Ask AdmissionsConsultants

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi and thanks for your inquiry.

Hi David. This site is fantastic.

Thanks! []

I’m applying to the Langone program for Spring ’05–specifically, the Entertainment, Media and Technology specialization. I have two questions for you:

1. Undergrad GPA in Marketing from Loyola College in Maryland was 3.66. I have a little over 2 years work experience, but I think it is “quality” experience: I’m in Marketing for a television network and have been promoted twice. On-the-job training programs such as Six Sigma have also fostered my growth. I can’t seem to beat a 600 on the GMAT though. Do I have any chance of being accepted?

We have seen many applicants gain admission to Langone with GMAT scores south of 600. Assuming you are not too far below 600, I see no reason why you can’t gain admission with a well-prepared application.

2. Should I admit on the application that I am not applying to other schools? No other part-time program offers a specialization like the EMT program. I’m trying to move up within the same company and they will value the coursework in media over the title of “MBA.”

My gut says this is too risky, but I don’t have enough information about your overall story to give you a definitive answer. This is certainly something a consultant can cover with you in adequate detail within an initial consultation.

Thank you.

Best of luck with your application(s)!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

Admissions committee experience from the top b-schools

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[SweetLife]

What do you think my chances are to top 10?
I was told that I am too old, my GPA is too low and my work experience is not too brilliant to be competitive for top 10. Your opinion? Here is my brief profile.

Nationality/Gender/Location
I am a 29 years old female with Korean nationality, currently living and working in Japan.

Career
I am a Business Analyst. With the global implementation project that I was involved, I was in US (about 1 year), UK (couple of months), Japan (about 1 year) and Korea (about 1 year). After the project, I was relocated to Japan. I am now working in IT and also doing the costing analysis and the reporting for the commercial department. (Kind of awkward). I have about 5 year work experience all together. I will also go to China for another project either from late this year or early next year.

Undergraduate
I graduated from a Korean university. My major was business. My overall GPA is around 3.1 (by rough conversion to 4.0 scale) with 2.9 for first and second year and 3.3 for third and fourth year.

GMAT
I just took GMAT and got 700 (Q 49, V 36). I think I did pretty bad on one of AWA essays. I am hoping AWA score doesn’t come out too bad.

Other
I speak English, Japanese and Korean.

Thank you

[sm106]

Hi David, Im not sure if I am posting correctly so I apologize in advance if I do this incorrectly.

I have seen articles on the net mentioning that some top programs are willing to consider women with less work experience.
I would like to go to a top 5 school.
I have a 700 GMAT(pretty even in math and verbal), 3.4 finance GPA, and work in the insurance industry. I have been through an extensive training program and now work as an underwriter. I can demonstrate leadership in the roles that I have had.
How many years of work experience would you suggest before applying to a school of this caliber?

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi and thanks for your inquiry.

What do you think my chances are to top 10?
I was told that I am too old, my GPA is too low and my work experience is not too brilliant to be competitive for top 10. Your opinion? Here is my brief profile.

Nationality/Gender/Location
I am a 29 years old female with Korean nationality, currently living and working in Japan.

We help many applicants in their 30s gain admission to top programs each year. It’s a matter of not using one of the generic strategies that works a bit better for applicants in the 25 year old range. The admissions committees care far more about your career progression than your age.

Career
I am a Business Analyst. With the global implementation project that I was involved, I was in US (about 1 year), UK (couple of months), Japan (about 1 year) and Korea (about 1 year). After the project, I was relocated to Japan. I am now working in IT and also doing the costing analysis and the reporting for the commercial department. (Kind of awkward). I have about 5 year work experience all together. I will also go to China for another project either from late this year or early next year.

I see some good diversity here. I didn’t get a good feel though for your career progression. If you have had at least 2 promotions or significant increases in responsibility, I think you will be very impressive to an admissions committee.

Undergraduate
I graduated from a Korean university. My major was business. My overall GPA is around 3.1 (by rough conversion to 4.0 scale) with 2.9 for first and second year and 3.3 for third and fourth year.

GMAT
I just took GMAT and got 700 (Q 49, V 36). I think I did pretty bad on one of AWA essays. I am hoping AWA score doesn’t come out too bad.

Your academic qualifications are a bit below the average for your applicant pool. Low AWA scores are normally not that difficult to mitigate.

Other
I speak English, Japanese and Korean.

This is impressive to me personally, but there are a number of multilingual applicants so I wouldn’t put too much faith in this one area of your candidacy.

I’m not concerned about your age. If you have had the type of career progression I mentioned before, I think you will be fine in that area. In fact, with a very good career progression, some extracurricular activities, and a bit of ‘wow’ factor, I think you could be competitive at a top 10 b-school.

Thank you

Best of luck with your applications!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

Admissions committee experience from the top b-schools

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi and thanks for your inquiry.

Hi David, Im not sure if I am posting correctly so I apologize in advance if I do this incorrectly.

I have seen articles on the net mentioning that some top programs are willing to consider women with less work experience.
I would like to go to a top 5 school.
I have a 700 GMAT(pretty even in math and verbal), 3.4 finance GPA, and work in the insurance industry. I have been through an extensive training program and now work as an underwriter. I can demonstrate leadership in the roles that I have had.
How many years of work experience would you suggest before applying to a school of this caliber?

The decreasing work experience can also be said of male applicants. If you believe you are ready for an MBA now – and it appears a strong case can be made in defense of this argument, I say apply to b-school this fall.

I think I stated on here somewhere before about the interview we conducted with HBS last year. Over 4% of their entering class came directly from undergrad!

Best of luck with your applications!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

Admissions committee experience from the top b-schools

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

I just received the application deadlines for Kenan-Flagler’s 2004-2005 application season. (Actually, an interview transcript has been sitting in my inbox since this morning and I just got around to reviewing it. More importantly, the transcript will be circulated to all of our consultants!)

Here are the new deadlines for Kenan-Flagler. (A quick check revealed they have not yet been posted to the Kenan-Flagler website.)

Deadline sssssssssssssssssEA sssssR1 ssssR2sssssssR3
Application deadline sssOct 28 ssDec 2 ssJan 13 ssMar 5
Decisions mailed ssssssDec 13 ssFeb 7 ssMar 23 ssMay 16

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[zamora]

I plan to start applying to Bschools in about 2 years (Fall of 2007). In the meantime I was thinking of enrolling in a state university and obtaining a masters in taxation so that I could sit in for the CPA. Seeing as how my undergrad gpa was a 2.9 could these compensate for low undergrad gpa? Are candidates w/cpa and/or cfa given more consideration? Thanks for your help.

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi and thanks for your inquiry.

I plan to start applying to Bschools in about 2 years (Fall of 2007). In the meantime I was thinking of enrolling in a state university and obtaining a masters in taxation so that I could sit in for the CPA. Seeing as how my undergrad gpa was a 2.9 could these compensate for low undergrad gpa? Are candidates w/cpa and/or cfa given more consideration? Thanks for your help.

The alternate transcript will probably be necessary given your low GPA. (There are also many other factors I would need to make a final determination about the need for an alternate transcript.)

I wouldn’t say CPAs or CFAs are given additional consideration. If these professional designations do not help you build a cohesive story for why you want an MBA, they could actually end up hurting your candidacy.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly if you would like to be assigned to a personal consultant to ensure you use the next 2 years to become optimally positioned for those future applications.

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com
703.242.5885

Admissions committee experience from the top b-schools

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[Gray]

I have some questions I hope you can help me with. I will be attending Penn Law next fall (’05) and I am trying to decide whether or not to pursue the JD-MBA degree with Wharton.

For awhile now I have been ambivalent about whether to do a JD-MBA or not. I feel like I already have a sufficient understanding of business, though I realize a quality MBA degre will add credibility. With the chance of doing it at Wharton, it becomes a very tough decision. I’d like to give you a little background about me and then ask you my questions.

I really have a passion/knack for business. I have been seriously involved in six entrepreneurial business ventures over the last eight years, five of which were either my own or partnerships. Each business has been successful. I currently own my own car business that has become very profitable.

Even though things are going well, I have decided to pursue the law degree I have always wanted, mainly for personal enrichment, but also to further my business understanding and opportunity. There is a part of me that wants to utilize my business acumen on a larger scale than small business. Possibly in M & A work, or in management.

I am married with three children, and my wife is a homemaker. I have spent two years in India on a service mission for my church. My undergraduate major was philosophy, and my gpa is a 3.71 (for my last two years, it is over a 3.9–my overall gpa is lower because for my first two years I was working upwards of 70 hours per week). Initially, I was pursuing a business major and I finished most of my pre-business core before switching to phil. I believe I have finished financial and managerial accounting (A and A-), statistics (A), economics (B+), business law (A), business management (A), and mathematics up to business calculus (B+ average–these classes were during my first two years so I really didn’t have time to study).

I set out for a law degree with the intention to enter the corporate world, either in the position of general counsel for a large corp. or as a ceo or some such similar position. Along the path to law school I have also developed interest in litigation, estate planning and even in teaching law. (I would like to teach eventually, but if I had my pick of any subject it would either be law or philosophy, although business might be ok as well). I also like the idea of building my own law firm.

Alright, now for the questions.

(1) Given my background, what is the minimum GMAT score you think I need to obtain if I want to gain admission to Wharton?

(2) What are some of the advantages/drawbacks of getting a JD-MBA (I have tried to research this, but with no substantive luck)? In other words, do you think it would be worth the extra $38k in tuition and the extra year of time for me to do the joint degree? (This is the most important question to me. Feel free to elaborate to your heart’s content.)

(3) How much weight would a semi-generic letter from Jon Huntsman carry at Wharton? (He donated the business building.) i.e., I could get a letter, but I am not around the guy enough for him to write an in-depth letter about my qualifications.

(4) I understand the B-school applications ask you to explicitly chart your career course for them. If I am not exactly sure how I want to use my degree, how would I approach that type of question?

As others have stated, thank you in advance for your valuable advice. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

[cbrf3]

Hi Dave, I wanted more insight as to the community service activity aspect for MBA admissions…….I have been involved with the community on and off, but was never a regular contributor. If I joined an organization right now, I’m pretty sure the adcomm is gonna see through it right away……..what is your advise regarding this?Thanks.
V

[samg]

Dear Dave,

I am entering my undergraduate senior year at Johns Hopkins and I am interested in doing an MBA program at Harvard in 2-3 years. I was wonder what career paths have the best success rate for business school acceptance? If I entered into I-banking, would Goldman give me the best chance of getting into HBS (even if it means taking an extra semester at school to get into Goldman) compared to the other investment banks? Or might I be better off working for a small unknown pharmaceutical start-up, where I would have an impact on the company and be able to rise quickly?

Sorry about the long letter and thanks for your input.

Best,
Soren

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi and thanks for your inquiry.

I have some questions I hope you can help me with. I will be attending Penn Law next fall (’05) and I am trying to decide whether or not to pursue the JD-MBA degree with Wharton.

For awhile now I have been ambivalent about whether to do a JD-MBA or not. I feel like I already have a sufficient understanding of business, though I realize a quality MBA degre will add credibility. With the chance of doing it at Wharton, it becomes a very tough decision. I’d like to give you a little background about me and then ask you my questions.

I really have a passion/knack for business. I have been seriously involved in six entrepreneurial business ventures over the last eight years, five of which were either my own or partnerships. Each business has been successful. I currently own my own car business that has become very profitable.

Even though things are going well, I have decided to pursue the law degree I have always wanted, mainly for personal enrichment, but also to further my business understanding and opportunity. There is a part of me that wants to utilize my business acumen on a larger scale than small business. Possibly in M & A work, or in management.

I am married with three children, and my wife is a homemaker. I have spent two years in India on a service mission for my church. My undergraduate major was philosophy, and my gpa is a 3.71 (for my last two years, it is over a 3.9–my overall gpa is lower because for my first two years I was working upwards of 70 hours per week). Initially, I was pursuing a business major and I finished most of my pre-business core before switching to phil. I believe I have finished financial and managerial accounting (A and A-), statistics (A), economics (B+), business law (A), business management (A), and mathematics up to business calculus (B+ average–these classes were during my first two years so I really didn’t have time to study).

I set out for a law degree with the intention to enter the corporate world, either in the position of general counsel for a large corp. or as a ceo or some such similar position. Along the path to law school I have also developed interest in litigation, estate planning and even in teaching law. (I would like to teach eventually, but if I had my pick of any subject it would either be law or philosophy, although business might be ok as well). I also like the idea of building my own law firm.

Alright, now for the questions.

(1) Given my background, what is the minimum GMAT score you think I need to obtain if I want to gain admission to Wharton?

Given your GPA and assuming you do well at the law school and your quant percentile is at least near 80, you can be 40 to 50 points below the average GMAT and not shock any knowledgeable person with an acceptance letter.

(2) What are some of the advantages/drawbacks of getting a JD-MBA (I have tried to research this, but with no substantive luck)? In other words, do you think it would be worth the extra $38k in tuition and the extra year of time for me to do the joint degree? (This is the most important question to me. Feel free to elaborate to your heart’s content.)

This depends upon your future career goals. For you, it appears there may be some benefit to the joint degree. This is certainly something you can discuss in far greater detail with one of our consultants.

(3) How much weight would a semi-generic letter from Jon Huntsman carry at Wharton? (He donated the business building.) i.e., I could get a letter, but I am not around the guy enough for him to write an in-depth letter about my qualifications.

I don’t like semi-generic. Don’t do it.

[black]4) I understand the B-school applications ask you to explicitly chart your career course for them. If I am not exactly sure how I want to use my degree, how would I approach that type of question?

If you’re not sure how you will use the degree, then you need to very carefully consider whether or not you really want the second degree.

As others have stated, thank you in advance for your valuable advice. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best of luck with your applications!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com

Admissions committee experience from the top b-schools

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

I Rajdeep and thanks for your inquiry.

Hello,

I am applying for an MBA to the 5-15 ranked B-schools in the states(Fall 2005).
(will shortlist from Berkley,Stern,columbia,tuck,fuqua,yale,cornell)
I would be grateful if you could comment on my profile and my chances in these schools.
Upon self assesment i felt that (Stanford,Harvard,wharton) are slightly out of my league.

The following is my profile:

1)GMAT
Gave it 5 years back and got a 750.
(Score expired,did not apply due to lack of work experience.)
Sitting for the exam soon.for the purpose of this discussion lets take a score of 710-770.

Q1) Would a 750 be significantly beneficial than a 720?

No. It would not be significantly better.

2)Work Experience
Company profile:
STMicroelectronics (arguably the largest semi-conductor company in Europe
7 billion revenue,45000+ employees.

Tenure:
2 years full time work experience as of date.
Besides the above i have 6 months full time industrial training in the same organization that i know work for.

Q2) Is the above considered as work experience?

You will definitely have 2 years of work experience plus whatever you do between now and matriculation. The schools care far more about the *quality* of that work experience than its quantity. Depending on your exact level of responsibilities, you may be considered to have 2.5 years of work experience. However, I wouldn’t worry about this particular point since many applicants with 2 years of work experience gain admission to top b-schools.

I also have a 3 month summer internship with a software company.
Basically 3-3.5 years by fall 2005

Job Responsibilities:
I work in the infrastructure and operations management department as Project leader of the local service management
team.Software engineer by designation.this team is part of a 25 strong virtual team (France,Singapore).
My job function encompasses :Project Management,Customer interaction,consultancy on workflow and operations’support management,
General design of applications,Process implementation and adherence to CMM5 levels.

Achievements/Others:
CEO’s award for best project worldwide 2003
Recognized as one of the premier performers 2003
1 month consultancy assignment in France.
Daily interaction with people from different geographical/cultural backgrounds.

3)Academics

Masters in Computer applications 78% distinction(15/85 in class)
Bachelors of commerce (Accounts honours) 70% (3/60)
Top 1% of all classes in school.

4)Extra-cirricular activities:
1)Member of software engineering process and technical engineering groups,STMicroelectronics.
2)Member of placement cell during post graduation
3)Member of the academic council post graduation
4)Organised technical syposiums during post graduation,team co-ordinator for visiting teams.
5)School captain/vice-captain of the teenis and cricket teams.
6)State level tennis player
7)All India management school chess champion.

sorry ,for shelling out my life story ,but i think the above would give you a fair grounds for evaluation,
Do you think i am right in my assesment that (Stanfor,Harvard,Wharton) are out of reach?
How would you classify my chances in the 5-15 range Very Good/Good/Decent/Poor?

With well-prepared applications, I think you should be competitive at the top 5-15 range schools. You may be a bit weak in extracurriculars.

Any thing you see that i can really sell or conversly,is a red flag?

See my comment about extracurriculars. I only had time to skim this, but I’ll be glad to assign you to a consultant who knows far more about admissions than yours truly and that has the time to go over your entire candidacy in far more detail than can be done via message boards.

Awaiting your comments.

Regards,
Rajdeep

Best of luck with your applications!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com

Admissions committee experience from the top b-schools

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi V and thanks for your inquiry.

Hi Dave, I wanted more insight as to the community service activity aspect for MBA admissions…….I have been involved with the community on and off, but was never a regular contributor. If I joined an organization right now, I’m pretty sure the adcomm is gonna see through it right away……..what is your advise regarding this?Thanks.
V

That’s a pretty broad question. You should probably just find the best way to spin what you already have and realize that applicants with weaknesses in one part of their candidacies can still gain admission to top b-schools.

Ideally, extracurriculars are amongst the positioning items carefully considered well before the applications are submitted.

Best of luck with your applications!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com

Admissions committee experience from the top b-schools

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[AdmissionsConsultants]

Hi Soren and thanks for your inquiry.

Dear Dave,

I am entering my undergraduate senior year at Johns Hopkins and I am interested in doing an MBA program at Harvard in 2-3 years. I was wonder what career paths have the best success rate for business school acceptance? If I entered into I-banking, would Goldman give me the best chance of getting into HBS (even if it means taking an extra semester at school to get into Goldman) compared to the other investment banks? Or might I be better off working for a small unknown pharmaceutical start-up, where I would have an impact on the company and be able to rise quickly?

This is certainly something we cover in our pre admissions consultation. The short answer is it depends on the opportunities you have, your future career goals, and your personal preferences. Certainly, if you think you would be more productive and challenged in a small start-up environment, take that opportunity over the bulge-bracket investment bank. We do work with applicants from numerous backgrounds who gain admission to HBS — and the other top b-schools — each year.

Sorry about the long letter and thanks for your input.

Best,
Soren

Best of luck with your future applications!

Sincerely,

David Petersam
DPetersam@admissionsconsultants.com

Admissions committee experience from the top b-schools

AdmissionsConsultants
703.242.5885

[Author]

Posts