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May 0408:30 AM PDT
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A low GMAT score does not automatically end your MBA admission chances. Every year, top business schools admit candidates whose GMAT scores fall below the class average — not because the score doesn’t matter, but because the rest of the application....
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In this live 60-minute masterclass, How to Get Ahead of MBA Recruiting Now, we’ll walk through the four biggest mistakes incoming MBAs make and how to avoid them so you’re not scrambling to catch up once recruiting begins.
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Sia Admissions Founder Susan Berishaj is covering this live on YouTube, May 7: how admissions committees actually evaluate goals statements, who is in the room, and why the goals statement most applicants submit wouldn't survive that conversation.- May 08
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14 Jun 2010, 15:17
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi Paul - I would greatly appreciate a profile evaluation when you have a minute; I am applying for Fall 2011. Thanks!
GMAT: 710 first try (43 quant, 45 verbal, 5 AWA) - will likely re-take due to low quant score (thoughts?)
GPA: 3.1 B.S. Business Administration from top 25 private school (2 years) / 3.6 from public state university (2 years - transferred after sophomore year to the private school) / 3.3 cumulative GPA for the 2 schools and 4 years
Gender: F
Ethnicity: Asian
Work Experience: 3 years as an investment banking analyst (1 year at a boutique firm, 2 years at a top-ranked firm) / 6 months unemployed (during financial crisis) / 6 months as an investment intern at a $2B hedge fund (current role - do you recommend waiting to apply when I'm in a full-time role again?)
Extracurricular: post-undergrad volunteer work providing career mentoring and interview training to economically-disadvantaged women from domestic abuse shelters and incarceration
Target school: Columbia
Reach target schools: HBS, Wharton, Stanford (are these too unrealistic?)
Bottom target schools: NYU, UCLA
GMAT: 710 first try (43 quant, 45 verbal, 5 AWA) - will likely re-take due to low quant score (thoughts?)
GPA: 3.1 B.S. Business Administration from top 25 private school (2 years) / 3.6 from public state university (2 years - transferred after sophomore year to the private school) / 3.3 cumulative GPA for the 2 schools and 4 years
Gender: F
Ethnicity: Asian
Work Experience: 3 years as an investment banking analyst (1 year at a boutique firm, 2 years at a top-ranked firm) / 6 months unemployed (during financial crisis) / 6 months as an investment intern at a $2B hedge fund (current role - do you recommend waiting to apply when I'm in a full-time role again?)
Extracurricular: post-undergrad volunteer work providing career mentoring and interview training to economically-disadvantaged women from domestic abuse shelters and incarceration
Target school: Columbia
Reach target schools: HBS, Wharton, Stanford (are these too unrealistic?)
Bottom target schools: NYU, UCLA
17 Jun 2010, 14:09
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi ritw:
the first thing you are going to have to realize is that it is hard for me to form a complete analysis without any mention of your short and longer-term goals upon graduation from an MBA program. Why this is critically important to my analysis is that it tells me not only the direction that you are headed but if the programs you are picking are appropriate for that goal. So the fact you ask me to evaluate your chances but in evaluating the chances do not have a clear idea of how well the schools you listed will figure goals.
So let's do a little soul-searching. Do you want to remain in the investment banking industry? Do you want to transition towards a little something philanthropic? In order to coherently vet through this I would point to your extracurricular activities for inspiration; in addition to your investment banking experiences as an analyst.
Why did you volunteer for this career mentoring initiative? What in your personal background, and perhaps professional background, inspired you to do this? What were the effects that your community, family or external environment have on you? Can you draw a direct line from how these more personal influences directed you to volunteer for this activity? Now let's look at your professional experience and see how well the skills utilize at work mash with your extracurricular activities and hopefully passions. Was there perhaps something at work that inspired you to this? Was there something at work that resonated with you both on a professional and personal level that implored you to do this? Asking these types of insightful questions at the beginning of forming a logically following and realistic set of short and long-term goals. What I say logically following and realistic, I mean that they will make sense to an admissions committee. I mean that the admissions committee will view them as goals that you are both committed to but also goals that you will be able to execute on upon graduation in order to find a job.
Getting back to some of your original questions, I do not believe based on the preliminary information that you provided me that you will be competitive at HBS, Wharton, and Stanford. Your undergraduate GPA is simply too low. You want to be around .25 points within the average GPA. You also want to be around 25 points of the average GMAT score for those schools. While you were close on GMAT, you are simply too far away from the mean with respect to GPA. I have a few questions. Have you taken any classes in the MBA core courses at a local community college? If you have any type of professional certification that would attest to your intellectual horsepower or academic prowess? This would serve to move your GPA up slightly in the eyes of the admissions committee. However, when you couple your academic performance with your lower quantitative portion of the GMAT, this is going to raise red flags with the admissions committee. So as you pointed out correctly I would encourage you to take the GMAT again.
Another point want to bring up regarding GPA are the circumstances in which this GPA was obtained. Why did you switch schools? Did you switch majors? Did you have to work full-time while you are obtaining your undergraduate degree? Read the first in your family to go to school? All these factors serve to provide context around your undergraduate experience. So in your essays if you're trying make the case that your undergraduate experience was not representative of your intellectual ability, you need to provide a holistic context in which this GPA was obtained and why you may have made any zigs your zags in changing academic course.
So if you want a very binary and certain answer, I would say that you are definitely more competitive at NYU and UCLA. But I encourage you again to check the US news. I know that UCLA, for example, actually has a high GMAT and GPA mean. So while they may be more forgiving, given their ranking, they might not be as forgiving as you would like to believe.
Regardless, if you provide me more context around your short and longer term goals, I can provide you a more actionable answer.
Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti
the first thing you are going to have to realize is that it is hard for me to form a complete analysis without any mention of your short and longer-term goals upon graduation from an MBA program. Why this is critically important to my analysis is that it tells me not only the direction that you are headed but if the programs you are picking are appropriate for that goal. So the fact you ask me to evaluate your chances but in evaluating the chances do not have a clear idea of how well the schools you listed will figure goals.
So let's do a little soul-searching. Do you want to remain in the investment banking industry? Do you want to transition towards a little something philanthropic? In order to coherently vet through this I would point to your extracurricular activities for inspiration; in addition to your investment banking experiences as an analyst.
Why did you volunteer for this career mentoring initiative? What in your personal background, and perhaps professional background, inspired you to do this? What were the effects that your community, family or external environment have on you? Can you draw a direct line from how these more personal influences directed you to volunteer for this activity? Now let's look at your professional experience and see how well the skills utilize at work mash with your extracurricular activities and hopefully passions. Was there perhaps something at work that inspired you to this? Was there something at work that resonated with you both on a professional and personal level that implored you to do this? Asking these types of insightful questions at the beginning of forming a logically following and realistic set of short and long-term goals. What I say logically following and realistic, I mean that they will make sense to an admissions committee. I mean that the admissions committee will view them as goals that you are both committed to but also goals that you will be able to execute on upon graduation in order to find a job.
Getting back to some of your original questions, I do not believe based on the preliminary information that you provided me that you will be competitive at HBS, Wharton, and Stanford. Your undergraduate GPA is simply too low. You want to be around .25 points within the average GPA. You also want to be around 25 points of the average GMAT score for those schools. While you were close on GMAT, you are simply too far away from the mean with respect to GPA. I have a few questions. Have you taken any classes in the MBA core courses at a local community college? If you have any type of professional certification that would attest to your intellectual horsepower or academic prowess? This would serve to move your GPA up slightly in the eyes of the admissions committee. However, when you couple your academic performance with your lower quantitative portion of the GMAT, this is going to raise red flags with the admissions committee. So as you pointed out correctly I would encourage you to take the GMAT again.
Another point want to bring up regarding GPA are the circumstances in which this GPA was obtained. Why did you switch schools? Did you switch majors? Did you have to work full-time while you are obtaining your undergraduate degree? Read the first in your family to go to school? All these factors serve to provide context around your undergraduate experience. So in your essays if you're trying make the case that your undergraduate experience was not representative of your intellectual ability, you need to provide a holistic context in which this GPA was obtained and why you may have made any zigs your zags in changing academic course.
So if you want a very binary and certain answer, I would say that you are definitely more competitive at NYU and UCLA. But I encourage you again to check the US news. I know that UCLA, for example, actually has a high GMAT and GPA mean. So while they may be more forgiving, given their ranking, they might not be as forgiving as you would like to believe.
Regardless, if you provide me more context around your short and longer term goals, I can provide you a more actionable answer.
Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti
ritw
