Mr. Aspiring Human

Hi, Mr. Aspiring Human – Julie-Anne Heafey here from mbaMission. You seem to have a lot of fans in the Poets & Quants community who are rating your odds very highly at 75%! I hope that they are correct! However, I have some hesitations that make it difficult for me to give the same prediction. First, your age/experience – you are only 24, with just a few years of work experience, whereas HBS really values the perspective gained over a longer period of time usually because the Case Method really relies on students to “become” the teachers through case discussion. In my experience, HBS tends to admit male applicants with about 5-6 years of experience at matriculation. Second, I’m not clear on your goals – your plan A might be achievable (consulting) but the PE/VC angle is probably going to be a steep road for you because you haven’t already been on that path, and they usually recruit from IB or folks who have already done PE/VC. What’s AMC – is that asset management, with an ESG specialization? And then later you are planning to become “a teacher who teaches”? It seems like you are considering multiple paths, and while that’s totally find for most 24 year olds, business schools tend to value at least some level of clarity when you apply…so I’d narrow down your direction and articulate why and how you’ll get there, picking something reasonable but ambitious. Finally, I’m hopeful you’ll blow your GMAT out of the water, but a 700 is quite low for M7 schools for an “overrepresented candidate,” so do your best to get a score that’s around 750-760+ for the most challenging schools when you apply. I sincerely hope you take some time before you apply to sort all this out and build a strong profile with leadership and impact, so that you are really giving it your best shot! Wishing you good luck!