Mr. Andrew

Rarely have I seen an analyst at a wealth management firm describe himself the way you do: “My expertise lies in data analytics, visualization, and storytelling.” That is a powerful combination of skills. As Alex Min of The MBA Exhange notes, you are a poet and a quant. Your undergrad degree from Colgate and your stats are all in line for Kellogg, along with the fact that you rowed in college at a division 1 level. That is one of the ultimate team sports in my book. Your chances at Kellogg, which has an admit rate of 26%, all hinge on whether those three skills you cite are apparent to the admissions staff. Because that is what you need to put your application over the finish line. Otherwise, there’s nothing special here that is driving you toward an acceptance. You are perfectly qualified to go to Kellogg and do well but so is the vast majority of the 74% of applicants who get rejected. My advice: Get to campus, connect with admissions, meet with students, talk to alumni, sit with a faculty member or two. In other words, work it. Dpn’t just submit your app and cross your fingers, hoping for the best. My gut tells me that the more interaction you have with Kellogg stakeholders, the better off you’re going to be.

With a professional background that touches hand-on PM plus strategy, and spans data analytics and story telling, you’re both a Poet AND a Quant! That said, you’re a bit young and your Analyst title is common, so be sure to convey your work experience with strong examples of your tangible impact — and choose caring recommenders who will back it up. Your post-MBA goal is rather vague and doesn’t do justice to the rigor of your experience. Why small businesses as a target market when you could leverage your big corporate roots? Your degree in econ from Colgate with a nice GPA and competitive GMAT mean that your academic profile won’t hurt your chances at schools like Kellogg and Booth. United Way campaign management is a worthy non-work activity, but my hunch is that is employer-related. So, I would definitely beef up that aspect of your candidacy as Kellogg really values well-rounded, social, team players.

Hello Mr. Andrew! Krista Nannery from mbaMission here. I’ll try to cover some things that John and Alex have not touched on:
As a URM, Please reach out to The Consortium and take advantage of all their wonderful resources and leverage their application process, which simplifies some of the detail work.
That Division 1 rowing experience is great. B-schools love student-athletes, especially ones who can pull of a 3.6 GPA. I find sometimes that my clients with similar backgrounds don’t really “get” this though and I have to push them to sell their athletic experiences and related athletic and academic awards. Make sure this is all clear on your resume. Give it more than just one tiny bullet please!
Goals: Spend some time over the next few months diving deep with your goals. On the surface, I’m not quite sure who you want to work for or indeed if this job exists as a post-MBA path. (Not sure what bringing “growth and innovation to various local communities” means. Do you mean smart cities?) Download the employment reports of the schools you are interested in. See who is hiring. Talk to current students about their job search process. And refine, refine, refine.
Lastly, network, network, network. Go to all the info sessions and try to connect with AdComs. This doesn’t mean you need to fly all over the country and visit every program in person, but make sure you have multiple touch points with each program and that you visit your top choices.
I’m curious about Jones on your list. I think that will be a safety-safety for you. You could save that for R2 and focus on the other programs in R1. (To be fair, I’m not usually a fan of a split round strategy…I prefer to concentrate all on R1…but Jones feels so safe for you so I think it can wait.)
Hope that helps!
Krista

Hi Andrew, this is Donna Bauman, Senior MBA Admissions Counselor at Stratus Admissions with some thoughts about your profile. My first thought in reading your profile was about how you might be interested in the Asset Management pathway at Kellogg given your experience in wealth management. Granted you are already working in this field but the Kellogg Admissions team made a special point of noting this pathway when they presented a webinar for admissions consultants this past year. If you look at the Kellogg employment report for 2019, you’ll see that the percent of students working in finance/accounting roles jumped up to 19% of the class as opposed to 13% for 2018 so there is a lot of positive momentum for bringing in people with finance backgrounds who are looking to stay in the field. If that is an interest of yours, you may be able to leverage your finance background to fit into a sector that Kellogg is actively enhancing. If you were my client, I’d use this early time now to help guide you to gain a bit more clarity on your post MBA career goals and guide you through visiting programs to help understand how these schools can best help you. In terms of your interest in data analytics and visualization, I think you’d enjoy looking into a Kellogg course taught by Professor Steven Franconeri called Visualization for Persuasion. I sat in on a class he taught as part of a Kellogg reunion and it made me want to go back and be a student again. I agree with some of the other experts who have mentioned that your Div 1 Rowing and 3.6 gpa is also a big plus in your profile and would be worth building into your application. I’d like to see more about what you have done in community leadership since college. I think the schools you list are all over the map—so I’d use this time before R1 to continue researching your goals in addition to learning about more of these MBA programs.