MBA Handicapping: Too Young For HBS, Even With A 750?

If you had these stats–a 750 GMAT with great quant/verbal splits and a 3.64 GPA in a demanding major like engineering from Purdue–you would think you are well on your way into a great business school. But Arya would bring slightly less than two years of full-time work experience with him at matriculation. Will that eliminate a shot at an elite MBA program?

In this Friday’s With Sandy episode, the first of the new year, HBSGuru.com founder Sandy Kreisberg and P&Q editor John A. Byrne explore this issue in full. Arya is targeting four MBA programs at NYU Stern, Chicago Booth, Northwestern Kellogg, and Wharton. Sandy believes he should take a shot at Harvard Business School, and John thinks he should put Cornell on the list. Here’s why.

What Arya lacks in work experience, he makes up with those stats and the fact that he is in a leadership rotation program at a publicly-traded industrial company with a market cap of $10 billion that sends few of its employees into business school. At Purdue, he was an actor in the theater company, playing key roles in such well-known classics as Death of a Salesman. Even more impressive, he was team captain of the university cricket club where Arya got to exercise his leadership muscles. This 23-year-old, moreover, comes off as mature, professional, and serious, well beyond his 23 years.

That’s why Sandy is giving him good odds and even encouraging him to apply to Harvard. There is one other wrinkle to his application. His post-MBA goal is to get into investment banking, even though there is nothing in his path to suggest why i-banking is a good idea for him. That could cause admission officials some pause. Watch this Friday’s With Sandy session and tell us what you think.

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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