Boston44
Target Schools: Kellogg, Tuck, Fuqua, Kenan-Flagler
Stats:
• Personal: 26 year old, Caucasian, Male
• GMAT: 760 - 49Q/46V/8IR/6 AWA
• Education: Bachelors Degree in Marketing from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst. 3.6 GPA.
Work Experience:
• 3 years of work for a (very) small medical software company. We are technically a subsidiary of a larger, more well-known nonprofit organization, but are our own for-profit company, and have some reputable hospitals as clients. I was the third full-time employee hired by the company, and I have since been involved in many aspects. I have handled primarily Account Management and Product Management, with other contributions in sales, marketing, training, pricing strategy, development, etc. I work side by side with the CEO and can show a clear link between my ideas and contributions and the end product that is used by hospital staff and patients alike. I can show progression of responsibilities. These are the areas I plan to accentuate, but in competing for open positions against candidates with backgrounds are larger, well-known firms and feeder companies, I'd really like some feedback on making the most of my experiences at a small company for my application. Unfortunately I do not directly manage anyone, but I do coordinate several projects with multiple different teams.
• Prior to my current job, I worked in the hospitality industry, serving as a front office manager in college and in Digital Marketing after graduation. These were great experiences for me personally, but probably won't come into play much in my application, except to maybe touch upon early management experience.
Extracurricular:
In college (4 years ago) I served as President of a 70-man fraternity, and was actively involved in causes working with and helping people with disabilities, including Best Buddies. More recently, I've been working with Junior Achievement to teach personal finance and career skills to public school students, and am a member of a local Jaycees (Junior Chamber) organization, but will only have been involved there for about six months at the time of my application.
MBA Goals:
• Short-Term Goal – Return to the health care industry in a strategy or product management role for a company that creates systems to improve the quality of care received by patients.
• Long-Term Goal – Either starting my own company, or serving as a C-Level executive for a company that identifies gaps in health care delivery and inefficiencies in clinical settings, and creates products or systems to improve upon these weaknesses.
My story:
Came out of college, wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Worked in hospitality for a while, in all different roles. Moved across the US on a whim, found a job with this medical software company, fell in love with what I was doing, and now want to continue in that field on a larger scale. After seeing how much one small company with a handful of people could do, I'm excited to push myself up to the next level (with the help of an MBA) and do more of it.
I'm looking to find out how I can stand out against people from larger companies, what other US schools might be fits for this profile, and whether or not it's even worth applying to M7 programs or whether I should focus my efforts on the rest of the top 20. Thanks for any feedback you can offer!
Hey man!
Great to hear from you.
So let's jump in and give you the quick rundown. Basically: with the GMAT you have and an amazing and passionate (and realistic
) dream such as you have you can go far. Yes, your profile has weaknesses (GPA and work experience, notably) but I feel like there is no reason for you not to apply to some M7 schools that fit your dreams (schools with strong healthcare programs, i.e. Wharton, Kellogg, Duke, Ross, Haas jump to mind). That doesn't mean that you should ONLY apply to M7, which would be a mite risky, especially given your GPA (average is like 3.6 at all M7s).
But your profile is such that I feel you can get in based on your story (and good that you have the volunteer work and fraternity leadership in your past). What I would advise is for you to come up with a relatively ambitious yet tough R1 strategy with a backup plan for R2.
So something like 6 schools in R1, 4 in M7 and then 2 in top20. And then you can adjust for R2 based on whether you are getting results or not.
But basically you're off to a good start. If you want us to dig in deep into your profile, drop a line here:
https://admissionado.com/free-consultati ... n=mba_blogBest,
Jon Frank