MBA Admissions Consultant
Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 2457
Given Kudos: 2
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: Profile Evaluation
[#permalink]
01 Sep 2010, 17:01
You should focus on schools like Columbia, Booth, Sloan, Kellogg and Tuck - these are schools where you'd be competitive for. As for your GPA, it shouldn't be an issue for these schools especially since your GMAT is excellent. With these schools, it just comes down to putting together strong applications, and applying to 3-4 of them (so you at least give yourself a reasonable shot of getting into at least one of them). Schools like H/S/W are going to be stretches -- the GPA will be an issue, but there's not a whole lot you can do about it as it's in the past (you don't want to be spending huge chunks of space in the essays playing defense by addressing concerns and weaknesses when you're up against lots of candidates who will be focused solely on highlighting their strengths). In any case, if you really want to apply to H/S/W, shoot for maybe 1-2 of them (choose any), but focus on the other schools that I mentioned above.
And if mgmt consulting really is your goal, it won't really matter which school you go to within the top 8 anyhow, because so long as you're at any of these target schools, your chances of getting that consulting job come down to you, and not what school you go to.