jside95 wrote:
Profile:
White male, 25 yo
Numbers:
B.A. in Economics from Northwestern with a 3.77 cumulative GPA, 3.86 major GPA
Study abroad at LSE: 4.0 GPA
GMAT: 760 (99th%) (48 Q, 46V, 5.5 AWA)
Work Experience:
3 years at top economic litigation consulting firm in Washington, DC (would have 4 at time of matriculation)
Started as an Analyst, promoted to Associate, hope to get promoted again to Consulting Associate at the end of this summer.
A lot of analytical/quantitative model building and data analysis, exposure to and interaction with senior staff as an Analyst.
Increasing responsibility and management experience under time pressure on high stakes projects, also heavily involved in junior staff recruiting efforts (e.g., make presentations and conduct interviews at schools across the country, make internal presentations about recruiting practices and strategies) as an Associate.
As a Consulting Associate, lead teams of analysts in data gathering and analysis tasks, hopefully will have a year of this by the time of matriculation.
Activities:
In college, very active with fraternity, elected treasurer, raised a lot of money for charity, played the guitar in my band at charity events. Selected to be a Peer Advisor, Member of Order of Omega Greek Honor Society.
Post college, weekly tutor for inner city high school student in DC for over a year. Recruited five colleagues and friends to join the program.
Captain of office basketball team. Play the electric guitar.
Reason for MBA: in the econ consulting field, credentials are everything, and without a grad degree you can't get much further than I will be in a year. I know I need the MBA to keep my career moving in an upward trajectory.
Post MBA goals: Want to take the financial and strategic skills I will acquire in the MBA program into the corporate finance world. My work usually deals with what has already happened, after firms have already made decisions, and I want to be involved in the original decision making process. Would hope to do corporate finance/strategy for major corporation, although I'd also consider strategy consulting or securities research.
What I want in a school: I want a school with the reputation of rigorous academics and a bent towards quantitative finance, but also want a solid management education.
Schools I'm thinking about but obviously need to pare down: Wharton, Chicago, Columbia, MIT, Tuck, Stern, Carnegie Mellon, Rochester.
I plan on applying for entry in the Fall of 2008, but am starting to strongly think about how to position myself. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. What am I weak on? Any schools I've missed?
Thanks a lot and sorry for the long post, but I've seen that you sometimes have difficulty responding when a profile lacks detail.
jside95,
Looks pretty strong, I must say. Given your finance goals I think you should consider and have a decent shot at Wharton, Columbia, NYU, Chicago, MIT, and might as well take a shot at HBS or Stanford while you're at it. You're in at CMU and Rochester. UCLA, Haas, and Kellogg--all highly ranked finance schools--are also doable for you, I believe. In terms of what you could work on, I would try to take the tutoring up one notch perhaps by getting a board or leadership role within that or another organization (rather than just the one-on-one tutoring buy itself). Same at work--push the leadership as far as you can in terms of formal leadership roles. Your "demographic" profile is not the most unusual in the world, so if there are opportunities for in-depth international exposure that could also help. Other than that, as I said, it's looking good.
Good luck,