Meet Stanford’s MBA Class of 2018

Yasmin El Baily

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: An Obsessively organized, relentless perfectionist, (overly?) critical of food and coffee, a dog lover

Hometown: Cairo, Egypt

Fun Fact About Yourself: I spent a week baking 6,000 cupcakes on my own for a marketing campaign when I was between jobs.

Undergraduate School and Major: The American University in Cairo – Business Administration with a Specialization in Finance

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation in order:

• Goldman Sachs – Global Investment Research Intern
• The Boston Consulting Group – Visiting Associate
• Qalaa Holdings (formerly Citadel Capital) – Vice President

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Working in private equity in Egypt after the revolution was quite the struggle, but the most rewarding (and perhaps most challenging) accomplishment of my career thus far has been playing a substantial role in the transformation of Qalaa Holdings from a private equity firm to an investment holding firm. The sheer magnitude of work, the intricacies of the various transactions we were structuring and the resources that we had to pull to close the transaction made it an impossible task, one which I am still amazed we managed to complete in the timeframe and under the circumstances in which we were operating. I was quite a junior member of the team when we started the transformation and a substantial amount of responsibility was placed on me. Within three years from being staffed on that transaction, I had scaled from Analyst to Vice President and had gained a wealth of knowledge about the firm.

Looking back on your experience, what advice would you give to future business school applicants?

1. I would start by covering all the concepts in the math review and familiarizing myself with the different question types (data sufficiency, sentence correction, etc). I would then start practicing in the Official Guide and try to do this under exam conditions. Don’t burn through all the questions at once. I used to split the questions into sections of 20 questions so that I can stop, review any conceptual errors, and assess my speed. If you are facing difficulty with a specific question type, I would reach for the Manhattan guides. I don’t recommend you use the Manhattan guides to begin with, they are long and it would be overkill to use them for sections of the test that you are comfortable with. Even if you think you understand a concept well, the Manhattan guides can help you solve them faster; there are great shortcuts in those books.

Once you feel confident, I would take the practice test using the GMAT software. Space these out, don’t take them over consecutive days. The GMAT requires stamina, so cramming two full tests on two consecutive days will definitely adversely impact your score. I wouldn’t recommend taking the GMAT more than three times. I found that my performance plateaued, I would recommend that if that happens to you, that you should invest that energy in other aspects of your application.

2. Make your application as true a reflection of yourself as possible. There really isn’t a secret formula to getting admitted to schools and so I would avoid benchmarking against other applicants. Your story is individual. Just make sure that your application and your essays reflect that. Don’t be afraid to throw out an entire essay and rewrite it, having several drafts and versions seems daunting but it often means that you’re on the right track.

3. Again, try to have your recommendations really show the admissions team who you are. Pick your recommenders based on their ability to share detailed anecdotes about you. Don’t base them on their seniority or the fact that they graduated from the same institution that you’re applying. I recommend that you also talk to them before they submit their letter and explain the general thesis of your application so that they include stories that highlight that overarching theme.

4. Admissions interviews vary for different institutions. Generally, make sure you’re prepared to concisely and eloquently answer questions about yourself and your experience. Really think about why you want to go to that institution and how that ties in with your ambitions and goals.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? I was incredibly humbled and honored to have been given the opportunity to choose between Stanford, Harvard, and Wharton and it was perhaps one of the most difficult decisions I ever had to make. After countless phone calls with students, admits and alumni — and four or five excel sheets later — I realized that what mattered the most to me was the people I was going to surround myself by for the next two years and the community that I was going to be a part of going forward. Each of those programs is impeccable in its own merit, but I felt like I would belong most to the Stanford community. I realized that my classmates were the true takeaway of my MBA experience and the ease with which I quickly integrated with my classmates at Admit Weekend highlighted how intricately this class was built suddenly simplified my decision to go to Stanford. The community here is second to none.

Tell us about your dream job or dream employer at this point in your life? I would love to continue my career in investing. I am always eager to search for and help develop growing companies. Growing up and working in emerging markets has constantly surrounded me with potential. There are always new ideas, projects, companies which come to fruition when they are supported in the right way and I would like to spend more time doing that.

What would you like your business school peers to say about you after you graduate from this program? That I, in some way (whether big or small) added to their experience here.