Handicapping Your Odds Of Acceptance

Mr. VC in China

  • 740 GMAT
  • 3.0 GPA
  • Undergraduate degree in engineering from a small private school
  • 3.0 GPA (masters)
  • Graduate degree in biotechnology from a small private school
  • Work experience includes one year as a consultant at a no-name firm; one year as a programmer at a Silicon Valley biotech startup; one year as a programmer and team lead at another biotech startup in the valley; and one year as an investment manager at a venture capital fund in China
  • Fluent in Mandarin
  • Goal: To return to VC investment in Greater China and take on greater responsibility.
  • 29-year-old white American male in China

Odds of Success:

Columbia: 30+%

MIT: 30+%

NYU: 40%

Yale: 40%

Cornell: 40+%

Sandy’s Analysis: Hmmmm, mixed bag as you seem to realize yourself, including low GPA and too many jobs, and programming, which is semi-dirty word in the admissions game. On the other hand, you are currently in VC in China and apparently know a good deal about biotech. The 740 buys you a lot of cover from the low GPA for any school that wants to take a chance, and your employment possibilities are solid.

Columbia might go for the 740 GMAT and the strong possibility that you could get a job on graduation, two important issues for them. MIT might go for this as well, and both schools are willing to go a little older. Also, I would not rule out Wharton.

The masters degree in biotech is a plus, even with low-ish grades. So you’d be an OK risk for Columbia and MIT, given that you stand a good chance of being employed in a hot field. And there is the 740 GMAT, always a plus at those places, and neither cares that much about extra-curriculars, etc. NYU, Yale and Cornell are black boxes a bit with applicants like you—I’m not seeing NYU as a logical choice. Why not Chicago, Kellogg, and most of all, Berkeley?

I would not put all my eggs in one basket about going back to China. Just say you are interested in the crossroads of VC and biotech, wherever that takes you, and China is one possibility. See the template we worked up for Marine Biologist profile above.

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