Getting Through The Elite B-School Screen

Mr. Inner City

  • 650 GMAT
  • 3.2 GPA from Ivy League school (not Harvard, Yale or Princeton)
  • Undergraduate degree in economics
  • First generation college student, Latino who grew up in Oakland
  • Work experience includes a year in a “post-MBA job” in corporate mergers & acquisitions for a popular company in the Pacific Northwest (not Amazon or Microsoft); a year on investing side of a private equity “Mega Fund” in New York; two years at a “top-tiers” bulge bracket investment bank
  • Extracurricular activity in minority business programs and microfinance advocate at I-Bank

Odds of Success:

Stanford: 20% to 30%

Harvard: 25% to 40%

Wharton: 25% to 50%

Yale: 40% to 60%

Tuck: 40% to 60%

Columbia: 30% to 60%

Berkeley: 40% to 60%

Sandy’s Analysis: Phew, let’s summarize: 1) Latino; 2) 3.2 GPA and a 650 GMAT; 3) An interesting identity politics story, maybe, depending on what you make of growing up in Oakland, and 4) What seems like

a career that has maybe one too many jobs which has gone from bulge bracket bank, where you say “top tiers” (love that plural, that could mean bottom of 2nd tier, e.g. 60%), to one year in Mega Fund (the actual status of that fund on the pecking order can be important), to the all important current job, at XXXX the very popular firm in Pacific NW, which you claim to have joined because of some amazing opportunity.

Let me give you the tough love first. That XXXX company better be Nike or Boeing or some other no-explanations-needed company, and your reasons for joining better be crystal clear and supported by recommendations because most hotshot PE kids don’t walk away from the Bright Lights to become middle managers in a very rainy climate at a company which is not Microsoft or Amazon, or even at those companies.

Also, being in a so-called “post MBA” position, is not always good. It often means you stayed around too long and just got some cost-of-living promotion. The reason I am being so hard on you is because both your GPA and GMAT are super low for everything else on this record, so it just makes one wonder. And just some general advice, for anyone with a 650 GMAT, you always have to take it again, just to show them you care about the process and tried. You can’t possibly write an essay about how the GMAT does not reflect your true abilities unless you have at least taken it twice.

The envelope please: Stanford (less than 20%) because they got Latino first gens like you with better stats and just as good inner city jive, unless your extras are really, really powerful and sustained. HBS (25% to 30%) with same thinking as Stanford, although they got more room, so you might sneak in. Wharton (25% to 30%), low grades and low standardized testing will spook them. Ditto Columbia, Yale, Tuck, and Berkeley which could be 40% to 60%.

Do you want to do yourself a favor, retake the GMAT and keep retaking it. Take if four more times, and get the highest score you can. No school cares about what the test means, they just want the number, and if you can get that up to 710+, your whole story gains a ton of credibility.

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