Handicapping Your Elite MBA Chances

Mr. Education Technology

• 760 GMAT
• 3.9 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in engineering from UCLA
• Work experience includes two years in the West Coast office of a top consulting firm (think McKinsey/BCG) and one year at a major technology private equity firm
• Extracurricular involvement in college starting an investment fund and a charity that fed the homeless); currently building web applications (“I’ve made some okay ones–no Angry Birds like hit yet!)
• Goal: To switch over to entrepreneurship, with a focus on educational technology and/or gaming
• “My issue: I had a really rough experience in my first job. Everyone I liked there has already left, so one to go to bat for me. Will it look suspicious that I don’t have recommendations from there?  While you’re at it, answer for everyone: exactly what kind of due diligence do schools and future employers do on your past work?”
• 25-year-old Hispanic male

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 45+%

Stanford: 35%

Wharton: 50+%

MIT: 50+%

Sandy’s Analysis: Dunno, man, I am assuming you are a U.S. citizen, and if so, we got a bona fide minority candidate with a 3.9 from UCLA in Engineering, 760 GMAT, and two blue chip employers? One of which, your current gig, is a major tech PE shop.  That usually means success, even if you don’t have any friends at your first consulting gig.  I would get two recommendations from current employer, and at Stanford, get the 3^rd one from a current peer (as required). At HBS, I would get two recs from your current firm and 3^rd from maybe someone at your charity, even if long ago. At Stanford, firm support from any of their favorite PE tech firms counts A LOT, for vanilla guys, in fact, that is sorta how they get in,  but you are not vanilla, and may get in all by yourself, based on being Hispanic with 3.9 and a 760.

At HBS, you are looking pretty good IMHO if they are familiar with your firm at it gives you solid backing.   Your issue is not ALL that much the bad experience at the consulting gig, although that don’t help. Your issue is what they think of you at current job.

Stop worrying about Job 1 and try to work real, real hard to get at least one real solid recommendation from Job 2, and one other rec from Job 2 as good as it can be, and then punt on 3 as noted above.

As to your general question about how schools check on your jobs and recs?  For the most part, they hire a 3^rd party like Kroll after you have been admitted and say you are coming. Kroll etc. usually outsources the job to India and some kid in Mumbai calls up your recs in some cursory way and says, “Did Joe Blow work here, and did you write him a rec?” The recommender is often ready to elaborate, but the kid in India just wants to confirm that you worked there and the guy who signed it actually wrote it. It is a very brief conversation. That same kid will call HR at all your employers to merely check that you were employed their in the title you claim for the time periods you claim.

If anyone has contra info or experience with this, please post.

Bottom line for you, work real hard on getting best recs possible from the PE shop you now work at, your blah-blah  performance at consulting firm will not doom you.  You can pre-empt it a bit by saying in some essay that you discovered while there that consulting was not your deal, and hence the move to PE, where you belong and where your goals now synch up with your tech background. So all is well that ends well.  The very fact you got a solid job with a selective PE tech firm takes a good deal of the sting out of any mess-up at the consulting firm. Just like getting into an Ivy college washes away any boo-boos in your high school record.

Stay away from “gaming” in any mention of your goals. That is not a hot button at H/S/W. Educational technology, which you also mention, is the right game for you. Especially technology which can help underserved students. Tons of do-gooder and federal and state and even city money being poured into that these days. Every decade needs a fantasy about how to solve the ‘education’ problem and in our decade, educational technology is it.  Coming to a theater near you soon: “iPhone Jungle” (an allusion only baby boomers like me may understand, for 2.5 minutes of hilarity, try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKZcHwiv0E4).

Handicapping Your MBA Odds–The Entire Series

Part I: Handicapping Your Shot At a Top Business School

Part II: Your Chances of Getting In

Part III: Your Chances of Getting In

Part IV: Handicapping Your Odds of Getting In

Part V: Can You Get Into HBS, Stanford or Wharton?

Part VI: Handicapping Your Dream School Odds

Part VII: Handicapping Your MBA Odds

Part VIII: Getting Through The Elite B-School Screen

Part IX: Handicapping Your B-School Chances

Part X: What Are Your Odds of Getting In?

Part XI: Breaking Through the Elite B-School Screen

Part XII: Handicapping Your B-School Odds

Part XIII: Predicting Your Odds of Getting In

Part XIV: Handicapping Your MBA Odds

Part XV: Assessing Your Odds of Getting In

Part XVI: Handicapping Your Odds of Getting In

Part XVII: What Are Your Odds of Getting In

Part XVIII: Assessing Your Odds of Getting In

Part XIX: Handicapping Your MBA Odds

Part XX: What Are Your Odds Of Getting In

Part XXI: Handicapping Your Odds of Acceptance

Part XXII: Handicapping Your Shot At A Top MBA

Part XXIII: Predicting Your Odds of Getting In

Part XXIV: Do You Have The Right Stuff To Get In

Part XXV: Your Odds of Getting Into A Top MBA Program

Part XXVI: Calculating Your Odds of Getting In

Part XXVII: Breaking Through The Elite MBA Screen

Part XXVIII: Handicapping Your Shot At A Top School

Part XXIX: Can You Get Into A Great B-School

Part XXX: Handicapping Your Odds of Getting In

Part XXXI: Calculating Your Odds of Admission