Getting Through The Elite B-School Screen

Mr. First Generation

• 730 GMAT
• 3.94 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in finance/accounting from SUNY School
• Work experience includes two summer internships at a bulge bracket investment bank, an off-season internship at another I-Bank, and another off-season internship at a small private equity shop
• Extracurricular involvement includes being founder and president of a campus mentoring program, president of my business fraternity, peer advisor in undergraduate B-school office, and singing in an acapella group
• 22-years-old

Odds of Success:

Harvard 2+2: 20% to 50% (depends on life story)

Stanford: 20% to 30%

Wharton: 20% (next year but very good in three years)

Chicago: 30% (and ditto about the future)

Northwestern: 30% (and ditto)

Yale: 30% (and ditto)

MIT: 30% (they could take you flat out)

Sandy’s Analysis: As to HBS 2+2 and Stanford, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that every job, every extra, everything is just banks and b-school premature ejaculation. SUNY is also no one’s favorite school, and it just fits too neatly with this profile of a smart kid who somehow could not swing Michigan, Berkeley, UVA or Penn.

The good news is a good many extras and initiatives, even if many are business centric, and a 3.94 at a school not known to give away easy A’s.

This is an acceptable profile for first generation college kid from a poor immigrant family. That would explain a lot, and if that is the case, that story needs to play a strong part in your application. If you do that, admission odds go up. But, if you are some kid whose dad is a dentist in the suburbs and your family was too cheap to send you to the University of Michigan or Berkeley or UVA and pay out-of-state rates, well, that is ugly. You also need to expand any extras, which are not business related.

Well, having been in an acapella group is a bit exciting, but that is no high scoring extra unless you do rap and perform for charities instead of singing

“Down By The Old Mill Stream” in nursing homes.

As to getting in next year as a college senior applicant to schools without a 2+2 program? Wharton will say, to quote what Orson Welles said when he first glimpsed Elizabeth Taylor when she was a 10-year-old, “Remind me to be around when she grows up.” Meaning, after you graduate and get a job in investment banking and then private equity and then apply to Wharton, you will get in.

As to chances at other schools, they will question why you just don’t wait. You do not have the profile (entrepreneur) of a kid that schools take at age 22 with no full-time experience. Those schools may admit you, however, and suggest you defer admission for two years or so.

Once you have three or four years of work experience, your chances at HBS and Stanford are still iffy. There is nothing super pushing you in, but chances at other places are solid. If you want to change this, get a job at Goldman and then a Blackstone-quality PE shop, get ranked in the top bucket, and develop one signature extracurricular activity.

Our Complete MBA Handicapping Series:

Part I: Handicapping Your Shot At a Top Business School

Part II: Your Chances of Getting In

Part III: Your Chances of Getting In

Part IV: Handicapping Your Odds of Getting In

Part V: Can You Get Into HBS, Stanford or Wharton?

Part VI: Handicapping Your Dream School Odds

Part VII: Handicapping Your MBA Odds