Profile Evaluation

Question

1) 
Work Experience: 2 yrs
Current Employer: Bulge bracket bank
Position: Analyst, rotational program (5 positions to date)

2) Your GMAT.
700 (Preparing to retake again hopefully to get 730+)

3) College info: 
Lesser known State/City College
GPA: 3.5 in finance, have 5C+ and 3 W's, the C+s were due to getting the hang of basic finance classes, then picked up momentum and gained A's in the advanced classes, ended the last semester with a 3.9) the W's I retook them and gained an A.

4) Significant college and post-college extra-curricular activities or community service, especially leadership experience.

College:
VP of a finance club
Representative for a women's finance association
Mentor/volunteer for high school students

Post college:
In Americorps (tutoring young children)
Advocate (similar to a social worker for neglected and abused children ensuring they have a home)
Mentor for women's association (for High school and college students)
Part of a mentoring association specifically for at risk, inner city students

(and on the side trying collaborate with a fellow advocate to create a not for profit children's aid, mostly for at risk students to create their own business plans etc.)

6) Your target programs.
Am I competitive in any of these schools?

HBS
MIT
Booth
Kellogg
Tuck
Johnson
Columbia
Yale

I have visited these schools and loved HBS, MIT, Tuck, Johnson. And are there any other schools I should be looking at?

7) Your post-MBA goal.

Longer term goal is ultimately to create an investing community/company that helps creates capital for women social entrepreneurs as my main goal (a stretch but that's an ultimate goal)

Short term goals: to do IBD mostly in restructuring to help create the investing foundation, and subsequently to PE/investing firm.

bryantmichaels · Answer

You have a textbook definition background for b-school, in fact, in the "old-days" your track of high GMAT score, 2 year analyst at a marquee bank would have been exactly the right stuff to get you in the school of your choice. These days, it's gotten a lot more competitive, although you will still differentiate yourself as a woman with this background since most are men in this pool. Good news is, your post MBA vision is a good story for the adcoms considering your background. It's tough to say how you will do in the process for these target schools, but I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to get in one or more of them as long as you submit a compelling, error free application. Work on ways in which you can differentiate yourself from others with a similar background--remember, you will be up against folks with better academic credentials, so make sure you can answer the question why a slot should go to you vs. them. Generally, you will be compared directly to others from the banking industry, so you must be prepared to argue how you stand out from them.

bryantmichaels · Answer

One other thing I will add it that while the 2 year analyst-cum-bschool applicant route has been proven tried and true, the two years of experience has become less than the average amount of experience at top schools, so you may also want to be prepared to talk about the mileage and not just the age if you get my drift. In other words, speak to the intensity and quality of your experience in order to help counter balance the fact it has just been two years instead of four or five.

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