Assessing Your Odds Of Getting In

Mr. Fortune 50

• 740 GMAT
• 3.7 GPA
• Undergraduate degree from the University of St. Thomas with a triple major in international economics, international studies, Spanish
• Work experience includes three years in merchandising for a Fortune 50 company and a stint with a new dot-com site.
• Extracurricular involvement as a soccer coach for four years, a member of the Hispanic Business Council at work, as an advisor for a local non-profit startup
• Goal: To pursue a career change from merchandising to Latin America business development
• Second generation Mexican-American

Odds of Success:

Stanford: 20% to 40+%

Harvard: 40% to 60%

Kellogg: 50+%

MIT: 50+%

Booth: 50+%

Sandy’s Analysis: A Hispanic-American with a 740 GMAT and 3.7 GPA and a job at a Fortune 50 company, and some solid community service gigs? Guys like you get admitted and denied at Stanford and HBS depending on execution, recommendations and luck. This is a solid HBS profile on its facts, and I’d be surprised if you did not get interviewed.

Stanford is someplace you can never tell about, given how small the door is there, and their often random-seeming picks among those who make the first filter of GPA and GMAT as you do. A good “What Matters” essay would help, one that focuses on identity politics and your personal growth via Hispanic roots and mentors. You should be real strong at Kellogg, MIT, and Booth providing you convince them you want to go.

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