Ms. Cybersecurity

Ms. Cybersecurity:
It’s Emily from The MBA Exchange. I am a former Associate Director of Admissions at Columbia Business School and application assessor at Wharton and have now been consulting at The MBA Exchange for 4 years. Having seen so many applicants to CBS in these roles, I feel there is so much to like about your candidacy! B schools will love your experience working with females in tech and entrepreneurship. Your 3.7 from UNC, your feats of athleticism in the great outdoors and your professional management experience in tech consulting will all be positives for you. The 322 will be a hindrance at a school like CBS that really likes to see high testing numbers, especially on the quant side. I also think you will need to parse out your goals more clearly. What unique vision do you have for tech companies that can help people in the future? Give admissions officers a specific story about what you plan to do, even if you don’t exactly know your future (who does?). It really helps admissions to be able to visualize your future as a leader and know you’ve clearly thought through what you can bring to an MBA class and to your industry of choice. I recommend retaking your GRE perhaps with more prep to see if you can raise the score and also consider applying for the J term at CBS. If you’ve already applied for September and do not get admitted, you can reapply for January and with some small improvements in your application, the J term could be a great fit for you and also is slightly less competitive for admission. Good luck!

Hi, it’s Nisha from mbaMission! It sounds like you have impactful and progressive experience in consulting, along with a solid GPA and impressive extracurricular accomplishments with the nonprofit board membership, professional development initiatives, and the cross-country bike ride (so interesting!) . I would need to know the GRE breakdown to assess it further, but for a school like CBS you’ll ideally want a 160+ on each side (especially quant) to be in contention, so please consider retaking.

You stated that your post-MBA goal is to “work for a tech company to build products that help people” – what is the motivation underpinning this ambition? What have you observed as a technology consultant that has inspired this goal? Be sure to communicate this clearly in your application, as admissions committees are extremely interested in understanding what has shaped applicants’ goals and what type of impact they desire to make.

CBS is very concerned about yield, so you’ll want to make it very clear why CBS is a strong fit for you based on its location, resources within and outside of the classroom that pertain to your goals, and its culture. So make sure that you go to campus, talk to students/alumni, and attend events to the extent possible. Also, if it is your first choice, apply Early Decision (which is binding) as early in the application cycle as you can given the rolling admissions process – I’ve worked with many clients on CBS and have seen how much ED can help. Best of luck!

Ms. Cybersecurity – Susan Cera, Senior MBA Admissions Counselor, here.

I really like the solid work progression and ongoing involvement. These will position you very well. Like the other experts, I’m a bit concerned about your GRE which feels a bit light for CBS which is constantly looking to drive up their scores. I would seriously consider retaking to strengthen your candidacy.

Given your outside interests (which seem closely tied to the outdoors) I’m curious as to why CBS? If you like spending your free time hiking and biking, why would you want to be in NYC? To get the nod at CBS you need to tighen up your goals and research the resources that CBS (and NYC) offer that will help you get there. Be sure to visit campus, engage with students and find a champion for yourself in the admissions office.

All the best!