Mr. Private Equity

Business schools love candidates who are already in PE jobs because in all likelihood they will graduate and go to work with a private equity firm (often a more well known PE firm than they had worked for before) and make big bucks. That really lifts employment report averages for grads. So because everything else here is in line, I would say your chances are nicely above the 12% admit rate for Harvard. The only thing holding me back from giving you great odds is 1) I suspect your school may not be a feeder into HBS (McGill has six Harvard MBAs in the Class of 2020, British Columbia has five, and Queen’s & Toronto has four), and 2) You are at a boutique PE shop, not a heavy hitter.

Mr. Private Equity: Emily here from The MBA Exchange. I served as an Associate Director of Admissions at Columbia and application assessor at Wharton. At these kinds of top schools, they will certainly see you as a fit given your blue chip work experience and GPA/GMAT. However, it will be hard to set yourself apart from others with very similar profiles who also have strong numbers, recommendations and work experiences. If you have personal or professional connections at these schools who could write in support of you, that could be helpful. You should also present your goals in a different way than others will…what unique take on a search fund would you have that would be different from others already out there? It’s a challenge to make yourself stand out but we have definitely had many clients who have found success in these situations. I also think Round 1 could make a difference at these schools where they start to fill their classes early with this kind of profile and the later you go, the more they need to balance the class out with different and diverse applicants. You’ve got all the building blocks–I wish you the best of luck!

Hi, Mr. Private Equity, this is Julie-Anne Heafey from mbaMission. I work with many high achieving finance applicants and used to work in that industry before my own Harvard MBA, so I’m very familiar with your world. You have so many great things going for you – a high GPA and solid GMAT, a brand name IB firm and pre-MBA PE experience, and community service at a board level. Your personal drive to break into finance without an easy network also sounds admirable. The challenge you face is at its core a numbers problem: Harvard attracts a lot of male finance applicants like you with great stats and work experience and they cannot take everyone. From what I’ve seen with my own clients, it often comes down to demonstrating some kind of extra edge. What do I mean by edge? It could be: a strong firm brand with a pre-existing pipeline to HBS…advocates who push for you with powerful recommendations (and rate you better than others they may be writing recs for if you’re at a larger firm with coworkers applying)….differentiated work experience or outsize impact that you’ve had in what you’ve done…or even a unique personal perspective in your application. Ideally, you’ll be bringing as many of these things to the table as possible to maximize your odds. Your essay and interview will of course be critical to show the above-mentioned impact and perspective. From what I see here, you have a good chance, but it’s going to come down to execution. Good luck!!