Profile Evaluation

Question

Planing to apply fall 2010 and stats are as of fall 2011:
26M USA
GMAT: 740
4 yrs experience (2 yrs IB / 2 yrs PE)
3.5 UG GPA from top 12 National University (double major - finance/accounting)
UG EC activities: 2 years varsity sports, 2 years internship during school year and summer with significant responsbilities at investment mangenement firm. Average amount of other volunteer activities.
Current EC activities: 2 non-profit junior boards (not hugely involved), competitive basketball league, triathlons / half marathons, recreational softball/v-ball leagues

Chances of getting in if I only apply to top 5 or so schools?

soccertint · Answer

Hi PjcChi,

I think you have decent academics, sufficient experience and some good EC. With strong essays and good interview, your chances are pretty high. However, it also depends on which schools you plan to apply to and in which (deadline) rounds.

~SoccerTint

pjcChi · Answer

Round 1 or 2 only.

My goal is to apply to the appropriate number of schools in order to come as close as reasonably possible to ensuring acceptance somewhere while not diluting the quality of my applications by attempting too many or needlessly applying to lower quality schools. I also want to be aware of the number of recommendations I ask any one person to write to keep their quality of writing from dropping off. So what I am trying to arrive at is the number of applications I should submit along with the quality of the schools I should target. If I apply only to the 4 I mention below and add Columbia and Stanford how comfortable can I be with admittance into at least 1 school? Would I be better suited to apply to NYU or maybe Ross/Darden to increase my chance of acceptance or would my chances be high enough without having to include "safety" schools. I realize it's nearly impossible to accurately answer this given the subjective nature of admittance and the importance of essays. So to clarify, my work experience is middle market IB/PE and my EC are average at best. Great UG degree with decent grades.

Applying to: HBS, Booth, Wharton, Kellogg
Considering: Columbia, NYU, MIT, Berkley, Stanford, Ross, Darden

Open to others. Would like to apply to as few as possible.

AlexMBAApply · Answer

You have a solid profile -- although keep in mind that there's also a lot of IB/PE dudes like yourself applying with similar resumes. So it'll come down to how well you execute the applications, and luck (of course). Your chances are reasonable enough that it's worth at least shooting for the top 7 -- whether you want to go beyond that is really a matter of personal taste (whether you feel it's a "top-7 school or bust"). If you're looking to stay in something finance-related short-term, then it's probably wise to just focus on the top schools. If you're simply looking to get the hell out of finance (i.e. you're interested marketing, nonprofit, etc.) then you can probably look outside the top 7 as well.

You can keep your top 4, add whichever school from the other list, and you should have some shot of getting into at least one of them -- but again, it's hard to say how much more competitive it will be for finance dudes this upcoming year. This year has been pretty brutal - there's simply a lot more folks with IB/PE experience up to last year simply because the industry itself has seen a huge expansion from the 2000s onwards (which saw more funds, more headcount, etc.). Couple that with the fact that adcoms know that as a group, the IB/PE folks tend to focus on finance jobs post-MBA (no matter what the individual narratives are for each applicant, as a group the majority ends up in finance post-MBA - they just won't know which individuals) - and it's more of an uphill climb compared to a few years ago. In fact, while it's always been the case that folks from top tier consulting firms tend to have more success at getting into top b-schools compared to the finance crowd, it's probably even more so the case now.

pjcChi · Answer

Very helpful - thanks. How many recommendations is it reasonable to ask any one person to complete? I am leaning towards no more than 3 for any one person.

AlexMBAApply · Answer

Most people will use the same recommenders for all their school apps (roughly 5-6 schools). While the letters should be school specific, you'll notice that the short answer questions they ask are basically the same - but maybe in a different order, some questions are a combined version of two separate questions for another schools (i.e it's just a matter of cutting and pasting, and recombining different sections), and so forth.

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