Can You Get Into HBS, Stanford, Wharton?

Are these MBA applicants good enough for Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, or Wharton? Or for that matter, could they pass muster with Columbia, MIT, Chicago, or Kellogg?

Mr. Hollywood has been an Off-Broadway actor, a director and CEO of a film production company, even a personal trainer. He’s earned black belts and blue belts in the martial arts. As he himself puts it, “I have a strange path and am not sure if schools will laugh out loud, scratch their heads, or give someone like me a shot?”

Ms. Pink Collar is a public relations strategist for Wells Fargo Bank, but wants an MBA to escape the “pink ghetto.” She’s a regular volunteer for a non-profit that serves up meals and groceries to clients with HIV/AIDS.

Then, there is an engaged couple from India who want to enroll in a top MBA program together. He has a 720 GMAT and has worked as an investment banking analyst at a bulge bracket Wall Street firm. She has a 710 GMAT and works at a global credit ratings agency.

What these and other MBA candidates want to know is whether they have  a chance to get into a top business school. For the fifth consecutive week, we’re turning to Sanford “Sandy” Kreisberg, founder of MBA admissions consulting firm HBSGuru, to analyze these and a few other profiles of actual MBA applicants who have shared their vital statistics with Poets&Quants.

As he has in the past, Kreisberg handicaps each potential applicant’s odds of getting in. If you include your own stats and characteristics in the comments (please add your age and be clear on the sequence of your jobs in relaying work experience), we’ll pick a half dozen or more and have Kreisberg assess your chances in a follow-up feature next week.

An important reminder, if not warning label: Reading a handful of stats and random attributes of a would-be MBA candidate is like reading tea leaves. There’s no science and a lot of art to this process. Without the benefit of having all the details of an applicant’s candidacy, it’s not possible to say with total certainty what the exact odds for any one person might be.

Nonetheless, Kreisberg’s judgments carry a lot of weight. Since becoming a full-time admissions consultant in 1995, he has seen and interviewed thousands of candidates who want to get into the very top schools. He knows who has made it and who hasn’t, and he’s willing to share that knowledge here.

Sandy’s tell-it-like-it-is take:

Mr. Hollywood

     

  • 700 GMAT
  • 3.9 Grade point average
  • Undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania with major in psychology and English
  • 3.75 GPA
  • Graduate degree from the University of Southern California in cinematic arts
  • Work experience: Actors in off-Broadway productions and Hollywood; director and CEO of a film production company; personal trainer and therapist for at-risk patients
  • Extracurricular activities include mixed martial arts including a Kung Fu black belt and a Brazilian Jiu Jitsui blue belt
  • Runs a non-profit for the education of underprivileged youth
  • “This is a bizarre entry and I swear I’m serious and not being silly. I have a strange path and am not sure what schools will think. Would they laugh out loud, scratch their heads, or give someone like me a shot?”

Odds of Success

Harvard Business School: Less than 10%

Stanford: Less than 10%

Columbia: 40+%

NYU: 50%

Kellogg: Less than 40%

USC: Better than 60%

Berkeley: 50%

Sandy’s Analysis: How old are you? B-schools take Hollywood types, even kids who have been living in the steerage decks of The Good Ship Indy- Productions, as you apparently have. They especially like kids with a 3.9 GPA from UPenn (you’ll always have that!). Schools also know what a no-name “film production company” means (nothing!) but will give you credit for getting a film made. Okay, that concludes the good news, except, sure, charity work is solid.

I’m impressed with all the martial arts, but personal trainer AND THERAPIST!!!! That is something you should leave out of this story, that is what buff guys do instead of becoming bums (and a much better choice it is! you might wind up the non-paying boyfriend of Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience. If so, let me know, I’m a huge Sasha fan). So drop the personal trainer stuff and simplify: You went to Penn, you got a 3.95, you went to Hollywood and made a movie, and now you want an MBA to focus on new media, new ways of delivering stories, the intersection of X and Y, blah, blah, blah.

If you are not super weird or real old (over 32!) and shut-up about everything since your movie, and just pitch that story, well, this is not HBS or Stanford, although they take kids almost like you, except one standard deviation better in every way, viz.,  some work with real studios, or agencies, have better GMATs and some gold dust in terms of connections—in short your Hollywood Boulevard of Broken Dreams soundtrack with a slightly better script and some B-list stars.

So who will take you? On the Right Coast–maybe Columbia, or NYU, Duke, or Darden. Chances at those places are solid, if you execute cleanly and put your resume on a diet. On the Real Coast: not Stanford, but surely USC and Berkeley would be interested. And in flyover country, Kellogg, Chicago and Michigan (that media center) might bite with solid execution and a total hose down of your weirder elements.

Remember, you are normal, just like those hateful kids from Princeton who go to Hollywood and work for DreamWorks getting coffee, and then get into HBS (happens my friend, quite often, although they usually also got big GPA and GMATS, and a recommendation from someone most ordinary and star-struck peeps have heard of).

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