Wharton Profile Evaluation - Tools for B-School Profile Evaluation

Hi! I intend to apply for Wharton Moelis Advance Access Program (Deferred MBA) and it would be great to know what my chances are so here's my profile:

Background and nationality: Indian Male Engineer (Age 21)

Undergrad Information:
Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College
My CGPA: 8.1/10 ; Topper's CGPA: 9.4/10
Scored a 99.08 percentile in CAT (common admission test for MBA colleges in India)

GMAT: Not taken yet (740+ expected)

Work experience and leadership:
1. 5 month internship with Amazon as Operations Manager
(Responsible for automating operations, 3 direct reports to upper management and improved compliance of 2 business metrics, managed shift operations)

2. 2 month summer internship as business analyst at a startup
(Applied business analytics to practice data sets, no impact as such)

3. Held leadership position at Design Club, Marketing Club and volunteered for social service during undergrad
4. Did certifications in business strategy, corporate strategy and corporate finance from Coursera (online platform)

Post MBA goals:
Move into consulting and then onto product development

Would love to hear any other options to consider or any other way I could improve my profile for future applications

Thank you!

Hello Ndharni,

Wharton’s Advance Access Program is a great choice! If you want to explore other options, have a look at Personal MBA Coach’s MBA Early Admission/Deferral Programs eBook.

Successful deferral applicants will have already demonstrated considerable leadership through internships and extracurricular activities, either on or off campus. You certainly fit into this category with your management experience in your Amazon internship, and your leadership position(s) during undergrad. However, it will be crucial to really articulate what you have accomplished in these roles and show how you have been an effective leader.

Strong candidates also have a clear sense of their career goals. From what you have shared, I would suggest spending a bit more time thinking about your short and long-term career goals. While consulting and product management are good options (there are also no right or wrong goals), Wharton or any other deferral program will want a clear picture of how you will make the world better when you leave their campus and what your unique mark will be. You should have a unique vision here.

There is no denying that deferral programs are competitive. This is what makes them a good option for high achievers looking to get a jump on the MBA application process. While Personal MBA Coach sends folks every year, prepare for the challenge and apply to as many deferred programs as you can, ideally 6-8 of them!

It appears that you have done well in undergrad, and a strong GMAT score will enhance your candidacy. Even if you anticipate getting around a 740, I recommend taking a practice test to set your baseline and see how much work you have to do. For Wharton, you will want to aim for a 750+.

In short, two of the main things to focus on right now are:

A) Start to think about your post-MBA goals in more depth. Personal MBA Coach has an extensive blog on MBA goals here, and also works with clients on a case-by-case basis to develop these goals.
B) Begin preparing for the GMAT. With scores valid for up to 5 years and the ability to retake the test, there is no reason to wait. Even if you don’t plan on studying just yet, take a practice test now to see how you stack up.

If you’d like to discuss your profile in further detail, please reach out to scott@personalmbacoach.com.

Best wishes,
Personal MBA Coach

Hi Schopenhauer,

You've got a strong story and a diverse profile! If played right, you definitely can make your mark on adcoms!

First and foremost, your GPA is low and you have the valid reason for it. This is an opportunity for you to show self-awareness and deep introspection about your personal experiences and past setbacks. Highlight your strongest values through this!

Your GMAT is great and clearly shows your academic potential which further gives you a chance to prove the above point. On the surface, your work-ex looks good with a genuine interest in healthcare. I insist you provide me with more information in terms of work-ex duration, your responsibilities and initiatives and your leadership experiences. These things will help me to gauge the impact in your profile.

I can see your leadership potential through your ECs and community involvement. I would like to know more about your post-MBA goals. This will help me to connect the dots of your past story and your vision in healthcare. Since you have a good story, it would be more influential for you to give your goals a global outlook in the perspective of impact on the whole healthcare community.

I would love to know more about you! If you'd like, I'm happy to hop on a call sometime this week to discuss your chances in detail and suggest you schools which truly fit your personality and goals. Feel free to book a free session with us as per your convenience.

Cheers!
Shantanu Sharma
Founder and Admissions Consultant, MBA and Beyond
Testimonials
Email: shantanu@mbaandbeyond.com
What s app: +65-97158525

Hey Ndharni,

First off I would like to say that since you are targeting a deferred MBA, you need to ensure that you present a well-groomed profile that is demanded during the admission process.

Commencing the evaluation with your academics, graduating with a GPA of 8.1 definitely showcases your academic prowess. As for your GMAT, a target score of 740+ is exactly what you should be looking at as it would open the doors for you to target most of the top business schools. One drawback on the academic front is that the brand value of your undergraduate college falls short. To counter this, you need to portray how despite not being from the IIT, NIT, or any other tier-1 school, you have strived to maintain a holistically developed profile by drawing attention towards aspects like your internships and extracurriculars.

Speaking of Extracurricular activities, they are a great way to showcase your proactive attitude and how you have emulated the theoretical knowledge you gained in classes and created a positive impact by utilizing them in real-life situations. Hence, the initiatives you have taken up should highlight your profile on all fronts. Highlight your leadership skills at the Design and Marketing Club by mentioning how many people you led, what were your roles, and what were the impacts that you created. In terms of social service initiatives, talk about the tasks that you have spearheaded and what difference you’ve brought about in the society.

Moving on to your work experience, an internship with a big brand like Amazon certainly plays a role in bolstering your profile, as you’d be facing competition from applicants from big4 companies. Besides, you have also worked for a startup, this vouches how you gained exposure in best of both the worlds. You can utilise your application to draw the focus on the quality of your work experience, leadership/managerial roles, projects undertaken, and impacts created in those positions. This would help you establish yourself as a strong candidate.

Given your school choice, Wharton falls under the ultra-dream category where your chances of acceptance are 30-40%. In such a case, you must ensure that you back your profile with a very strong application. An application through its various components such as essays, LORs and SOPs would help you to highlight your strengths and give apt justifications for your weaknesses to smooth over any flaws in your profile. Moreover, the application acts as the window through which the admission committee can peer into your skills, caliber, and your personality and thus play an important role in boosting your chances of acceptance.

Besides, it is always recommended to hedge your bets wisely and go for a mixed bag of 6-8 schools in the dream and competitive category. Having said this, if you are confused about which schools best fit your profile and requirements, you can take up our free profile evaluation service through which you can gauge the competitiveness of your profile, get a personalized recommendation on improving the same and receive a list of schools that best fit your goals.

Link for FREE Profile Evaluation:

https://www.mim-essay.com/profile-evaluation

Hope this helped!

Background: Indian Male, 27 yrs old

GMAT: 740(50Q, 41V)

UG: Electronics Engineer at top tier University. 60% Aggregate Score
Active participation in college extracurricular activities in terms of getting sponsorships for multiple level of intra college events

PG:PGDM in Finance From Tier 2 college, 2.7/4 (relative scoring).
Was a part of Student Social Responsible Club and Rotaract club.

Why second MBA: International experience, Networking, Working in a financial hub.

Internships: three internships, one in finance (debt vertical), second in Finance too (But equity vertical) and the third one in Marketing (Customer Engagement)

Experience:5 years Full time, 4 years Part time
Startup experience: During my Bachelors, worked on brick and mortar test prep institute for 4 years part time (Hence the low grades) and 1 year full time along with few of my friends. After a friends and family round of around $65K we eventually evolved into Ed tech setup. Currently a silent partner.

2 years of Investment Banking experience post MBA, working on sector agnostic projects with partners located across six countries. i. Brought in 285 Million worth of debt mandate into the firm ii. Initiative on additional revenue stream to the firm.

2 years of Hedge fund operations experience at a one of the best hedge funds firms.

Post MBA goals: Work in a front office role at IB/VC/PE/Distressed assets divisions of reputed firms/Banks

Recommendations: Strong recommendations from the director and partner at my former firm.

Hi Hims94,

Thanks for sharing your profile and MBA aspirations.

My name is Priyanka, Client Manager at ARINGO.

You have a very interesting profile! From what I can see:

Academics/GMAT – While the class average GPA of the schools you are interested in is higher, the GMAT score of 740 will compensate that😊https://www.aringo.com/wharton-business-school-mba/.

Second MBA – The need for the second MBA should be fully and precisely explained in the application essays.

Work Experience – Experience with top firms in the finance sector along with international exposure is AWESOME. We would like to see your CV to have a better understanding of the brands you have been associated with, roles and responsibilities, promotions, and the impact of your work. Also, your involvement in the Ed Tech start-up should be detailed out well in the essays.

Extracurricular activities/Volunteer Work – Well, you have mentioned active participation in extra-curricular activities during college days which is good. Any on-going activity or volunteer work?

Your career goals - Your career goals look fine as this is a logical extension of what you are doing presently but will be able to give more insights once you share your CV

All in all sounds like you have a good profile! If you send me your CV and other info on PRIYANKAK@ARINGO.com, I would love to connect you with our CEO who will be happy to help further with a detailed review and perhaps work together on some amazing apps.

Hello hims94,

Thank you for your post. For Wharton, you will want to aim for a 750+ on the GMAT, particularly because of your low GPA. You do, however, have some strong work experience that enhances your candidacy. It is great to see that you have included specific results as well. Wharton really wants to know what makes you unique and how you have succeeded both professionally and personally in the past.

While you have great work experience to touch upon in your applications, a lot is also riding on your personal story. Personal story development is one of the hardest and most important application components – and a key component of our comprehensive packages.

If you would like to talk about your application strategy and how we can help you put together strong applications to give you the best chance at Wharton, do not hesitate to reach out: scott@personalmbacoach.com. Personal MBA Coach was founded by a Wharton alum and we send lots of clients to Wharton each year!

Good luck!
Personal MBA Coach

Hey guys. Would be awesome if someone could share a quick evaluation of my profile

Nationality: Pakistani
Age: 24 y/o
Undergrad: Top b-school in Pakistan - 3.72/4.00 CGPA - BSc (Accounting & Finance) and CFA - cleared all 3 levels with >90percentile score in consecutive attempts
1.5 years of work experience at Unilever
1.5 years (till date) of work experience in a tech startup with great international exposure across East Africa, South Asia and Middle East along with a promotion and an award.
GMAT 750 Q50 V41 IR8 BUT AWA3.0 - super surprised by my AWA 3.0, it was probably because my essay was very short (I guess).
Extra curriculars/spike factor: passionate mountain person with some decent high altitude trekking and climbing experience
MBA goals: living an awesome campus life, networking, broadening my horizon (no, seriously), switching geography (US or Canada) and breaking into consulting (preferably MBB)

Greetings admission consultants

Here is my profile - Indian

BBA - 65% out of 100% (India)
Master in Business strategy and Financial Technology from top Australian University (Yes, 2 specialization) (Top 20 percentile of the class)
Master in International Law (Law school ranked from 15 to 25).

GRE - 325

Work Ex

BBA - Big 4 ( 9 months)
Master - Mercer - Analyst & Senior analyst - (3.5 years) - Investment consulting team
Master in Law - Investment associate Pvt banking - National bank of Canada (6 months)

Extra cir. - Playing badmintion, squash, chess & cricket
Trained in boxing & kickboxing


Age = 30 this year

Xerriorist:

You have a very interesting profile. I am not sure Wharton is going to make a ton of sense both from an admissions perspective and a career perspective.

On the latter, why do you want an MBA? You have a ton of master degrees. Your reason for obtaining an MBA (in addition to Why Wharton) is going to be a significant hurdle.

As for the former, all of these master degrees might actually work against you. I fear you might come off as a degree padder even if your reasons for earning such degrees is entirely legitimate. Similarly to the point above, you will need to make sure you address this issue preemptively.

I am also not seeing the 'wow' factor in the extracurricular activities. Do you have much depth in all these interests you mention? For example, are you on a cricket team? What about chess? Any awards or recognitions? It's great that you are so involved, but it's important to see leadership and community involvement both inside and outside of work.

You definitely have a compelling background, but tying together the narrative (both pre- and post-MBA) and differentiating yourself (coming from a competitive demographic) is going to be imperative if you want a shot at Wharton.

Hi guys. I'm a Indian candidate looking to do MBA

Age = 27

# Educational Background is as follows

1) Bachelors of Business studies = 68%

2) Master of economic policy from Australian National university (50% reduction in tuition fees)

# Extra Cir = *Played district level chess & cricket
*State level player in tennis and Badminton
*Black belt in 2 martial art forms

# Work ex.

Started working after my Master completion went straight for my master after completing my BBS

# Department of Finance & treasury as a economist. Received 1 promotions till now, 2.5 years of work ex as of now

1) Assist in undertaking in-depth economic analysis and research on policy and regulatory issues
2) Prepare written and verbal advice on analytical issues for key stakeholders
3) Participate in negotiations and consultation with a broad range of external stakeholders
4) Provide support to the Commissioner and Director in the preparation of meetings, presentations and conferences

# Ord Minnett - Senior Analyst - Private capital - 1 year

1) Facilitating communication with new investment prospects and engage with companies to evaluate investment eligibility according to our investment mandate;
2) Shortlisting and prepare briefing materials on new investments, and collaborate with the team in analysing new opportunities and building investment thesis;
3) Building investment and company financial models:
4) Undertaking competitor analysis and preparing associated reports;
5) Absolute and relative valuation analysis;
6) Investment return profiling;
7) Undertaking due diligence; and
8) Preparing investment rationale and investment committee papers

GRE = 325

Language = 4 = French, Hindi, English & Italian

Hi
Kindly review my profile for Wharton MBA

I’m Indian National age 30. CHartered accountant first attempt . Member of CPA Australia and IBEF São Paulo

After completing CA I’m working in pharmaceutical industry. 7 years of work experience mainly in international business finance , FP&A, taxation , accounting , IFRS , Transfer pricing , Project Finance, Valuations and BD among others .
I am in Brazil since last 5 years and got transferred in 2018 officially. Got promoted in 2021 and now working as Manager for entire Latam region. I manage a small team of 4 people. 3 in Brazil and 1 in India . I speak local languages Spanish and Portuguese fluently for business transactions apart from English and few Indian languages.
My long term career goal is to be CFO of Pharmaceutical company . My short term goal is to gain learn new skills and leadership techniques for managers in post covid world . I have strong base in finance . I want to leverage my base in finance and obtain a multidisciplinary MBA in order to gain new skills and be on track to achieve my goal .

GMAT target -730 although I’m in low 600s in my practice test . Need to study more !
UndergrAduate degree - BCOM A&F 87%

Thanks !

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sancheetw:

You have a great profile - congratulations on all the professional success. A few things for you to chew over as you consider your application to Wharton:

(1) Your long-term career goal sounds very appropriate. Wharton's focus on finance is obviously good training to become a CFO. I am not sure about the short-term goal. It's a little risky given that you wouldn't be graduating until 2024. Is Covid-19 going to still be around? Possibly, but it might be something in the rearview mirror. You might want to think of a slightly broader goal of which Covid-19 could still be an important part.

(2) On the GMAT, yes, you NEED to get that into the 700s, preferably 730+. Thankfully you have time and you should aim to take the exam at least twice. That's smart in terms of hedging your nerves and schedule.

(3) Do you have any extracurricular activities, leadership initiatives, etc. that you can tout? Some people tend to forget about them when they share profiles. They are an important part of your application and a great way for you to help differentiate your candidacy.

AksZchs:

Wonderful background! Here are a few key points on your profile:

(1) Do you have any extracurricular activities that are not competitions/sports? Have you shown any team leadership, community involvement, etc.? You will definitely get brownie points for all this outside of work success, but the schools want to show that you can lead efforts and are giving back to the community.

(2) I realize you probably can't share publicly, but do you have any major deals or projects from either or both of your work experiences? If you are to compete with others looking at Wharton, the expectation is that you will have invested in a deal or completed a project (possibly even led one or some) and not just carried out day to day responsibilities. I realize that's not entirely within your control, but hopefully if you haven't had such experiences you can find a way to get them between now and whenever you end up applying this year.

(3) How's your GRE split? Is it fairly even or skewed towards one component?

(1) Nope. I used to spend my free time playing sports, competition and improving my martial arts. Tbh was never interested in those kind of things and never knew it can bring brownie points

(2) At my first job there was nothing like that. In my current job I will be leading a big project with a team of 3 in coming months.

(3) Verbal is 165 & Quant is 160 = 325

Admissionado

AksZchs:

(1) It's not critical but it can help improve a profile. If you're interested in strategizing about how to add that element to your profile, reach out to us privately.

(2) That makes sense. I'm glad you'll have that experience under your belt. Make sure you make that central to your resume and, if appropriate, your essays/letter of recommendation.

(3) Good. That's a great, balanced score. No issues there for Wharton.

If you'd like to discuss in more detail and are possibly looking for strategy help, we're here to chat:

https://admissionado.com/free-consultation/

Hello AksZchs,

Thank you for sharing. You have some strong leadership experience in your current and previous positions – which is great since all business schools are naturally seeking leaders. While your GRE is solid, you would benefit from raising your quant score.

Something to keep in mind is that work experience and academics, while very important, are only part of the equation. A lot will come down to how you differentiate yourself in the applicant pool. Your ECs are interesting, though it will be key that these gel with the rest of your profile to tell a consistent story.

The most successful candidates develop applications that are focused, logical and unique. Feel free to take a look at our comprehensive services to learn how we can help guide you throughout the process.

Reach out to scott@personalmbacoach.com if you would like to learn more about how we can help enhance your candidacy. Personal MBA Coach was founded by a Wharton graduate, and we send a lot of candidates to Wharton each year!

Best,
Personal MBA Coach