Columbia Profile Evaluation - Tools for B-School Profile Evaluation

Hi Mudita22,

I have already given you a brief evaluation over PM. For an extensive discussion, hope to chat with you soon

Cheers!
Neha Hadke
Profile Analyst & Community Manager, MBA and Beyond
Testimonials
Email: neha@mbaandbeyond.com

Hi experts,

please evaluate my profile. I am applying for CBS, Fuqua, and McDonough.

Background and nationality: Mongolian, currently living in the US
Undergrad Information: Undergraduate degree in economics degree from Japanese university with GPA 3.26/4
GRE: 318 (Q165, V153), an exchange student in Oklahoma State University, US for 1 semester with GPA 4/4.
work experience: maternity leave - 2 years
worked in a treasury of a bank in Mongolia for 54 months. promoted 4 times and several increases in salary and bonus. ending position: senior dealer (managing fx trading, daily cashflow of the bank, and liquidity)
leadership: built a risk unit in the department. initiated few projects in the department. one led to an increase in trading volume and profit, overperforming budget plan for the first time in 5 years.
Community and others: participated few clubs during undergrad. treasurer of a student association for 3 years. member and mentor of a scholarship fund. volunteered during the 2011 Japanese great earthquake.
Post-MBA goals: switching career to a fintech company as a project manager. targeting google, apple etc

Thank you in advance.

Hi KhulanE,

Thank you for sharing your profile. Your profile looks good on the surface. Starting with the stats, your undergrad GPA is good. Your GRE score is quite low, but I feel your entire profile will compensate for it. On the work front, I see a fast career trajectory. You've been promoted four times, which is excellent and, will allow you to demonstrate your capabilities. Your leadership abilities might provide you with an advantage if you craft your stories well. Achievements in your profession exhibit a mature leader in you. Regarding your community experience, something beyond your work that shows a different personality of yours will help you to add diversity to your apps.

For your post-MBA goals, a career switch makes your profile reasonable for a full-time MBA. You will also need to provide substantiated and convincing reasons to AdComs as to why MBA from a specific b-school makes sense for you and will help you accomplish your goals. You may want to read an article on how you can justify your career switch to stand out from the crowd. Overall, a good profile. You have a shot at your targeted schools. Make sure you craft your essays in alignment with the school's values. If you’d like, we are happy to hop on a call with you sometime this week to discuss your profile in length and further chances to the b-schools. Feel free to book a free session with us as per your convenience.

Cheers!
Neha Hadke
Profile Analyst & Community Manager, MBA and Beyond
Testimonials
Email: neha@mbaandbeyond.com

Background and nationality: White/Hispanic
Undergrad Information: Top-25 school (Non-Ivy), 3.56 GPA with 4 "w"s for an excused leave of absence freshman year.
GRE: 336 (168/168/5.0)
Work experience and leadership:3 years at a start-up real estate developer with 1 promotion. With a team of just 12, we've done over $1.5B in 3 years and set fundraising records every year. Given our small size, I was integrally involved in everything from fundraising with institutional investors, to site design and entitlements, to project management, to recruitment/training of analyst team - i.e. titles aren't reflective of responsibilities.
Community and others: Light volunteer work, passed CFA level I, tri-lingual
Post MBA goals: Real estate private equity / asset management - Blackstone/KKR/Brookfield type firm

Hi RealEstateGuy7020,

Thank you for sharing your profile. Starting with the stats, your undergrad GPA is good, and you have a great GRE score. In addition, you have passed CFA level I, it will definitely boost your profile. Awesome! On the work front, as you have worked in a startup, you have observed and contributed to its growth, and you should be able to tell a compelling story about it. You had a positive impact on this startup since you worked in many areas, which must have helped to expand the team and the startup (overall). You will need to weave all of these experiences together and create strong essays. Your post-MBA goals are fair; attempt to divide them into short-term and long-term goals. Although you may not be expressly asked to do so, it is worth considering how you can connect your goals to your prior experience and successes. Overall, you have a good profile and a decent chance at Columbia if you write essays that reflect the values of the business school. If you’d like, we are happy to hop on a call with you sometime this week to discuss your profile in length and further chances to the b-school. Feel free to book a free session with us as per your convenience.

Cheers!
Neha Hadke
Profile Analyst & Community Manager, MBA and Beyond
Testimonials
Email: neha@mbaandbeyond.com

Hi! I was wondering if someone could evaluate my profile.

Medical doctor by background;
Undegrad in India MBBS: 3.92/4.0 - Gold Medallist
Started career as a medical resident in oncology in Apollo Hospitals in India for 6 months prior to pursuing a research masters in regenerative medicine.
MSc in University College London - Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine GPA 3.8/4.0
Worked as a research assistant in UCL School of Pharmacy to creating a novel antibiotic for treatment - the antibiotic is currently in phase 2 trials. However, I am no longer involved in this.
During the same master's program, co-founded a spin-off for manufacturing nover urinary catheters and was accepted in a accelerator program. The company is continued by Kings College Medical Students while i remain in a medical consulting role.
Further to this, I was awarded a medical fellowship by the University Hospital Southampton Trust to rotate across Emergency Medicine, Cardiolody, Respiratory Medicine and Acute Medicine. Was working in the emergency department in UK when COVID hit. Was a member of the COVID emergency relief team and part of the team to establish guidelines for COVID triage guidelines for the west of England which was later adopted by other hospitals in the surrounding region.
During the same period, passed exams and interviews and gained internal medicine resident (ranked in the top 5% among 3500 candidates) at the University of Cambridge, Addenbrookes Hospitals. As part of the program, I worked across as Palliative Care, Acute Medicine, Respiratort Medicine and Transplant Medicine while treating COVID patients during COVID shifts.

The turmoil during the pandemic and my out-of-medicine experiences always drove me to pursue something regarding management to create an impact at scale. So, I have taken a year off from my residency program from Aug 2021 take a break from the hectic schedule and am preparing for GRE at the moment. My mock scores range from 315 to 322 currently and I have 22 days left for the exam.

Meanwhile, I am wokring as an engagement manager at Impact Consulting and have completed marketting strategy and consulting for a medical devices company.

Given my atypical background and non-existent quantitative math for the last 10 years since I began to pursure medicine, is there a good chance to get admitted in Columbia.

Total work experience: 4 years and 6 months. If I were to include my role at Impact Consulting, it would be a year.

Can anybody help with the feedback on my profile for Columbia?

Engineer Indian

10th: 73% (Indian Percentage)

12th : Na

Diploma: 58% (3 yr Diploma after 10th class

Engineering CGPA : 6.94 (Through lateral entry in second year)

GMAT : 650 (expected, yet to take)

Work Ex: 7 years

Firm A (MNC): 2014-2017 with 1 promotion Production and maintenance executive

Firm B (MNC): 2017-2018 Process Improvement Executive

Firm C (Healthcare) : 2018-2020 Operations Improvement Lead

Firm D (Healthcare) : 2020 till present, Operations Improvement Manager

Cetified Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt

Posted from my mobile device

The average GMAT score of CBS students is 729, with 80% of students falling between 700 and 760. Additionally, you are an ORM in a highly competitive demographic. The mean GMAT score of Indian applicants to London Business School in 2020, for example, was 706; 16 points higher than white applicants. Anecdotally, looking through clearadmit's livewire I was only able to find 4 examples of Columbia acceptances below 650 and they were all from over 3 years ago.

GMAT is obviously not the only factor, but many would argue it is the most important single data point, and even with outstanding work experience, GPA, extracurriculars, and essays, such a large deficit in that particular area is likely going to be hard to overcome.

I am just an admit--not a former adcom or admissions consultant so not an expert--but just looking at the data and judging from personal experience I think it's a hard sell. Nothing is impossible, but Columbia in particular is probably a very big stretch target for you. If you can increase your GMAT and apply as soon as possible during Early Decision, your chances may increase substantially.

Hi everyone,

I know this is a longshot so I'm probably not end up applying due to my low GMAT score (I understand that 720+ GMAT would have been ideal) but wanted to get experts' thoughts on my profile.

To be honest, I feel like my profile is just a standard, cookie-cutter for my demographic pool, which is somewhat overrepresented, and I don't have any compelling life changing stories like I'm a North Korean refugee or etc to make my application competitive enough for admission. Although I'm curious as an international applicant if my U.S. based work experience and CPA license is any booster, if at all.

Any feedback would be appreciated!

Background and nationality: Asian male, Korean, 31 yrs old
Undergrad Information: Top 15 public school in the U.S., GPA 3.6/4.0. I do hold both undergrad and masters degree in accounting.
GMAT: 690 (V38, Q48)
Work experience and leadership: Big 4 Audit (2 years in the U.S.), Fintech (1 year in SF), currently wrapping up 2 years in Big 4 transaction advisory in Asia office so total of 5 years of WE. Also I do have a California CPA license for what it's worth
Community and others: Nothing really notable imo
Post MBA goals: Investment banking or Corp dev

Hello everyone, would really appreciate to review my profile for admission at CBS J Term MBA 2024/25

I'm a 23 yr old Indian male currently working as a partner for my family's business which is a manufacturing industry of small scale with roughly 50 employees.
Undergrad - Mechanical Engineering with 3.2 GPA from a reputable university in India.
EC - Not much extracurricular except being part of the Photography Club of College, also had been to an educational trip to NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida when I was in high school. We had a small competition to make a small robot and our team came runner-up.
Work Experience - As of now I'm reaching 18 months working for the business. When I joined the company was at loss and now for this financial year we have achieved around $1 million in revenue, up from $400 thousand the previous year. I really feel I have helped in the improvement of the company's functioning and adding more client base.
I took up Mechanical Engineering in undergrad thinking it would help in the growth of the business since it's a company belonging to manufacturing sector. But now I know that for growth and expansion I need more knowledge on management and marketing fundamentals. I really believe doing a course which helps me understand the fundamentals of business like finance, marketing, supply chain, strategy would help me in the future growth of the business. I have very good business relationship with our clients which are international companies.
Post MBA Goals - Return back to family business for future growth and expansion.
GMAT - I'm yet to take a GMAT/GRE but would be aiming anywhere around 720-750.

Do you guys think an MBA is a good option? What are my chances at getting admits in a good university?
My preference would be in North America/UK/Europe.
I have read about Columbia's J Term which specializes for students who want to get back to their family business/ start their own venture, but I don't fancy my chances at M7/T15 universities.
Any input/suggestions would be welcomed and much appreciated.

Hi All!

Can you please review my profile?

Thank you very much!

Background and nationality: Hungarian, male, 27 years old by the time I apply.

Undergrad Information: Law degree from a Hungarian university, GPA: 4,61/5 with a summa cum laude distinction, top 15% of the class. I have received national excellence scholarships (these scholarships are given to students who have particularly high GPAs and performed certain extracurricular activities) for three semesters and national merit scholarships for all other semesters from the Hungarian Ministry of Justice and have received a Dean’s Award as well.


GMAT: aiming for 760-770

Work experience and leadership: by the time I apply I’ll have more than three years of experience working as a transactional lawyer on real estate and m&a deals at leading international law firms in Budapest, including 200-400 million EUR cross-border deals, not much leadership experience as I’m still considered a quite junior associate in the legal environment, however I have regularly coordinated different sub-tasks of a larger matter, where I had to lead and coordinate the work of my colleagues who are even more junior than me.

Community and others: now this is definetely one of my weakest points, I do not have much community experience apart from being part of a college for advanced studies during my years at university, I also have won and placed well on a couple of national competitions and participated in an international competition as well and had several internships during uni as extracurricular activities.

Post MBA goals:
Short term: switch my carrier to investment banking, as I’m definetly more interested in the finance/business side of deals than the legal side
Long term: build on my experience gained as a transactional lawyer and an investment banker and establish an m&a/transactional advisory firm in Hungary

International experience: I have studied a semester abroad as an Erasmus student, but no significant international work experience

Hi robert97,

Thanks for sharing your profile. On the surface, your profile looks pretty good for Columbia, and I do see good glimpses of leadership and intellect in your profile. Your work experience seems good too. In addition to academic performance and solid GMAT scores, Columbia wants to see ambitious career aspirations and backgrounds. You stand a fair chance to make it to Columbia as long as you highlight the following in your application:

1. How Columbia is unique in helping you achieve your goals
2. Your career path, especially short term goals, should be very clear
3. A person beyond work

Keep the factors listed above in mind while you prepare your application. Regarding your community experiences, you can also discuss your accomplishments and hobbies. You have not been a part of any NGO or community group; explore more to discover your true interests and what you do as stress relief and something outside of work. Your post-MBA goals make sense, but they must be supported by a coherent narrative that effectively relates to your motives for pursuing an MBA. While addressing your post-MBA goals essay, you must bring a personality to your application and demonstrate your passion for achieving your professional goals after your MBA. Overall, you have a good profile, and with a strong GMAT score, you have a decent shot at Columbia and other top business schools. What matters most in your application is connecting the dots and creating a compelling narrative. If you’d like, we are happy to hop on a call with you sometime this week to discuss your profile in length and further chances to b-schools. Feel free to book a free session with us as per your convenience.

Cheers!
Neha Hadke
Profile Analyst & Channel Manager, MBA and Beyond
Testimonials
Email: neha@mbaandbeyond.com

Hello robert97,

Hope this finds you well.

You have a decent overall profile for Columbia but achieving the target GMAT score is going to be crucial to spike up your application in the absence of any major extra-curricular engagements.

What is going to be most crucial is how well you put forth your story and career goals such that the narrative looks consolidating.

Should you need help with this, please feel free to reach out.

All the best!

Hi everyone! Was hoping I could get a rough evaluation of my profile.

Male, 22, American
University of Southern California - Majored in Econ & Intl. Relations (GPA 3.75)
Magna Cum Laude, Presidential Scholar

GRE Score - 337 (169V, 168Q, 6AWA)

Work experience - (about 2 years total)
Biz Dev Representative a growing technology startup (1 year)
- Will be promoted to Account-Based Marketing Manager in March
- Reshaped the messaging process, was appointed to lead sales pipeline messaging operations
- On team of 7, I'm responsible for 60% of enterprise partnership opportunities

Campaign Director (2 mo.)
- Led a field campaign office in AZ for the 2020 Presidential & Senate elections
- Flipped the state blue in both races and led office to have the highest rate of voters reached per canvasser nationwide

Associate @ Public Affairs Firm (8 months)
- Drafted congressional testimony, landed placed media @ outlets
- Required research skills & project management in a high-volume, fast-turnaround workplace

Internships -
- A Middle Eastern Government
- Two national news channels (think CNN/NBC/ABC/CBS)
- Lead intern at the office of a CA Senator (who has now taken a more prominent role in US politics)

Volunteering Work - political organizing with local orgs + waterway clean-up projects

Quirks:
- Graduated both high school and college early
- Gay, Arab-American, from the South

I'm an avid writer and have very strong essays focusing on my desire to shepherd business into an era defined by increasing environmental responsibilities and a focus on serving communities at the margins of society. It makes a little more sense in context, because I'm interested in leveraging technology to enable social enterprise. I'm mostly concerned about my work experience, as it's limited and not overwhelmingly quant-oriented.

Hi blackyuzu,

First of all, congrats on getting a 337 GRE score! That’s quite exceptional. In addition to that, you also have quite a high GPA of 3.75. So in terms of GRE & GPA, you are definitely a valid candidate for all the top US business schools. Coming down to your work experience, yeah, it’s less than usual, but still, you have a promotion ahead of you. Moreover, you also have a diversity in your work experience, from working as an intern in famed news channels, a marketing manager to Lead intern at the office of a CA Senator, and as a campaign director. In addition, you have already mentioned that you are a writer and have strong ideas regarding your post-MBA goals, so that’s something that will definitely help you down the road!

Also, your intention and selfless nature are pretty clear since you are determined to undertake environmental responsibilities and focus on serving communities at the margins of society. Moreover, you have also done some volunteering work, and your profile suggests that you sure have great leadership skills boosting your overall profile.

At last, I would say that you have a great profile, and if you think you have command over your essays, then surely you have the upper hand.

However, I would also like to mention that apart from your profile & essays, your LORs and interview process plays a big role in ensuring your selection. Hence, it would be better to focus on these two aspects as well.

Overall, you do have a chance at Columbia. I would suggest applying with at least 3 years of work experience. Also, since you belong to the LGBTQ community, this article would surely help you a lot in understanding the different aspects of MBA with regards to the LGBTQ Community. If you need any professional help with your profile, we are happy to hop on a call with you sometime this week to discuss your profile. Feel free to book a free session with us as per your convenience.

How to Ace Deferred MBA Applications

Cheers!
Neha Hadke
Profile Analyst & Channel Manager, MBA and Beyond
Testimonials
Email: neha@mbaandbeyond.com

Hello,

I'm planning to apply for J-term MBA this year (2022), hoping to enter CBS in Jan. 2023

Could anyone please review my profiles!

Background and nationality: Man / 30 years old / Asia

Undergrad Information: Carnegie Mellon Univ. / Major: Economics / GPA: 3.66

GMAT: 700 (Q: 48 / V: 38)

Work experience and leadership:
- Total 3.2 years in Consulting in Asia
i) Healthcare Consulting for 1 year
ii) General Consulting(not MBB, but Tier 2) focused on Healthcare practice for 2.2 years.
- Few club leaderships at Carnegie Mellon Univ.

Community and others:
- Would like to join CBS consulting club and CBS Health Care Industry Association to share my knowledge and real experience on healthcare projects in Asia (ranging from Vietnam, Korea, to Japan)

Post MBA goals: Will be sponsored.
- Short-term goal: Hoping to transfer to or at least do part-time internship at NY office to work with various healthcare companies such as Pfizer HQ, Johnson & Johnson HQ that are located in NY and NJ
- Long-term goal: Become a head partners for Healthcare practice in Asia Pacific

Anything else?
- Will be married by Jan. 2023 and my spouse would like to run a flower shop in NYC, and if possible would like to run flower classes at CBS.
- Will have a strong recommendation letter from a CBS MBA J-term Alumni

Thank you for this great opportunity!


Background and nationality: Thai-Chinese Female

Undergrad Information: Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), 3.76 GPA in Architecture, BArch (ranked 2nd in class)

GMAT: 690 - 50Q | 34V | IR8 | AWA6 (will retake GMAT exam this month, targeting 700+)

Work experience and leadership: Total 5 years work experience in Bangkok, Thailand: 1 year in an Architect firm as an architect, 3 years in CBRE (real estate company) as a real estate market researcher and consultant, and currently co-managing my own family business with my sister (a residential development company: 20 employees and 100+ construction workers)

Community and others: A faculty annual stage play during college (President), Rural area development program (Volunteer), Teaching architectural drawing for high-school students during college for 3 years, and now trying to initiate educational activities for construction workers' children on site (multiracial kids).

Post MBA goals:
Short-term goal - reorganize and remodel the current family business (aiming for sustainable growth and management)
Long-term goal - establish an educational foundation for children in need (regardless of ethnicity)

Anything else? Considering to apply for J-term


Looking forward to any suggestion and thank you in advance