Mr. Aussie Sustainability

Hi there! It’s Stephanie Horn, Master Consultant with the MBA Exchange and recent Poets and Quants “Top 10 Admissions Consultants”. Mr. Aussie Sustainability, you have top grades and challenging undergraduate and graduate degrees. You already know that your GMAT will be a constraint for a school like Stanford, and that you’ll be better off if you can get it in the 700 range. Your extracurriculars are terrific — they are unusual, and show your talent and determination. Your main challenge will be to cast your work experience and your goals into more traditional business language. Admissions committees are very concerned that the candidates they accept will have jobs upon graduation. Reading that you want to take skills for for-profit organizations and apply them for a low carbon/ carbon negative (non-profit?) future will make some admissions people uneasy. This is a common trap where candidates sound like a Masters in Public Policy would be a better degree for them than the MBA. You need to be sure to stress your passion for business, your business goals, and your clearly employable future to set the committees at ease.

Hey, Mr. Aussie Sustainability, this is Julie-Anne Heafey with mbaMission. You have a really fascinating background, and your sustainability focus is very of-the-moment, but Stanford is a goal with lottery-like odds. The first hurdle will of course be the GMAT – I’d definitely retake the test or consider switching to the GRE (have you tried an online sample test?). Yes, they’ll consider some applicants with lower GMAT scores, but it’s not the norm.
Second, you need to clarify your message and demonstrate your impact. I just don’t know exactly what you’ve done “as part of a working group” to recycle a “particular product that holds social, safety and environmental value.” That could mean a lot of things. Your goals are similarly vague of stepping into the executive suite. Where? To do what? Does it need an MBA? I always worry when I hear candidates describe goals of who they’ll be instead of what they’ll do. I think you’re a truly interesting applicant, but I’d need to know more. If you can put some work into figuring out your path and demonstrating leadership and impact, you’ll improve your chances. Good luck!