Mr. Big Pharma & Startup

Hmmm, hi Mr. Big Pharma Startup, this is Julie-Anne Heafey from mbaMission. You have some interesting elements in your profile but they’re a little hazy, and my feeling is that the details will matter on whether this story succeeds. I’m a bit worried about your GMAT – a 620 is very low for HBS; in fact, for the class of 2022 (kind of a lenient year for admissions), 620 was the lowest score in the class. So — while you aren’t out of range completely, you’re at the outer edge, which ups the riskiness of your candidacy. Still, admissions are holistic and if you hit everything else out of the park in terms of leadership and impact, you would have a shot. How did you save the day, how successful was your drug, how influential was your work? Because I don’t know enough about these key details, I’m reluctant to give higher than normal odds, especially with a low GMAT and lower than average GPA, but I won’t reduce them either because there might be more to this story! If you apply to CBS, your GMAT is likely to be even more of a factor, especially if you go for the August program (you might find more success in January but there’s no summer internship), so I suggest you try the EA (which is kind of a GMAT-lite and ignored by most ranking orgs, so it allows them not to have your score bring down the average and therefore rankings; HBS does not accept it but CBS does). Best of luck!!