Mr. Budding Actuary

Hi Mr. Budding Actuary! This is Kate Richardson, Senior Admissions Consultant. Congratulations on clearing most of your papers and achieving such a high GMAT score. You are at a good point in your career to apply but I think you will have a challenge in standing out from a lot of other Big 4 applicants — especially those who may be applying from the advisory side of those firms (as that is more common pre-MBA and also a more common feeder to consulting). If your GPA is 3 on 4.0 scale (and you are not converting that), I think you will have a challenge on the academic side. Your GMAT score helps but at an elite school like Stanford, the average GPA is 3.72! I rated your odds quite low because Stanford is such a selective program, with an acceptance rate of only 6.7%. I do think you’ll have a much better shot at other programs like LBS and Ross. Hope that helps in seeing how you stack up!

Mr. Budding Actuary – Thanks for posting your profile. Susan Cera here from Stratus.

I spent ~10 years with admissions committee at Duke Fuqua and more than half of that evaluating and selecting applicants from India. While your GMAT is strong, your GPA is soft (unless you are converting from a 100 point scale or first division/second division which I would advise against). It isn’t clear WHY you want to switch careers. Have you decided that you don’t want to be an actuary? As you position yourself for business school, don’t just toss aside the experience and skills that you have developed to date. Be sure to build on them through your MBA to get to your post-MBA goal. (NOTE: I think this was the BIGGEST faux pas of many Indian candidates – simply saying they wanted to go into consulting). Absent any extra-curriculars, you will be challenged to stand out at Stanford which is especially hard to get into and looks for students who have already changed lives and are using a Stanford MBA to change organizations and change the world.
Wishing you all the best on your application journey!