Handicapping Your Shot At A Top School

Mr. Low GPA

• 770 GMAT
• 3.2 GPA (3.5 at community college and a 2.8 at UC)
• Undergraduate degree in political science from a top University of California school (Berkeley or UCLA)
• Work experience includes two years with a bulge bracket investment bank (IBD) and two years with major consulting firm (McKinsey, Bain or BCG) in Asia
• Extracurricular involvement as
president of the Asian student club at UC, worked at a shelter in India, founded a
 student foundation for environmental conservation, recruiting and analyst
 committee member
• “My issue: extremely
 low GPA and age”
• 28-year-old Asian male (non-U.S. citizen)

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 15% to 25%

Stanford: 10% to 20%

Wharton: 20% to 35+%

Columbia: 40+%

MIT: 30% to 40+%

Kellogg: 30+%

Chicago: 30+%

Berkeley: 40+%

Michigan: 40+%

Tuck: 20%

Yale: 30%

INSEAD: 50%

London: 50%

Sandy’s Analysis: Well, getting a 790 instead of your current 770 on the GMAT is not going to make your GPA smell any better. Getting into Stanford from McKinsey, Bain, or BCG (MBB) for a 28-year-old Asian male is usually a matter of how friendly anyone at your firm is with Derrick Bolton, and how willing they are to help you. All the heavy breathing about how important the essays are (on Stanford website) notwithstanding (that means that the essay heavy breathing is a façade).  Sure, it would be nice if you met them halfway, and did not write absolute and mindless trash, and you will need to explain your cratering GPA from Community College (3.5, which ain’t stellar to begin with) to 2.8 at UCLA.

I’m amazed you got the IB job in the first place. HBS could wink at the GPA (and has in similar cases) if you get strong recommendations from your blue chip jobs and exploit what seems to be very solid extra currics.  As you note, age is also an overhang, if you are going to be 30 at matriculation, that is old for a banker/consultant. That could tip it against you unless the work fundamentals and extras are super solid.

Is there some reason you started at Community College? Are you first-gen college? Unusual family story?  All that is worth noting. Other schools are hard to predict. Wharton takes kids like you all the time, and the only issue is getting them to wink at GPA. Age is less an issue there, somehow. Ditto Columbia, you could goose your chances by applying Early Decision (I don’ t think you are getting into Harvard or Stanford. There’s just too much GPA and age baggage). MIT pretty much admits anyone with a pulse (especially a pulse at MMB) and 770 GMAT if you merely mouth their mantras about innovation and tech. Kellogg and Booth will want to understand your story fully, as will Tuck. INSEAD takes guys like you all the time as does LBS.  Yale may find this too weird for them, Haas and Michigan will be predisposed to say ‘yes,’ but you will need to convince them you are serious and they are not just one school on a long list, which they, in fact,  appear to be in the above long list.