Handicapping Your Elite MBA Chances

Mr. Professor

  • 166 (97%), 160 (84%) GRE
  • 3.5 GPA
  • Undergraduate degree in economics from a top 50 liberal arts college
  • 4.0 GPA
  • Master’s degree in communications from the University of Delaware
  • Work experience includes 1.5 years as a community journalist for a top 10 news website and 1.5 years in public relations and marketing for a regional university in the Mid-Atlantic area; also two years as sole course instructor/professor of public speaking at U Delaware
  • Extracurricular involvement as editor of undergraduate campus newspaper, top ranked college debater, freelance magazine work, published research in academic journal
  • Goal: To develop quantitative skills to pair with communication background to pursue a marketing/strategy position in the media industry

Odds of Success:

Northwestern: 30% to 45+%

Chicago: 30% to 40+%

Yale: 30% to 40+%

Duke: 30% to 50%

Virginia: 30% to 50%

UCLA: 30% to 40%

Emory: 40% to 50%

UNC: 40% to 50%

Georgetown: 40% to 50%

Vanderbilt: 50+%

Sandy’s Analysis: Well, nothing blue chip about schooling or jobs or grades or scores but it all hangs together and the stats are solid, if not nose bleed. Whether you are able to package this into a solid application will be your first challenge as a marketer– for yourself.  Sure, that is true for everyone but it is 2x as true for you because you have a series of semi-flakey jobs.

Schools will be more impressed by working for the website and doing PR for the university rather than being some kind of adjunct prof at the University of Delaware in public speaking.  IMPT: is that your job now, or is that some part-time one course gig you are doing while working at the school.  If it is your sole current gig, not good, if not, and current job is PR for Delaware, this all sounds better.

Your goal: “To develop quantitative skills to pair with communication background to pursue a marketing/strategy position in the media industry” is solid but I would not isolate quant skills development as a sole driver to B-school. Schools like to think they teach leadership, global outlook, sustainability, strategy, etc.  And you want to position yourself as an impactful media advisor which these days includes diverse skills.

I think you made the right call by not shooting for H/S/W. I just don’t see it from this background. As for the schools you do note, I think you have an acceptable chance with shrewd execution at the Tier 1 of your group — Kellogg, Booth, Yale — and a real solid shot at the rest. A good deal with turn on how you present goals in media. You are pegging yourself, it seems to me, as an old school  “marketing/strategy” guy, but I think you can be more aspirational, along the lines of helping the transition of media companies to a digital environment. There is some famous guy who was key in developing the webpage for the New York Times. Say you are using him as role model.  You got all the skills for that, as a writer for a website and a PR guy. Maybe that is what you had in mind in the first place.

I think you are real solid in the Second Tier of your choices–Duke, Virginia, UCLA, Emory, UNC, Georgetown, and Vanderbilt—since you match up “stats” wise and are a bit more interesting than their standard applicant. If being that Prof of some kind is your current sole gig, you may have to do some fancy footwork explaining that.

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