Handicapping Your Business School Odds: Mr. Real Estate Consulting

Ms. Credit Rating Agency

• 750 GMAT
• 3.5 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in international relations from a Top 20 liberal arts college, graduating magna cum laude in the top 25% of the class
• Work experience includes four years in several positions at one of the big three credit rating agencies; have had three promotions including the latest as a product strategist bringing to market a new structured finance analytical tool

  “In this capacity, I bridge the gap between the development team and the client to ensure the end product meets market needs in terms of value, competitive landscape and functionality”

• Extracurricular involvement as a junior board member of an organization that

  provides scholarships for low income high school students in nearby urban areas; also mentor a rising high school junior; involved in a reading program with a local elementary school and am part of an intern mentorship program through my employer

• Goal: To leverage an MBA to transition my product strategist

  experience into the technology sector

• 26-year-old American female

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 30% to 35%

Wharton: 40% to 50%

Columbia: 40% to 50%

New York: 50%+

Sandy’s Analysis: Hmmmm, the short answer is that your solid job and solid advancement at that job +  jumbo GMAT and ok GPA should equal real solid chances at Wharton and Columbia. Both of those schools have become more stats focused in very recent years, and you are a solid player to boot.

The issue at HBS is what they think of the selectivity of working for a “Big 3″  credit rating agency for four years. For the record, and for our readers, those Big 3 are, as per wikipedia, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch.

Here’s a question: How many of your ‘peers’ at the Big 3 have applied to business school in past four years and what have been their outcomes?

How many have made it to HBS? If the answer is three to five per year, well, your chances are real good.

As often noted here, though, the Big 4 Accounting firms (Deloitte, E+Y, PwC, and KPMG) are often an attractive feeder environment for URM’s to H/S/W.  I am less familiar with the outcomes of the Big 3 credit agencies, especially since they all blew it by rating mortgage-backed securities so highly, a faux pas that helped lead us into the Great Recession.

All that said, the career progression you note is very strong, especially with your three promotions including your recent recruitment “to work as a product strategist [for a new structured finance analytical tool]. . . . I bridge the

gap between the development team and the client to ensure the end product meets market needs  . . . .” That is basically a product manager job, and if you were working at Procter & Gamble with these stats and this story, I’d say your chances at HBS are doable.

So the issue is, does HBS think P&G is better or the same as S&P.? They also may have no opinion and are open to being persuaded by what you do and what you say. This could be a case, at HBS, where execution counts a bit more than it usually does. In most cases, HBS and other schools know what an average gig at an IB, consulting firm or PE shop are, so an applicant’s “personalized spit on the ball” does not add a lot of value to the application (and sometimes can do harm!)

In your case, you will need to create the entire environment of what working at those places is like and especially what you did, in real easy-to-digest terms.  Don’t get tripped up by the technicalities of the product.

Your extras are fine and laudable, but I don’t think they will be moving the needle much unless you can figure out a way to stress the marketing and recruitment aspects, and leverage in one wonderful story about your mentee.

“Goals: I hope to leverage an MBA to transition my product strategist

experience into the technology sector.”

Question: Don’t most product strategists in the tech sector have tech backgrounds, or are you talking consumer tech? Make that clear in your goal statement and also get in touch with the Cisco product expert who is also profiled this week. She would know. As may our readers.

Another question: You say you have been with the same company for four years. Is that normal? You seem to be a success, but if you were in consulting or banking, it could be an issue.  s there some fast track out of the Big 3 in two years that most hot shots take, similar to a PE exit from IB?