Nonprofit?

I sort of consider my work experience also community work -- I mean, I made no money and worked with low-income people for 6 straight years, one of those years as an AmeriCorps*VISTA (think domestic peace corps). But I did other stuff too - founding member of the Ithaca Cooperative Softball League, spent two years as team captain and League Commissioner. Take Back the Night Treasurer. Board Member: Recycle Ithaca's Bicycles & Ithaca Health Alliance. On the steering committee of my trade association. Did foster dog care. Talked about all the work we did on our house in Ithaca. And was super-busy in college with this stuff, so some of that was included.

4. My unsolicited advice: don't worry about the black marks. You seem like a well-rounded person with a good package. Think about what your profile is, and how you want the adcoms to think of you. Socially Minded Finance Guy seems like a good label. Make sure your essays support that, or whatever other themes you have in mind.

Where did you apply?[/quote]

wow, you did a ton of community work. that's impressive. it seems that anyone writing about their NP aspirations better have a demonstrated history of NP sort of work (like you do) or they're going to be in trouble in the app process. i wonder if anyone ever tries to "game" the process by lying about wanting to go into NP -- i doubt that ever works. further, i wonder if the schools weight NP work differently. anyone in that space is less likely to have a highly defined career trajectory -- it's definitely not rigidly defined in the way that, say, banking is. therefore, it seems that "other" kinds of experience, like volunteering, etc. "should" be given more weight if it is relevant to one's future plans. when filling out my apps, though, i kind of felt like anything outside of work was considered less important. i wrote a lot about my values in my essays and cited specific examples of volunteer / NP stuff that i had done that was consistent with my values -- but it felt a little hodge-podgey.

i applied to:
Harvard
Wharton
Stanford
Chicago
Columbia

i probably should have applied to K as well, but just couldn't get excited about the school during my research.

since i have a different sort of background, i really have no idea what my chances are. i know that i would be relatively less competitive if i had applied under a straight finance slant (no pedigree, no BB IB experience, no uber stats, etc.). since my intended career is 50% NP / 50% finance, i wrote my essays to reflect that. hopefully the schools practice what they preach and form well defined classes of people who want to learn finance, instead of just filling the class with bankers. i guess we will see.

thanks for the advice / feedback.