What Are Your Chances Of Getting In

brunette business womanMs. CPA

 

  • 680 – 730 GMAT (not yet taken)
  • 3.5 GPA
  • Undergraduate and masters’ degrees in accounting from a state university in the southeast
  • Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
  • 24-year-old female
  • Work experience includes two years in a Big 4 public accounting firm performing financial statement audits (also had a consulting rotation for a Fortune 20 company); a one year accounting internship at a Fortune 50 company; and one year as a graduate teaching assistant helping to teach business statistics
  • Involved in affinity networks at my job promoting minorities – First-generation college student – Hispanic
  • Extracurricular involvement in affinity networks at work promoting minorities
  • Goal: To gain more professional experience in the professional services arena–not necessarily audit, but advisory and consulting related to accounting for mergers, transactions and IPOs (4-5 more years)
  • Passions: Helping companies improve their financial reporting for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the capital markets; education and allowing everyone to have access to a quality education; children
  • First-generation college student
  • 24-year-old Hispanic female

Odds of Success:

Columbia: 30% to 40%

New York: 40% to 50%

UC-Berkeley: 30% to 40%

Southern California: 50%+

Fordham: 50%+

Sandy’s Analysis: To distill this: Hispanic woman (24) from a Big Four accounting firm (two years) with a 3.5 GPA in both accounting major and master’s degree. CPA. First generation college student.

As noted often in the past, Stanford often takes one or more minority women from Big Four firms, as a way of killing two birds with one stone, and that is just to let you know that your current school choice –NYU – Columbia – Berkeley – USC – Fordham–is on the safe side. If you are currently working at a Big Four firm and if you can get a near 80/80 split GMAT, you should be solid at any of those schools.

You may need to clear something up. You say,  “One year accounting internship at Fortune 50 company – One year as a graduate teaching assistant helping to teach business statistics.”

I’m a bit unclear if 1. those gigs were in addition to your work at the Big Four, or 2. they were  two other years of full-time work.

So clear that up, but  the important thing is that you are currently at Big Four and you don’t seem to be afraid of numbers.

You add, “Get a GMAT score between 680 and 730.”  Yup, that would do it–especially if you could get 80 percent on each side. If you got over 700 as well, that helps the look and feel of this.

You say goals are, “Get more professional experience in the professional services arena – not necessarily audit, but advisory and consulting related to accounting for mergers, transactions, IPO’s, etc. (4-5 more years)”

Try to frame those goals so they match-up with actual jobs. Or just say you want to transition from audit to consulting, and figure out what that means. That is what most younger folks at the Big Four want to do, and many older folks as well. As is often the case, the McKinsey take on this is a good place to start, but I am not sure that is exactly what you had in mind.

Troll the websites of the Big Four firms like your own, and get the lingo down pat.

This is from Deloitte, is this  what you had in mind?:

Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP (“Deloitte FAS”) provide(s) services to companies throughout their lifecycle. Specifically, we help clients address serious business concerns involving fraud, forensic investigations, litigation and reorganization. We also advise businesses on valuation issues and other matters to help them in complying in today’s regulatory environment. Through our subsidiary, Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC, we assist clients with originating and executing transactions and strategic investments for mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, and capital planning.”

Well, I have no clear idea what all that means, and your version is in many ways better (“advisory and consulting related to accounting for mergers, transactions, IPO’s, etc.”) but if you say you want to work at places like Deloitte FAS or the same gang at McKinsey, it sounds like you are savvy and employable.

You also noted under  “Passions:”

“Helping companies improve their financial reporting for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the capital markets – Education and allowing everyone to have access to a quality education – Children.”

Mostly wonderful.  Children and education are acceptable passions, especially if you belong to organizations which support those causes. Improving financial reporting to maintain the integrity of capital markets is something I rise to support you in, but it is not best listed as a “passion.”

As with the TFA profile above, you run the risk of one buzz word (or idea) too many.

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