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athensbulldogs
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Young Physician desiring MBA requesting advice 04 Jan 2018, 22:04
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Hello,

I was hoping for brutally honest insight if my experiences create a competitive MBA application.

My undergraduate degree is from a good public state university with a 3.80 GPA.

I got my MD from an American Medical School (public state). I am currently a physician who has completed 3 years of residency training in a surgical sub-speciality. However, I have had a change of heart and would like to pursue my MBA instead of a clinical career.

Will my M.D. and my 3 years of residency experience allow myself to be a competitive applicant compared to the traditional applicants who have 3 years of working experience in traditional "business" education and careers.

I'm midway in my study plan and taken one practice test with a score of a 700.

If my score is at that range or possibly higher if I can achieve more studying and some good luck during my test....do I have a shot at some of the traditional, competitive MBA programs?

Please advise and thank you for your comments in advance!
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Young Physician desiring MBA requesting advice 05 Jan 2018, 00:14
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athensbulldogs
Hello,

I was hoping for brutally honest insight if my experiences create a competitive MBA application.

My undergraduate degree is from a good public state university with a 3.80 GPA.

I got my MD from an American Medical School (public state). I am currently a physician who has completed 3 years of residency training in a surgical sub-speciality. However, I have had a change of heart and would like to pursue my MBA instead of a clinical career.

Will my M.D. and my 3 years of residency experience allow myself to be a competitive applicant compared to the traditional applicants who have 3 years of working experience in traditional "business" education and careers.

I'm midway in my study plan and taken one practice test with a score of a 700.

If my score is at that range or possibly higher if I can achieve more studying and some good luck during my test....do I have a shot at some of the traditional, competitive MBA programs?

Please advise and thank you for your comments in advance!
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You can be quite competitive as an applicant, PROVIDED:
1) Your GOAL is clear & feasible and
2) the MBA schools you apply to, have recruiters in your domain.

My sense is a few years of WE will help you prove your case better.

Feel free to connect for a deeper evaluation.
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Young Physician desiring MBA requesting advice 07 Jan 2018, 20:58
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You would want to have something related to medicine in your narrative. Like you need to have some type of value proposition to offer recruiters and so changing the industry and function all-in-one go would be a little ambitious. The school is really thinking about whether they can offload you at the end of the program. And that means that you will need to be an attractive candidate to some specific MBA recruiter and it's up to you to really consider what that would be ( you and your admissions consultant if you choose to go that direction) So I think that really positioning your candidacy strategically is going to be quite important and you will need to connect some dots. To contrast I once worked with a periodontist who wanted to become a hedge fund manager. She had nothing to offer them. Like nothing. So that would not work. She ended up going to Duke where there's a great deal of Health focus but we didn't do it with the hedge fund story. By the way I'm going to guess that you went to UG based on your screen name :-)

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Young Physician desiring MBA requesting advice 07 Jan 2018, 21:02
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To answer your question yes I think 700 is a tiny bit low these days for white male if that's you but I don't know. The more diverse you are the closer to 700 is okay, the less diverse you are the more competition there is and upward pressure on the GMAT to be more like in the 730+ range. If you're starting out with the score in the 700 I think that's doable.

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Young Physician desiring MBA requesting advice 11 Jan 2018, 08:07
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athensbulldogs
Hello,
Hi @Athensbulldogs, thanks for reaching out.
I was hoping for brutally honest insight if my experiences create a competitive MBA application.
Happy to provide a "no filter" on my thoughts on your profile- and I do so as a former adcom member who was part of making admissions decisions for over 15 yrs and also now coaching current applicants.
My undergraduate degree is from a good public state university with a 3.80 GPA.

I got my MD from an American Medical School (public state). I am currently a physician who has completed 3 years of residency training in a surgical sub-speciality. However, I have had a change of heart and would like to pursue my MBA instead of a clinical career.
I think this is a profile that will pique the interest of adcom as it always adds value to class discussions to have someone who was a direct health care provider and your surgical experience would likely be rather unique.
I think there's lots to work with here.
Will my M.D. and my 3 years of residency experience allow myself to be a competitive applicant compared to the traditional applicants who have 3 years of working experience in traditional "business" education and careers.
Your work will certainly be counted- but what you will have to show adcom is that you have some idea of where you want to go post MBA. Hospital administration? Pharma company- with role in running drug development?
consulting role with healthcare expertise? I encourage you now as part of your pre-MBA planning to familiarize yourself with the most common post MBA health related roles- and understand how you add unique value there. Then when you present to admissions- you will look like someone who knows where they want to go-- and not just where they don't want to go. And you can absolutely connect the dots with the past healthcare work to find a related MBA role. I would start by targeting MBA programs with good healthcare markets and opportunities. In the RTP area of North Carolina- you have 2 good ones- Duke Fuqua's Health Sector Management program offers a great specialty in the MBA program and UNC Kenan-Flagler offers a healthcare concentration. Your stats -- especially if you can score 700+ on GMAT will position you well. It may be more competitive and require a bit higher GMAT- but look also at Wharton, Kellogg, HBS or MIT Sloan as all these programs also located in strong healthcare markets. Given that you are a career changer- you could likely benefit from some specialized counseling to help you navigate the MBA admissions process as it is different from medical... and also get up to speed on the best programs for you. We'd be happy to help you in this process and to learn more about how we can help-- reach out to us at this link: https://stratusadmissionscounseling.com ... b-visitor/
I'm midway in my study plan and taken one practice test with a score of a 700.

If my score is at that range or possibly higher if I can achieve more studying and some good luck during my test....do I have a shot at some of the traditional, competitive MBA programs?

Please advise and thank you for your comments in advance!
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