A 770 GMAT & Two No-Name Employers Equals What?

The first thing you need to know about Cooper is that he has a 770 GMAT, a 3.67 GPA from Northwestern University in economics and environmental science and wants to get his MBA from one of seven highly ranked business schools led by Stanford. But that is really only the beginning.

Passionate about climate control, this 24-year-old works as an analyst in a highly selective job for a climate finance nonprofit called the Climate Policy Initiative in San Francisco that does not ordinarily send many young people into MBA programs. Before his current working gig, he had spent a year at ICF International in Fairfax, Va., which is a global consulting and technology services company, which provides a range of services for governments and businesses.

But that’s not all. At Northwestern, the lefty pitcher walked onto the university’s baseball team before his junior year and then, as a senior, helped to lead the Northwestern Wildcats to their first Big Ten Tournament in 33 years by striking out nine batters in six and two-thirds innings on three days rest.

The challenge: Neither organization on his resume is a feeder to elite MBA programs, and what his current employer does in advising government and investors on complicated financial instruments can be hard to explain. His ultimate post-MBA goal is to work in impact investing.

In this episode of Friday’s With Sandy, HBSGuru.com founder Sandy Kreisberg walks Cooper through his resume, grills him with typical admission interview questions, and dispenses advice on how to best present himself to the adcom officials at Stanford, Wharton, Chicago Booth, NYU Stern, Berkeley Haas, UCLA Anderson and Columbia Business School. Sandy also encourages Cooper to add Harvard Business School to his list of targets and explains why.

If you would like to participate in a future Fridays With Sandy webinar, you can contact Sandy and P&Q Founder John A Byrne here.

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