This 29-year-old white male professional has two super hot things going for him: He works for a FANG company (that would be Facebook, Amazon, Netflix or Google), and he works in analytics, one of the hottest business disciplines right now. He’s also an ex-pro basketball players who was the team capatain and leading scorer at a top three University of California campus. He now wants an MBA and a consulting job in analytics at McKinsey, Bain or BCG.
She’s a 25-year-old young Indian professional who works in corporate governance and compliance at one of the world’s largest agri-chemical companies. With a 720 GMAT and a 3.8 GPA from the University of Mumbai, she also boasts an impressive portfolio of extracurriculars. She is hoping that an MBA will allow her to transition to a consulting role in the nonprofit or public sector.
This first-generation, Hispanic college student has an unusual career path. He enlisted in the U.S. Army as a 19-year-old straight out of high school, served in the military for six years, including three and one-half in Afghanistan, and then entered college. With a 720 GMAT but a 3.1 GPA at a public university in Texas, he’s now a senior and wants to go to business school to transition into consulting.
After graduating from Babson College with a degree in finance and accounting, he landed a job as an auditor for a Big Four accounting firm. Two years in, this 24-year-old professional with a Malaysian passport has set his sights on an MBA that will allow him to get a consulting job at McKinsey or Bain. What he has in his favor is an adversity story. He immigrated to the U.S. at an early age with a family that bounced around from one motel to another.
CAN THEY GET INTO SOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST ELITE MBA PROGRAMS
Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com
What these four MBA candidates and more share in common is the desire to get through the door of a highly selective MBA program at one of the world’s very best business schools. Do they have a chance?
Sanford “Sandy” Kreisberg, founder of MBA admissions consulting firm HBSGuru.com, is back to analyze these and a few other profiles of actual MBA applicants who have shared their vital statistics, work backgrounds, and career goals with Poets&Quants. Each written assessment by Sandy in this episode also includes bonus video so you can either read or watch the tell-it-like-it-is analysis.
As usual, Kreisberg handicaps each potential applicant’s odds of getting into a top-ranked business school. If you include your own stats and characteristics in the comments, we’ll pick a few more and have Kreisberg assess your chances in a follow-up feature to be published shortly. (Please add your age and be clear on the sequence of your jobs in relaying work experience. Make sure you let us know your current job.)
Handicapping Your MBA Odds – The Entire Series
Part I: Handicapping Your Shot At a Top Business School
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