Second Master's degree, legit reasons?

Question

Dear GMAT club members:

I am planning to apply next year R1. Bit about my profile.    Currently in a 2 year Masters    (Masters in International Economics and Finance) program in Boston (Brandeis University).    Engineer by undergrad    from India.    In between these two degrees,  I worked for two years  at a F500 car manufacturing company   . My ultimate goal is to be Associate in BB Investment bank. I had planned to work my ass off at Brandeis to get there (knew that would an uphill task), and plan B was to apply again for top 5/10 MBA. For this specific reason I did not apply to MBA directly, as I had thought it would be difficult to get into Booth/Wharton directly & also costly (Brandeis is cheap). So last month I decided to stop my efforts to search BB IB job for this season and focus towards my MBA application. So when I start MBA in Fall 2016 I will be 5 years out of my undergrad with 3 years of experience. I am currently interning at an Asset Management firm and they have offered full time.

So my biggest hurdle would be to justify to ad-com the need for MBA now   . Direct line of attack is both are different degrees. I am trying to give it angle, that my choice of Brandeis MA was more for satisfying my academic curiosity of finance and economics. I did not get exposure to these subjects during engineering and the job. Now that I have broader understanding of businesses, I want to be the one adding value to businesses. Its very getting very tricky.

Can you guys/admission consultants suggest few spins to this story? Any thought is welcome.

angelfire213 · Answer

you want to go straight from you masters program into an MBA program? Am I understanding this correctly?

michaelmilken1989 · Answer

Thanks for your reply.

Nope, I will work for a year after this masters. I am interviewing for full time at few places. I already have oral offer from my current internship employer. I will graduate from my MA in May 2015 and I had graduated from my undergrad in 2011. I want to do MBA from Sep 2016 to May 2018.

Admissionado · Answer

With only one year of work, it's not likely that you will get into a worthwhile program. Better to wait till you have at least three years,

Best,
Jon

CriticalSquare · Answer

I agree with Jon - you're in a really tough spot. If you apply with just one year, you won't get into a program worth the money to get you into banking (which is a pedigree game). On the flip side, you're getting older too. But one year after a sporadic career path is going to be difficult to spin. After all, spin doesn't change the facts. You should probably target 2017 at the earliest.

michaelmilken1989 · Answer

Sorry for the confusion JonAdmissionado and CriticalSquare . I will have Total 3 years before I start my MBA. My Career path will be Undergrad -> 2 years Job -> Masters for 2 years -> 1 year job -> (intended) MBA I feel i should have worked in a start-up instead of doing current Masters. I just fear it should not ruin my MBA application :beat

. I would be 5 years out of my undergrad, and as CriticalSquare mentioned, I don't think I can afford to wait more to apply. And yes Investment banking would again be a challenge but I don't necessarily want to tie that to the application. I know everyone suggests to be truthful and write about the actual career passion, but I feel I would be better off writing about Investment Management/Value Investing (my current internship) as my career goal.

CriticalSquare · Answer

I still think you should wait at least another year. I know you had experience before your latest degree but it was completely unrelated. So when I referred to 1 year of experience, I meant relevant experience. You'd want a bit more traction in a relevant position before you apply!

BazingAu · Answer

I agree with  CriticalSquare  - the point of schools looking at postgrad experience is if they can garner management potential from the applicant. If you switched careers in between and are basically starting from the ground up, the prior experience is discounted heavily.

Second Master's degree, legit reasons?

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