Mr. Dr. Technocrat

Hi, it’s Nisha from mbaMission. You certainly have an intriguing background – it’s not often that I come across an MIT PhD in Physics! Your academic accomplishments are most impressive, and I love that you have a private pilot license as well!

What I’d really like to know (and the schools will as well) is – why do you want to transition into tech or management consulting? That is a really big change – how have your professional and personal experiences to date shaped those ambitions? It’s important to present a strong case for a transition into one of these careers – schools want to see career goals that are ambitious yet realistic given your experience to date.

I should also note that the average # of years of work experience for Stanford is about 4-5 years (and age-wise, about mid-late 20s). Given your level of work experience and age, I do think it would be quite challenging to apply to a full-time MBA program, which generally targets those early in their career (in part, because job recruiters are seeking MBA candidates at a certain level in their careers). Upon doing some reflection on your career goals, I recommend narrowing down what you would like to do in the short and long-term and researching if it’s possible that those goals can be met with a part-time MBA, which are more receptive to older candidates.

Hope that helps!