Mr. Media Startup

Having done my own digital media startup, of which Poets&Quants is a key part, I have to immediately applaud you for accomplishing all that you have in a single year. Getting to $1.2 million in revenue with a dozen fill-time employees from scratch is quite an impressive achievement. Having toured North America in a band is also an amazing feat, though one that might get you less points from admissions. They’re prefer to see you slaving away behind a desk in a cubicle at Goldman Sachs or Deloitte Consulting. Your GPA and GMAT are in line for INSEAD, and I would think they would love someone as non-traditional as you in their MBA class. The fact that you plan to take “a leading role at publicly traded family real estate firm” after graduation also bodes well for your application. No one has to worry about placing you in a job. The one issue with your profile for INSEAD is you appear to lack any real international experience. That is a critical element at INSEAD. Even so, I’d say the school would be lucky to have you and the insights you can bring by virtue of your musical talent, your entrepreneurial experience, and your real estate expertise.

Hi there! It’s Stephanie Horn, Master Consultant with the MBA Exchange and recent Poets and Quants “Top 10 Admissions Consultants”. In case anyone doubts the connection between musical talent and strategic ability, I actually had two friends at Kellogg who were both professional opera singers pre-MBA. One went into investment banking, and the other joined McKinsey with me. So I believe in you! And successfully launching a small business shows your determination, leadership, and teambuilding skills. Congratulations! Your challenge will be to translate your unique experiences in music, real estate, and your small media company into language familiar to the admissions committee. I would add Kellogg to your list of schools because they have the Kellogg Center for Family Enterprises, and I would include IESE as another strong European option.

Hello Mr. Media Startup! Thanks for posting. Krista Nannery from mbaMission here.

Starting your own company and actually having revenue is a big deal AdComs will love that. Your job will be to make your business easy for them to understand — and clear and interesting. That being said, I am naturally curious about “projecting” to have $1.2 million in revenue. What did 2019 look like?

Then, assuming this is YOUR family’s real estate business, I’d like you to consider CBS J-term. INSEAD can be a tough nut to crack without international experience, and you’re a little on the younger side. (The INSEAD average is something like 8 years.) If you’re already okay with skipping the internship via INSEAD’s one year MBA program. the CBS J-term might be a good fit for you. I also find CBS is more open to younger applicants than INSEAD.

One other actionable tip for you given your background and your goals…how about taking one real estate class pre-MBA? This will signal to the AdCom that you are really serious about your post-MBA plans. (That being said, you do say you do personal real estate investing so that’s also a good proxy. You’ll just need to sell it and quantify it.)

Wharton, HBS, and Haas may be tough to make happen given your lower GMAT and relatively shorter professional history. Please apply though and give it your best shot!

So…I think you are a deeply interesting candidate. You just need to make sure the AdComs see it and understand that your goals are achievable.

I hope that helps!
Krista

Hi Mr. Media Startup, this is Donna Bauman, Senior MBA Admissions Counselor with Stratus Admissions and right off the bat I say you are a very interesting person! Very impressive to have toured in a band and to have started your own digital media company. Your music background also helps you stand out. With all that being said, there are a few challenges you face for INSEAD. First your work experience – while very impressive—is still a bit less in terms of the tenure given that the average age for a student in the program is 29 and the average number of years of work experience is over 5.5 years. You don’t mention an additional language but I assume you have that second language beyond English if English is your native language. At the very least I encourage you to do the January intake so that you can do an internship because you are looking to make a pretty steep career pivot. In looking at other US programs I really encourage you to look at UNC Kenan-Flagler because they have an outstanding real estate program—over 10% of the class goes into real estate post MBA so you are not only going to have more opportunities for experiential learning in the program, you are also going to be exposed to a lot more recruiters around real estate. I’d also look at UCLA Anderson for real estate too. I agree with other experts who mention looking at programs with strong family business programs as well as that could be a valuable lifetime resource for you.