MBA Handicapping: Can This White South African Guy Crack Stanford & Harvard?

Jamie has an undergraduate GPA of 3.4, below the class averages at Stanford, Harvard, MIT Sloan, London Business School, and INSEAD, all the schools to which he intends to apply. His 730 GMAT score sits at the median of both Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and HBS.

Yet, this 27-year-old South African is in every way one of the most ideal candidates you will ever meet. He’s a senior associate at South Africa’s largest economics consulting firm, Genesis Analytics, having won two promotions for his work as a behavioral economist and consultant. He’s done project work in Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, and South Africa, including a public health project with the objective of halving the risk of HIV/AIDS for 40,000 men a year. He’s the co-founder of a startup that is creating a digital marketplace for fine art in Africa that will launch before yearend.

And at one of Africa’s top two universities, Jamie not only did a triple major in philosophy, politics and economics; he also played cricket on a sports scholarship, rugby and hockey. What’s more, he is a national champion ballroom dancer, plays the piano and sang in a choir.

All in all, it’s quite a strong profile for any elite MBA program. The big question: Given his below-average GPA for a white male to highly selective business schools, should he retake the GMAT and aim for a higher score?

In this Friday’s With Sandy episode, HBSGuru.com founder Sandy Kreisberg and Poets&Quants Editor John A. Byrne provide that answer with insights about what Jamie needs to do to seal the deal.

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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