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29 Aug 2016, 18:11
Kudos
Bookmarks
Good evening!
Since this is my public name, I might as well be as honest as possible. I am a 28 year old American male who graduated Bowdoin College in 2011 (3.3 - Religion [modern Islam and Arabic], Philosophy). I teach political science at the University of North Dakota and manage multi-million dollar public private partnerships with a focus on drones, energy, and epigenetics. I also de facto acted as one of the bigger PR writers for the whole university system. Prior to this, I did political risk assessments for energy firms and acted as a research fellow in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan doing refugee work. I graduated Johns Hopkins SAIS (a well-known international economics school) with a 3.7 GPA focusing on econ and the Middle East. Prior to that, i was a political consultant focusing on the energy industry (.5 years) and, before that, i was a congressional intern (.5 years).
I have a 740 on the GMAT with 44 in Quant and 48 in Verbal with 8 IR and 6 AWA. My post-MBA goal is to work at MBB overseas with the goal of eventually working at or, in a fantasy world, starting my own international media firm. The Middle East is tragically under-analyzed and I believe there are a lot of opportunities on the table, but I don't currently have enough skills or a sufficiently robust network to think about undertaking that goal.
I speak Arabic and am from rural North Dakota and can do some occasionally hefty computer programming.
I volunteer to do interviews for Bowdoin College (last four years or so), perform Arabic exchanges with poorer immigrants/guest workers, and write on national/local political issues.
My target schools are:
Ross
Booth
Kellogg
Harvard
Wharton
I would love suggestions or, if applicable, dissuasions from certain schools. The application fees are not small and I'd like to not get my hopes up too far, given my quantitative deficits.
Thank you,
EsotericWaffles
Since this is my public name, I might as well be as honest as possible. I am a 28 year old American male who graduated Bowdoin College in 2011 (3.3 - Religion [modern Islam and Arabic], Philosophy). I teach political science at the University of North Dakota and manage multi-million dollar public private partnerships with a focus on drones, energy, and epigenetics. I also de facto acted as one of the bigger PR writers for the whole university system. Prior to this, I did political risk assessments for energy firms and acted as a research fellow in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan doing refugee work. I graduated Johns Hopkins SAIS (a well-known international economics school) with a 3.7 GPA focusing on econ and the Middle East. Prior to that, i was a political consultant focusing on the energy industry (.5 years) and, before that, i was a congressional intern (.5 years).
I have a 740 on the GMAT with 44 in Quant and 48 in Verbal with 8 IR and 6 AWA. My post-MBA goal is to work at MBB overseas with the goal of eventually working at or, in a fantasy world, starting my own international media firm. The Middle East is tragically under-analyzed and I believe there are a lot of opportunities on the table, but I don't currently have enough skills or a sufficiently robust network to think about undertaking that goal.
I speak Arabic and am from rural North Dakota and can do some occasionally hefty computer programming.
I volunteer to do interviews for Bowdoin College (last four years or so), perform Arabic exchanges with poorer immigrants/guest workers, and write on national/local political issues.
My target schools are:
Ross
Booth
Kellogg
Harvard
Wharton
I would love suggestions or, if applicable, dissuasions from certain schools. The application fees are not small and I'd like to not get my hopes up too far, given my quantitative deficits.
Thank you,
EsotericWaffles
Kudos:
0
30 Aug 2016, 12:50
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hey Waffles -
First of all, I love your profile. We work with plenty of ‘non-traditional’ applicants each year and they do very well, based on what you’ve shown me here there’s no reason to believe you can’t be competitive at the schools that you’ve listed. We wrote a piece a few months ago on non-traditionals and some of the typical pitfalls that you can check out here: https://www.vantagepointadmissions.com/s ... -Program-1.
Let’s review what you’ve given us and some potential flags -
Experience wise it seems like energy has been a consistent thread, but you’ve done a lot in the last ~6 years. Was SAIS part time or full time? If it was full time, this only further aggravates my concern. Your work experience is highly differentiated, and this is a strong advantage. What’s worrisome is that at least based on what you’ve listed below, you’ve bounced around a lot and have crammed a lot of experiences into a pretty short period of time. The 0.5 years of this and that is a further flag that you’re going to need to address. This is where you’re going to need to thread the needle and explain to the adcom how each position built off the last one, and I’m hoping that energy policy can provide the backbone of this.
On the academic front you’re ok. The 3.3 could be higher, but Bowdoin is a great school, and you had credible majors. The 3.7 from SAIS helps, but really the 740 is going to be a huge help for you. Looking back at Bowdoin, what grades did you have in quant classes? If they were weak/non-existent you should really look at doing some online or community classes in calc, accounting, finance as part of your application.
Your post MBA plans focusing on MBB make sense, especially with your international experience. A lot of applicants discuss wanting to go into consulting, but few focus on the international offices. For what it’s worth, from my own experience at Kellogg, the overseas offices are easier to recruit into. As you mentioned, many of these country offices don’t have the domestic or regional education programs to support their needs so they are heavily reliant on US and frankly mainly European programs. The fact that you speak Arabic already is a huge differentiater. Your goal of building out your own media company is going to take some more explaining.
Happy to chat further if you’d like. Feel free to drop me a line and we can set up a 30 minute consult.
First of all, I love your profile. We work with plenty of ‘non-traditional’ applicants each year and they do very well, based on what you’ve shown me here there’s no reason to believe you can’t be competitive at the schools that you’ve listed. We wrote a piece a few months ago on non-traditionals and some of the typical pitfalls that you can check out here: https://www.vantagepointadmissions.com/s ... -Program-1.
Let’s review what you’ve given us and some potential flags -
Experience wise it seems like energy has been a consistent thread, but you’ve done a lot in the last ~6 years. Was SAIS part time or full time? If it was full time, this only further aggravates my concern. Your work experience is highly differentiated, and this is a strong advantage. What’s worrisome is that at least based on what you’ve listed below, you’ve bounced around a lot and have crammed a lot of experiences into a pretty short period of time. The 0.5 years of this and that is a further flag that you’re going to need to address. This is where you’re going to need to thread the needle and explain to the adcom how each position built off the last one, and I’m hoping that energy policy can provide the backbone of this.
On the academic front you’re ok. The 3.3 could be higher, but Bowdoin is a great school, and you had credible majors. The 3.7 from SAIS helps, but really the 740 is going to be a huge help for you. Looking back at Bowdoin, what grades did you have in quant classes? If they were weak/non-existent you should really look at doing some online or community classes in calc, accounting, finance as part of your application.
Your post MBA plans focusing on MBB make sense, especially with your international experience. A lot of applicants discuss wanting to go into consulting, but few focus on the international offices. For what it’s worth, from my own experience at Kellogg, the overseas offices are easier to recruit into. As you mentioned, many of these country offices don’t have the domestic or regional education programs to support their needs so they are heavily reliant on US and frankly mainly European programs. The fact that you speak Arabic already is a huge differentiater. Your goal of building out your own media company is going to take some more explaining.
Happy to chat further if you’d like. Feel free to drop me a line and we can set up a 30 minute consult.
