SlumDog Engineer Profile Evaluation

Question

Hi everyone, I just wanted to introduce myself and get a profile evaluation at the same time.
I am planning on taking the GMAT in 2012, maybe again in 2013. Please let me know if my profile is strong enough for these schools? Thanks

Personal: 
Asian, Male, 25

Education: 
MS Financial Engineering 2013, GPA: 3.7, Not ranked
BS Computer Engineering 2009, GPA: 3.38, Regionally ranked

Work Experience:  
4 Years, Energy Engineering/Smart Grid for a Fortune 100 Company at application
A couple of months at a BB in their leadership program

Extracurriculars: 
Heavily involved with church,120 Hours/Year. Leader of 20+ inner city teenagers.

Chairman of professional society during undergrad, with over 200+ members. Made significant impact on school's engineering program and student's careers opportunities.

Target schools:  Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, NYU, UT Austin, Rice

Area of interest:  Consulting or the Energy sector

bakfed · Answer

I would say, yes, you have a shot. Of course, this depends heavily on your GMAT score. Because you'll be competing against a pool of applicants (engineers) whose GMAT scores are going to be a bit higher, you will really need to go kill that GMAT. As for your choices of schools, I'm a bit confused. You put the top 3 schools in the nation in, then two top new york b-schools, then all of a sudden you dropped to Austin and Rice. Was this done purposely? Here's what I would recommend:

H/S/W - pick just one (unless you're so gun-hoed about it, then go for it)
You can keep Columbia and NYU, but not sure why these two. These two are known for their very strong finance programs, especially the number of people that get placed into a finance role is extraordinary. If you truly want to be in New York for personal reason, I'd just pick one from the two. Then I'd put in a couple in the 8-15 range, such as tuck, ross, fuqua, and darden, all known very strongly for their consulting placement post-MBA. Then if you want, you can keep Austin and Rice on the list, though I still have some doubt about Rice.

SlumDogEngineer · Answer

Bakfed, thank you for the input. I must admit that I am still doing my research on schools and have not refined my choices as much as possible yet. If I do not get into a top tier school or any school that places students into an MBB consulting firm, then I would go to Austin or Rice for their Energy programs.

I am starting to prepare for the GMAT at the end of this year. My Financial Engineering studies are going to keep me busy until this August, but yes, my hope is to kill it by late 2012.

Here is what I found on the business week forum. HBS is missing which leads me to think that it is incorrect.

*Update, found this thread with a spreadsheet of schools that place into MBB, can't post links yet though....

Class of 2005: Full Time McKinsey Hires
1. Wharton - 57
2. Chicago, Kellogg - 38
4. Columbia - 27
5. Sloan - 24
6. Haas - 11
7. Duke, Tuck - 10
9. Darden - 9
10. Michigan - 8 
11. UCLA - 7
12. Yale SOM - 5
13. Cornell - 4

bakfed · Answer

Got your point on the consulting part.

Well, most schools published their employment report and while there isn't a conglomerate of the # of hires, the schools will tend to include them should the M/B/B consulting be high. With that said, Harvard places extremely well in the consulting field, though more students form HBS will go for a financial route. When you look at the # of hires, you also have to keep in mind each school's relative number of students, its location, and the # of students per that school who wish to enter consulting (this # is a harder to find). Unsurprisingly, HBS, Stanford, and Wharton will all place very well including M/B/B mainly because these firms will allot the most places for students from these three schools (this is a selective choice for obvious reasons). Kellogg is notorious in place students into M/B/B, especially McKinsey. Here's a little tipe to add to your research: it really matters little as to where you go for M/B/B/, as long as you attend one of the top 16 business schools. Why? Because as long as M/B/B recruits on campus, you will have a shot. Having said that, the higher the ranking of the school, the more potential students will go into M/B/B, and again, this is a selective thing from the firms. If you look at Tuck in your example, it places 10 into McKinsey already, not even including Bain and BCG's new hires. Tuck only has about 240 students, as oppose to Wharton's 800 students. Another thing you have to consider is the location of the school: Chicago Booth will be competing with Michigan Ross for its midwest location. Duke Fuqua and Virginia Darden will be competing more in the south (and D.C.). Columbia, NYU, Wharton will be competing for New York. Dartmouth Tuck, HBS, and Wharton will be competing for the northeast Boston-ish area. Berkeley Haas, Stanford, UCLA Anderson will be competing on the west coast. Looking at that, it makes more sense to attend a school where its location is where you want to be in post-MBA. It's not impossible for you to receive an offer from Los Angeles if you went to Michigan Ross, but it just makes your recruiting that much more difficult.

Again, these are just some points for you to ponder on. While you navigate the employment statistics, you also want to remain realitistic. If you went to Columbia, will you be able to handle the additional pressure because there will be a ton of people competing for M/B/B jobs as opposed to the Atlanta office? As hard as it is to get in Wharton, will you be able to convince the AdComs that you're a great candidate for its future class? Take it one step at a time. Everyone will pretty much tell you that it's hard enough to get in a top b-school. Try your absolutely best to get in a top business school and you will have an opportunity to go for your dream. Look at the employment numbers with some mild doubt because it doesn't show you the # of students of students in the class, nor does it talk about how many of those students actually wanted to enter consulting.

SlumDogEngineer · Answer

Awesome advice sir, will continue to excel at work and will work on the GMAT like my life depends on it. Any advice from other people is also greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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