com/single ... nal-Resume

3) Short answers - Don't forget about these short answers. For some schools they are quite comprehensive and will take time to write and edit. For others they may be brief but still important.

More round one planning: https://www.personalmbacoach.com/single ... eady-to-go

Good luck everyone!

Best,
Scott

Hello Personal MBA Coach,

Could you please evaluate my profile and gauge my chances at Melbourne Business School? I am also looking for some information on how the scholarships work at MBS and what are the chances of securing an interview with top Management Consulting firms with my GMAT score.

I understand that the big consulting firms do not consider candidates with a GMAT score <700. Is this true? I am planning to give another exam next month and my target score is 700+.

Profile:
Female, Age 32, Mother of 2 (3yr & 1yr old)
Australian Citizen (India born)

Education:
10th – 79.5%
12th - Diploma/Polytechnic – 76.27%
Graduation – B.E in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from AMIETE – 6.56 GPA
GMAT – 670 (Q45,V37,IR6,AWA5)

Work Experience:
14 years of extensive experience in managing IT Infrastructure. I have attached my LinkedIn URL for your reference - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aparnarallabhandi

Extra- Curricular:
Worked as a teacher and a helper for a non-profit school for 7 years from 2005-2012.

Post MBA goals:
I want to join Management Consulting preferably Technology Management Consulting (given my experience in the IT) after completing my MBA.

Thank you in advance for all your help!

Cheers,
Aparna

Aparna,

Thank you for the post and congrats on the newborn (1 yr old is close enough!). While your stats would put you in range, your experience is high for MBS so I would advise an executive or part-time program to maximize your chances of getting in. Can it still work out with full-time? Sure, but the odds are not as great as the average applicant has around 5.9 years of experience. Feel free to reach out with further questions!

Best,
Scott

Hi Scott,

Thank you so much for your reply!

Cheers,
Aparna

Aparna,

You are most welcome. Best of luck!

Best,
Scott

Hi,

Wondering about possibly applying in R2, and would like to get your thoughts on how high to aim. As you can see, I aimed high in R1, and would like some honest advice on how best to diversify and improve my odds. Thanks in advance!

25, M, Canadian
3.75 GPA at top Canadian business school (Queens/Ivey)
3 years in T2 management consulting, helped found a thought leadership centre
1 year experience at a globally-recognized NGO (sponsored by MC firm) working on a project with major media attention
Extracurriculars: Exec role at a nonprofit consultiing group in my firm, volunteering to ESL kids
740 GMAT (49Q/41V)
Goal: to transition into more of what I got a chance to do at the NGO, working in financial services in developing countries

Thank you for your post.

- What firm do you work for? I know T2 but the specific firm matters so let me know that, either posting here or emailing privately if you prefer. Also are you at the NGO now or at your firm?
- It would be great to see your resume as many of these things are rather standard and I would love to give you the best advice

However before seeing that, I can say top 10 schools look reasonable for you. Where within that would depend on the resume, performance at work, salary raises, LOR quality etc.

Best,
Scott

Scott,

Thank you for doing this!

Background: Asian Male U.S. Military

Undergrad: United States Air Force Academy B.S. Legal Studies GPA 2.36

Graduate: Oklahoma State University M.S. Entrepreneurship GPA 3.727

GMAT: 710 49Q 37V 5AWA 7IR

Work Experience:
-Air Force Contracting Officer, aka acquisitions for Air Force. Significant leadership experience through Air Force. Multiple Group level awards, led team through organizational change which led to 1 Major Command Award. Exited military as a Captain 5 years
-Medtronic surgery consultant/sales experience. Started as a trainee, graduated year-long training program in 6 months, graduated top of class out of 15. Increased revenue in a 2 year downward trending territory. Grew passion for biotechnology. 2 years
-Currently working on launching platform for New York City to help veterans in need. 4 months

E/C
-Currently Air Force Reserves Captain, I volunteer to interview applicants to Air Force Academy to help them decide if the military is right for them.
-Medical Missions, I was able to earn more than $500k worth of medical implants and tools from Medtronic, and helped ship them to Puerto Rico to help surgeons treat children with scoliosis. Did this for a year and a half while at Medtronic
-Habitat for humanity. Volunteered while in the Air Force to help give back to the cities that embraced the Air Force Base.

Story
-Enjoyed time in Air Force grew passionate about conducting business deals enabling mission capability for Air Force. At Medtronic grew passionate and saw the impact of biotech watching patients move limbs for the first time after an accident. Long-term goal is to become accredited investor focused on biotech ecosystem to help improve quality of life globally. Short term is to become investment banker in healthcare group to learn to correctly value companies and identify key growth factors.

Additional info
-I had family health issues that I will not disclose here, but I did not know how to deal with the demanding military and academic curriculum and family issues at home.
-I have always wanted to attend a top MBA program, but I knew my UG gpa is a scarlet letter. I took finance and accounting in Graduate school where I got A's in, out performed peers during my careers and scored a fair GMAT 710 to compensate.

Target Schools in no particular order: CBS, NYU, Tepper, Darden, Cornell

So my question is, have I done enough to offset my poor UG GPA?
And are my target schools reasonable?

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

Hi,

I have been in search of a community or a forum, to find out the best-suited courses in MBA or MSc aligned with Corporate Social Responsibility and green/sustainable management. So far it's been a struggle to find a similar pool of applicants or threads for such courses and I'm really not able to find some good measure of rankings.
General information that I'm looking for is - Job prospects after degree, ideal profile with median GMAT score, and usefulness of the course.
Following are some courses that I know of and would like to know more about -

1. The Università Bocconi MAGER - MSc in MSc Sustainability and Social InnovationGreen Management, Energy and Corporate Social Responsibility
2. HEC Paris - MSc Sustainability and Social Innovation
3. RSM Erasmus University -MSc Global Business & Sustainability
4. UBC, Vancouver - MASTER OF SCIENCE IN RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY (MSC)
5. Oxford University - MSc in Environmental Change and Management
6. University of Toronto -Master of Science in Sustainability Management (MScSM)
7. Columbia University - Master of Science in Sustainability Management

Bit about me - Background - Indian Female, I.T. Consulting with 40 months of Experience in a Big Four Company
Cumulative Percentage - 78% (Honors Degree in Bachelor of Technology (IT major) tier 2 institute.
Extra Curricular- Associated work with WWF and a few Non-Profit driven educational institutes.
GMAT Score - 650

Please evaluate this profile and "in reach" schools for my score. What extra is needed for profile to be considered strong.

Posted from my mobile device

Posted from my mobile device

Thank you for your detailed post and congrats on your accomplishments! We work with a lot of military applicants each year and the good news as you probably know is that schools appreciate military leadership experience. Your extra-curriculars are quite impressive (and remind me of some of my international health non-profit work years ago!). Have you taken any extra graduate level courses recently? The graduate school work you have will really help, as will difficult analytical courses you could take now. For some schools like CBS and Darden your stats are still a bit low. When I see a very low GPA, I am looking for a GMAT to blow things out of the water in return. Your GMAT is actually below the average for males at these schools so we don't really check that box. Would you consider retaking it? I don't see any safe schools here so while the list is decent, I would recommend either getting tutoring (let us know if you are interested) and retaking the GMAT or adjusting the list a bit. You will get a military boost but for a school like CBS, especially at this point in the year since they are rolling, we really need a much higher score. Even for Cornell I would like a higher score to offset the GPA.

Reach out with any further questions!

Best,
Scott

My colleague gave a test last week with out much preparation.. Score 152.. Q12 v8 IR 12. How good is the score. As per him verbal was tough .. How should I prepare for verbal for my test .. Any /all feedback would be appreciated..thanks

It sounds like your colleague took the Executive Assessment. 152 is a good score! Whether it is high enough to get him in depends on a lot of other factors, but it does pass 150, which is a threshold some EMBA programs have. I would need to see the rest of the profile before deciding whether this will set him up for success.

We offer 1:1 Executive Assessment tutoring and we have been tutoring for the EA since the exam came out. Please send me an email if you would like to learn more about how we can help!

https://www.personalmbacoach.com/gmat-gre-tutoring

Best,
Scott

Thanks Scott for the feedback. I will inform him to get in touch with you and your team.. What does low verbal score indicates? My EA is on 4th .. How can I do better in verbal as we have decided on this test few days ago after MIT Sloan webnair so there is not much study for verbal.. Being Indian I also think quant is our strongest..

It would be tough to do a lot before the 4th to be honest. Could you push off the date? If you are targeting an EMBA program then you have more time for your applications as you can be somewhat flexible with submission date. Unfortunately I wouldn't have any magical suggestions for 4-5 days as we usually take a lot longer to work with applicants to get them prepared. Run through practice questions! Best of luck.

Best,
Scott

I want to get into education technology companies/startups as a Product Manager after MBA from a top 15 B school. I'm an edtech entrepreunr having run a startup in the field for 2 years before closing it down. Currently I'm a product manager with an ecommerce startup. Since edtech is a very niche field, hardly any edtech companies recruit from the schools I'm applying to.

Should I mention a company that doesn't recruit from the B-school I'm applying to in my short term goal? Is that a realistic short-term goal or should I tweak it and change my goals?

EdTech is becoming increasingly popular so if you have the background for it then absolutely use it as a goal. While having a realistic goal is important, don't be too concerned whether it is a company on campus or not as many students get jobs on their own without using on campus recruiting and the recruiting continues to change. We have clients every year who write about EdTech and are successful.

Good luck!

Best,
Scott

So I've been rejected by Booth, Sloan, and Columbia (ED), and I'm expecting more of the same for Stern/Harvard/Stanford. What can I really fix at this point? I can aim lower but at what point do I reach diminishing returns on the MBA value given my goals?

Background/Nationality: 27M, White, Dual citizen (US and EU Nation), born in the US.

Undergrad school/major: Georgetown SFS, International Economics, 3.185 GPA

Professional Qualifications: 5 years running my own Soccer Website Startup - we're now the second largest website devoted entirely to soccer in Latin America with 12 million likes across our Spanish and Portuguese Facebook Pages. We're 5th, and just behind ESPN and FOX, in total sports coverage in the region. I also manage a farm and general store in Upstate NY with family, with significant income generation. Finally, I serve as a part time advisor to my family's main business, in which they needed advice on implementing changes to their product to be better suited to integrate with digital sales.

Leadership: Run my own business of 25 people (based in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru), reaching over 200 million people cumulatively per month. Honorary Captain of college football team (though that's old news)

GMAT: 750, 48Q/46V

Extra Curriculars: Powerlifter (going to qualify for nationals in 2018), SCUBA/Free Diver, Marksman, Community Development (helped in building a clinic and running community events), Wildlife Reintroduction (funded and managed wildlife reintroduction and preservation efforts near farm)

Goal of MBA: Want to enter Media/Entertainment Consulting and build up corporate experience I lack, and the MBA itself will specifically allow me to build the hard skills I haven't practiced as much being in a director/managerial role.

Reason for Leaving Job: I'm in acquisition talks for the website, and an MBA would allow me to use the buy as a means of securing further education and positioning myself for a great job upon graduation.

Thanks for taking time to read this and providing your insight! I've actually used a consultant to tighten up how I express my goals, but I'm trying to get a second opinion here because my results are not great so far (I don't think it's the consultant's fault, however). What is fundamentally lacking here, and what can I do to address and/or change it?