Handicapping Your MBA Odds: Ms. CPA, Ms. Museum, Mr. Consultant. Mr. Football, Mr. Boutique Consultant

Mr. Football

730 GMAT
3.1 GPA
Undergraduate degree in business from Notre Dame University
Work experience includes a stint with the national football league, two years inbulge bracket investment banking, and two years in mid-market private equity generalist fund
Extracurricular involvement as a starter on the varsity football team for four years; also did several campus jobs, including as an incoming student tour guide, student-athlete tutor, and corporate finance teaching assistant
26-year-old white male

Odds of Success:

UCLA: 30% to 40%

Berkeley: 30% to 40%

Sandy’s Analysis: Were you a player in the NFL? Adcoms are surprising jock sniffers when it comes to professional sports, less so for college athletes but they appreciate the time and teamwork there too. Well, teamwork in theory, I’m personally not sure college athletes make better team players, more like the experience of college athletics is an elaborate series of mini-hierarchies as to who gets to start, etc, but hey, it works for adcoms, who are famous for repeating mantras like that.

Adcoms also correctly appreciate the time it takes to play big time college sports and Notre Dame football certainly counts for that. GMAT and bulge bracket IB may help erase the low GPA (along with football) and that could be enough. As a rule, HBS does not like Middle Market PE firms, P&Q has a famous story about this, with lots of data, but you could be an exception, especially if you were an NFL player of any sort. (Other MM PE exceptions are MM firms in non-USA, especially ones that are dominant in their local area.)

I’m not seeing any X factor that will get you into Stanford. UCLA and Berkeley would almost go for this without the football so that could tip you in there, Chicago not known for giving jocks a break, even smart ones like you, but that could also be a cliche in need of update.