Mr. Career Change

Hi Mr. Career Change, Melisa here from Stratus Admissions. You have a really interesting story – and as a recent python dabbler, I admire your ability to constantly seek opportunities to learn. And as a daughter, I love the dedication to your parent. We are seeing more people have 3,4,5 careers in a lifetime. My biggest question for you is why is now the right time for you to get an MBA and why do you need an MBA? As I’m sure you know, 3-8 years of experience is the mid 80% range for full time programs. If you are looking at full-time, you will fall outside of this window. And while this isn’t a problem per se, it will be up to you to convince Ad Comms that now is the right time for you. If you are considering the Fully Employed or Executive options – I think your years of experience are much more in line with these programs. I would encourage you to look at these options. With other later career MBAs that I have worked with, they have chosen part time or exec programs because they felt that the information exchange would be more beneficial to them. Now, UCLA is absolutely the right choice for entertainment (as well as USC – and if you are open to the East Coast add Stern to your list). However, I am not understanding from the limited info here, why entertainment? While you would obviously bring a lot of interesting knowledge to classroom discussions, you will want to be clear about your short and long term goals. What do you want to do in the entertainment industry? Stay in communications? Make a pivot? Again, you have the makings of a really interesting story, you just need to make sure that story connects these dots for admissions. Good luck with the GMAT – for the FT programs, the projected 700’s will be tough to overcome as a non-traditional candidate. For part time or exec programs – this will put you in a stronger place. My assessment is on the assumption you are applying for FT – it would go up with a part time/exec. Reach out if you have any questions. Best of luck!