What Are Your Odds Of Getting In?

Mr.

European Naval Engineer

 

  • 740 GMAT
  • 3.0 GPA
  • Undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from a reputable European university
  • 3.7 GPA (master’s)
  • Master’s degree in aerospace engineering
  • Work experience as a European naval engineering officer with solid leadership experience, including stints on front line operations (unit achieved all top performance trophies as a result of my efforts) and selected over peers for master’s degree leading to employment in a high profile government science and technology organization
  • Extracurricular involvement as a volunteer with school children to promote careers within engineering
  •  “I worked all through college whilst also training in the Navy reserves might help to explain the GPA”
  • Short-term goal: To develop business skills to complement current leadership and engineering experience
  • Long-term goal: To run a successful engineering and technology company by joining or forming a startup
  • 28-year-old, first generation college graduate (parents didn’t continue past 16)

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 20% to 30%

MIT: 30% to 40%

Northwestern: 40%

Chicago: 30% to 40%

Stanford: 10% to 20%

Berkeley: 40+%

Sandy’s Analysis:

I’m a little confused about what you mean by “European naval engineering officer with solid leadership experience, including stints on front line operations.” Is that an armed force, like a Navy, or do you work for a contractor with gigs on front lines? I am assuming Navy.   A good deal of your outcome at HBS and Stanford turns on what exactly you mean by this:  ” [current] employment in government Science and Technology organisation (high profile).”

Is that a post naval career gig or is that a prestige assignment while you were in the Navy, similar to a U.S. Navy guy being assigned to Pentagon or the Department of Defense in a high profile strategy role.

It would be better if the later (you are still in service) and that  you have recs from public policy bigwigs who know how to do this. Most of modern warfare is spent having generals and admirals write recommendations for staffers. Try getting one of them to back you.  If you are now out of service and work for hi-profile agency, a solid rec could help as well.

The nature of that agency either way is going to be very important, including how much Stanford or HBS knows about it, and what its track record is in sending kids to business and graduate schools. Your rec. writers have to be very careful to ‘stoop to conquer’ here if the agency is well known in Europe but not in USA. I cannot stress this enough. Euro dudes in general often have problems with American-style recs (they are unaware of the level of BS and bragging and detail that goes into US recs, sometimes think that  a few short words will suffice, ‘stiff upper lip, ahem, solid chap, no need for acting queer about this, what??? ‘

Aside from that, and it is a big aside, you got lots to like. Foreign fighting force is always a plus, lots of adcoms like boats, in both theory and practice, naval engineering sounds way cooler somehow than just engineering, or land engineering, and a 740 is a real solid anchor to balance your weak college GPA (grad school grades also a help). First generation college and naval reserves while in college are issues worth highlighting.

Phew, thank God for that GMAT, it brings all this together.

“Volunteering to work with schoolchildren to promote careers within engineering through government run scheme.”  That sounds promising if you can flesh it out and there is actually something there.

In conclusion, you are solid, on balance, but to get into HBS or Stanford you will need some stardust. Thus, the current job and what you make of it (and to some extent what it actually is) is critical.

“Long term goal is to run a successful engineering and technology company by joining/forming a startup. Short term is to develop business skills to complement current leadership and engineering experience.” That needs work. Say you want to become a consultant at M/B/B in Aero, talk to the guy with the profile directly above you,  and then become a leader of that practice or join/lead an innovative Aero/Engineering blah blah company, if there are any, do some homework, in what  the Aerospace-Defense practices at M/B/B do— the link is a cool page on the McKinsey website, a great place to start. Learn the jargon and issues in innovative practices and challenges, and sound like you are going to solve them. It may come true!!!

MIT prides itself on having Aerospace expertise and the campus has a wind tunnel named after the Wright Brothers, the website is also worth a visit. MIT will like your 740 and naval background and they will swoon at the idea of doing cross-campus work with their Aerospace department (everyone loves cross-functional jive on paper just so long as THEY don’t have to do it, and adcoms don’t. That is the beauty of you spinning out this story.)

“Experience on front line operations (unit achieved all top performance trophies as a result of my efforts)”–well, I’m impressed and so will

Berkeley, Kellogg and Booth. Just get your rec writers lined up and prepped and ready to sing like divas, however hard that may be.

You thought combat was tough. Getting some lad to risk his life is easy. They often do it as civilians without any reason at all. Getting some

Lard-butt policy type to write a screaming recommendation is really hard. Good luck.

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