Getting Into Your Dream School

To gain top-secret security clearance, this 26-year-old went through an eight-month background check with a polygraph interview. He passed muster and works directly with agents on behalf of the U.S. Now wants an MBA to start a consulting business focused on intelligence.

They are a married Brazilian couple who want to come to a top MBA program in the U.S. He’s 27 and works in planning for Anheuser-Busch. She’s 29 and a quality specialist for one of the world’s top ten steel companies.

At 25 years of age, he’s a manager in the finance department of a software company. He’s also a Boy Scout Master with a 770 GMAT who wants to use an MBA to transition into investment banking or consulting.

What these would-be MBA candidates share in common is the goal to get into one of the world’s best business schools. Do they have the raw stats and experience to get in? Or will they get dinged by their dream schools?

Sanford “Sandy” Kreisberg, founder of MBA admissions consulting firm HBSGuru.com, is back again to analyze these and a few other profiles of actual MBA applicants who have shared their vital statistics with Poets&Quants.

As usual, Kreisberg handicaps each potential applicant’s odds of getting into a top-ranked business school. If you include your own stats and characteristics in the comments, we’ll pick a few more and have Kreisberg assess your chances in a follow-up feature.

(Please add your age and be clear on the sequence of your jobs in relaying work experience. Make sure you let us know your current job.)

Sandy’s assessment: 

Mr. Secret Agent Man

• 700 GMAT (expected)
• 3.7 GPA
• Undergraduate degree from a public ivy
• Work experience includes four years for the Department of Justice/FBI/CIA as an analyst working directly with agents; promoted after 18 months
• “I have quite a few ‘interesting’ stories to talk about in the essays. To be hired, I went through an eight-month background check with a polygraph interview to receive a top secret security clearance.”
• Extracurricular involvement as the founder of the first sports and entertainment club on campus; paid half of my college expenses through an import business launched with friends
• Goal: “To start a consulting business specialized in the intelligence community where my pre-MBA expertise lies (something international). Backup: rejoin the government agency in a field position”
• 26-year-old male with dual citizenship in the U.S. and a South American country (my mother is South American)

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 10% to 15%

Stanford: 10%

Columbia: 30% to 45%

Wharton: 30%

INSEAD:  35%

Sandy’s Analysis: Hmmmmmm, adcom officers, in their official capacity, are not interested in cloak-and-dagger stories, polygraphs, body cavity searches as part of your prolonged security clearance, or the spy business in general, however spun, nor is the “intelligence community” a good way to project your goals.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to hear your stories and so would everyone else, but that is not at issue here. You need to make what you do more analytical and strategic than exciting.  A 3.7 from a public Ivy, a Latin American mom (identify as Hispanic, if you can, that could really help, and make it clear how, if you do not have an Hispanic surname), and ~ 700 GMAT, along with “analyst role”  in an selective  government agency could get you far. But don’t sound like a government lifer, which your goals (consulting to ‘intelligence community’ what does that mean?)  and excitement about working for the man, sound like.

You do not need an elite MBA to re-join the agency, so never mention that again.  I’m not seeing this as HBS or Stanford. They prefer their gov’ment types from the military, the White House, and elite congressional staffers. Columbia and Wharton could go for this on stats alone and some PC rewrite of your experience and goals. Assuming you get a 700+ GMAT. INSEAD might think you are a mole of some kind, and might be too unaware to realize that a real mole would come more camouflaged. I am not totally joking, but they may see you as odd, and the CIA is not a good monogram on your blazer in Europe. Nor is the FBI or whatever agency you actually work for.

So my general advice is to dial down the James Bond stuff and make your experiences more about analysis, strategy, and the type of vanilla stuff that consultants do.  To the extent you are interested in re-joining the government, try to position yourself in some consulting, strategy, public policy role, after a gateway career in management consulting. Adcoms like to think of themselves as running the ‘black box’; they are not interested in someone who may have real black box or black ops experience.