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12 Oct 2015, 18:48
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi,
I think it's awesome that you guys help all of us out with this. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Gender: Male; Age: 27
GMAT: 730 (V41/Q48)
GPA: 2.95 BSBA w/ accounting concentration (top regional school)
Certification: CPA
Work: total 5+ years of experience. 1 year in private and 4+ years in public accounting. Currently at a large regional firm (think BDO, McGladrey, Grant Thornton).
Job description: Auditing focusing in nonprofits, but more recently have experience in health care and biotech - including SEC companies.
Essays/Recommendations: Recs will be pretty strong and I realize my essays need to be very well thought out and strong given some other areas in my profile.
GPA: my GPA is obviously below where I would like it to be, but I think I do have a decent story to back it up. I was recruited by play a sport, but over the summer there were coaching changes and changes to the athletic program in general - basically the school went D1 and I wasn't good enough to play a D1 sport. This led to my academic struggles freshman year since I was pretty upset about that. Then during my junior year, a family member passed away. My GPA was trending upwards and was recognized by the school through a commencement award.
Extracurriculars: My volunteer experience is pretty normal - charity runs/bike rides, some work in college, and various volunteer work at charity events. I'm involved in reciting for my company from my alma mater and a few clubs at work. Studied abroad and had an internship abroad with a major broadcasting company. Can speak very basic French.
Post MBA plans: I want keep working in the philanthropic arena, but not in an accounting role. Jobs in social responsibility consulting, impact investing, sustainability, or corporate responsibility are most attractive to me.
I am currently planning on applying R2 this year, but my thoughts are that it will be a stretch to get into any of these schools this year. My original plan was to spend the next year gaining more volunteer experience, building an alternative transcript, working abroad for a few months next summer, and hopefully getting another promotion, but then I got my GMAT score and figured I would give it a shot this year and reapply next year if it doesn't work out.
Target Schools: Dartmouth, Michigan, Duke, Cornell, UNC
Any suggestions or thoughts would be much appreciated, thank you!!
I think it's awesome that you guys help all of us out with this. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Gender: Male; Age: 27
GMAT: 730 (V41/Q48)
GPA: 2.95 BSBA w/ accounting concentration (top regional school)
Certification: CPA
Work: total 5+ years of experience. 1 year in private and 4+ years in public accounting. Currently at a large regional firm (think BDO, McGladrey, Grant Thornton).
Job description: Auditing focusing in nonprofits, but more recently have experience in health care and biotech - including SEC companies.
Essays/Recommendations: Recs will be pretty strong and I realize my essays need to be very well thought out and strong given some other areas in my profile.
GPA: my GPA is obviously below where I would like it to be, but I think I do have a decent story to back it up. I was recruited by play a sport, but over the summer there were coaching changes and changes to the athletic program in general - basically the school went D1 and I wasn't good enough to play a D1 sport. This led to my academic struggles freshman year since I was pretty upset about that. Then during my junior year, a family member passed away. My GPA was trending upwards and was recognized by the school through a commencement award.
Extracurriculars: My volunteer experience is pretty normal - charity runs/bike rides, some work in college, and various volunteer work at charity events. I'm involved in reciting for my company from my alma mater and a few clubs at work. Studied abroad and had an internship abroad with a major broadcasting company. Can speak very basic French.
Post MBA plans: I want keep working in the philanthropic arena, but not in an accounting role. Jobs in social responsibility consulting, impact investing, sustainability, or corporate responsibility are most attractive to me.
I am currently planning on applying R2 this year, but my thoughts are that it will be a stretch to get into any of these schools this year. My original plan was to spend the next year gaining more volunteer experience, building an alternative transcript, working abroad for a few months next summer, and hopefully getting another promotion, but then I got my GMAT score and figured I would give it a shot this year and reapply next year if it doesn't work out.
Target Schools: Dartmouth, Michigan, Duke, Cornell, UNC
Any suggestions or thoughts would be much appreciated, thank you!!
13 Oct 2015, 08:56
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi!
Congrats on your GMAT score - that's great! And it will certainly serve as a nice counterpoint to your GPA. I do think some additional coursework would really help, though obviously not much time for that before R2, so I think your strategy to give it a shot this year and reapply next year if needed makes sense. Your essays and recs will definitely be very important. And you'll also want to write an Optional Essay about the GPA. Though you should try to make that essay more about positive indicators that you will do well in the MBA (GMAT, CPA, promotions, etc.) and less about making excuses for why your GPA fell. That's great that it was trending upwards.
Your work experience sounds really stong, sounds like you're progressing well and getting exposure to different industries. An international project would definitely help if you could swing that! Do make sure that you're doing your research on post-MBA career options and can articulate a clear point of view on how you will successfully make that transition. My sense is that there are not a ton of jobs in those fields (sustainability consulting, impact investing) so just be prepared to demonstrate any research you've done or steps you've taken to move towards those goals, and also how your accounting / audit experience will transfer.
That seems like a pretty good target list given your interests and given that you have a range of schools there. Some could be a stretch - probably Tuck, maybe Ross and Fuqua too (since Fuqua really values international experience). But UNC and Cornell provide a nice balance to those.
Good luck and keep us posted if we can help with anything else!
Congrats on your GMAT score - that's great! And it will certainly serve as a nice counterpoint to your GPA. I do think some additional coursework would really help, though obviously not much time for that before R2, so I think your strategy to give it a shot this year and reapply next year if needed makes sense. Your essays and recs will definitely be very important. And you'll also want to write an Optional Essay about the GPA. Though you should try to make that essay more about positive indicators that you will do well in the MBA (GMAT, CPA, promotions, etc.) and less about making excuses for why your GPA fell. That's great that it was trending upwards.
Your work experience sounds really stong, sounds like you're progressing well and getting exposure to different industries. An international project would definitely help if you could swing that! Do make sure that you're doing your research on post-MBA career options and can articulate a clear point of view on how you will successfully make that transition. My sense is that there are not a ton of jobs in those fields (sustainability consulting, impact investing) so just be prepared to demonstrate any research you've done or steps you've taken to move towards those goals, and also how your accounting / audit experience will transfer.
That seems like a pretty good target list given your interests and given that you have a range of schools there. Some could be a stretch - probably Tuck, maybe Ross and Fuqua too (since Fuqua really values international experience). But UNC and Cornell provide a nice balance to those.
Good luck and keep us posted if we can help with anything else!
13 Oct 2015, 10:12
Kudos
Bookmarks
mbaMissionKate
Wow - thank you for the insight, wasn't expecting that much. I know Tuck is a reach, but I really like both Michigan and Cornell. So knowing that one of those is in reach and the other possibly in reach is good to hear.
Right now it sounds like I need to hammer out my story and my reasons for getting an MBA. While studying, I definitely got tunnel vision - focusing mainly on getting a good score to just get in. I do know I eventually want to move into a role with a social/environmental focus, but before that I'm open to gaining experience though the more traditional career paths. Working for a large corporation or in consulting for a while would definitely give me strong experience, working capital, whatever you would like to refer to it as, and I think that is the first stop for me. Hopefully this will be more attractive to an ad com since it increases how employable I would be after graduating.
Another route I've been contemplating as I've gotten more experience in the industry, is working in biotech. There are a lot of overlaps between nonprofit work and biotech work - mainly that both are trying to improve the lives of other people. I've really enjoyed the work I've done so far in the industry and it's definitely a good industry to get into with a ton of potential. I think I could merge the two together actually.
Well - typing this has made me realize that step one right now is going to be to working on my profile/brand/why me.
Thank you!
