The Second Round Ding Report

computergal

Ms. Tech Product Marketer

 

  • 710 GMAT (47Q/41V)
  • 3.65 GPA
  • Undergraduate degree with a double major from HYPS
  • Work experience includes two years in product marketing at a major tech company, plus various tech and journalism internships in college (tech companies include Facebook, Apple, start-ups, and the journalism experience includes CBS and Seventeen Magazine)
  • Extracurricular involvement acting and producing plays in college, a peer counselor at sexual health center, teaching fellow, director of huge charity event that attracts 40,000 people, research assistant in two departments, and peer mentor, but limited post-college as a part time film actor, occasional involvement in company’s philanthropy initiatives, occasional speaker at career days for underprivileged children)
  • Goal: Entrepreneurship (particularly interested in how principles of psychology are applied to growth hacking)
  • “Still waiting to hear back from Stanford, MIT, Haas”
  • 24-year-old female

Sandy’s Analysis: Good luck with Stanford, MIT and Haas. If those don’t work out, my strong suggestion would be to “de-ditz” this story, both how your present your past, and especially how you structure this long-term goal idea:  “Entrepreneurship (particularly interested in how principles of psychology are applied to growth hacking)” WTF does that mean, not that the schools totally care but in your case, with a story that has elements of journalism and acting, it just leads to cynical thought that you don’t want a boring business career and instead want to use B-school for some cool script ideas.

You currently have a great job in PRODUCT MARKETING. That is where creative people who are interested in business wind up. When you reapply, tell the B-schools that that is what you want to do, and you want to head the marketing department of innovative companies like X, Y, and Z where the marketing will be key to exploding the disruptive products into new brands, blah, blah, blah.

Can you do that? That story, told with a straight face, might get you into HBS as a reapplicant and would make you very competitive at Kellogg, Berkeley and other top schools.

Questions about this article? Email us or leave a comment below.