anirudh316 wrote:
Hello,
I have short-listed to the following schools:
Wharton Georgetown Rutgers
NYU Penn State Smeal Baruch
Harvard Boston University Temple
MIT Boston College Drexel
Yale
Tepper
Columbia
Princeton (MS in Finance)
Cornell (1 Year program)
How many should I apply to and how do I choose amongst these. I have already applied to Wharton, am applying to BU, and am definitely applying to NYU.
Thanks a lot!!
You should apply to programs that you feel confident will help you in your career (start by reviewing the Employment Reports to see that their industry recruiting is strong and then speak to other students/recent graduates who have similar backgrounds to your own to hear from them how difficult their job search was). Once you are confident that a program will help you get where you want to go, you must determine whether they will view you as an acceptable applicant. Your GMAT score should be within their 80% range of scores (meaning that 80% of their accepted students had GMATs within that range), and your GPA should be close to or exceed their average. You also need to be around the average age range of their students in most cases to prove that you will fit into their class and be a recruitable target (ie., someone that the recruiters on campus will be interested in) after graduation.
These are generic guidelines, so obviously there are exceptions: there are always going to be some exceptional people with lower GMATs or GPAs and are slightly older or younger than the average.
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