Handicapping Your Odds: Mr. Teach For America, Mr. Consulting, Ms. Startup, Mr. Emerging Markets, Ms. Marketing

bizman

Mr. Emerging Markets

 

  • 168V 164Q GRE
  • 3.7 GPA
  • Undergraduate degree from Harvard, Yale or Princeton
  • Master’s degree from Oxford/Cambridge in a geographic region (Think East Asian/Latin American/Middle Eastern/African Studies] Dissertation applied the research of a prominent Harvard Business School professor to the food & beverage supply chains in a country of interest
  • Work experience includes one and one-half years at a boutique emerging markets-focused private equity fund with a limited track record of recent MBA applications: one to Wharton, and one to Haas
  • Did a four-month off-cycle placement at GS/MS/JPM in mergers and acquisitions after graduation from Ox/Cam, but declined a full-time offer
  • Extracurricular involvement as a varsity athlete during undergrad [think volleyball/water polo/crew]; worked for three months in youth ward of maximum-security prison in [country of interest]; a head teaching assistant for several highly-enrolled courses during undergrad
  • Goals: To join a management consultancy with a strong private equity practice (e.g. Bain or Parthenon); longer term to join an early stage emerging market PE fund in a leadership role or take the entrepreneurial plunge and start one myself.
  • “Any advice on how to package my story and/or career goals would also be most appreciated”
  • 25-year-old white male

Odds of Success:

Stanford: 35% to 40%

Harvard: 40% to 50%

Yale: 50%+

Columbia: 50%+

Wharton: 50%+

Dartmouth: 50%+

Sandy’s Analysis: You asked for “packaging advice.” At Stanford, packaging advice for white males always includes a sex change operation or, better than that, reincarnation although in your case, you may not need to go that far. Your GRE scores are equivalent to a 730 GMAT. You have a great GPA from an Ivy League university.

You have the right stats along with an impactful do-gooder degree in a favored, victim-rich downtrodden area of the world (think Africa?) and the natural ability to kiss up by applying HBS professor gibberish to an actual industry. (“Dissertation applied the research of a prominent Harvard Business School professor to the food & beverage supply chains in a country of interest.”) Yikes! Just a thought here, try spinning some yarn in your apps about supply chains being the hidden DNA of delivering do-gooder efforts to down-trodden lands everywhere.

So, all in all, I would say your natural package is pretty darn good.

A lot will depend on what the adcom world thinks of your “boutique emerging markets PE fund.” As you note, the limited track record of MBA applicants is an issue. It’s not a disqualification but you have to present yourself as the best person to ever come out of this place. The fact that you kissed off an elite investment banking firm is something you might use. (“Did a four-month off-cycle placement at GS/MS/JPM in mergers and acquisitions after graduation from Ox/Cam, but declined a full-time offer.) You should have a thoughtful and convincing reason for making that decision, and you don’t want it to come off as bragging. One suggestion: You might say, “Those guys there were wonderful but not my kind of wonderful.”

But that is window dressing. Your basic story is a tight golden thread that often leads to success. I think you would be very attractive to Yale, Columbia, Wharton, and Tuck. At HBS and Stanford, it’s just cooking up the X factor.

For Stanford, to the extent possible, package yourself as an emerging markets, Africa guy. Perhaps one of the reasons you left Goldman Sachs was that there wasn’t enough focus on those emerging markets, well in a do-gooder way. I believe emerging market equity prices have been doing very well over the past 4 years. You joined your boutique firm because you wanted to become Mr. Africa. This explanation is particularly helpful if it is supported by evidence of any type of validity.

This is a case where execution counts a bit because you have to account for your no-name PE fund. I ain’t just shooting the breeze here. One of the most powerful “hidden” stories Poets and Quants has uncovered about HBS is the lack of success of applicants from from “middle-market private equity funds” even applicants with amazing stats. PE kids is an unbelievably competitive cohort.

So you have to distinguish your emerging markets firm from the generic middle-market funds which have a history of failure after failure at HBS. Read this and weep.

poetsandquants.com/2014/10/20/who-hbs-ding ed-in-the-first-round/

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