Ms. Public Service

This is an excellent profile. You are a highly desirable MBA candidate and I believe. your chances of an admit at Stanford are pretty good, though as the most highly selective MBA program in the world, you just never know for sure. If, for whatever reason, you don’t ring the bell at the GSB, I feel fairly certain that at least two or more of the other schools you have targeted will invite you to be a member of their class. Why am I so confident? You have a jumbo GMAT score at 750. You have a solid GPA of 3.7 from an Ivy League university. You have been directly involved at a high government level in managing through a crisis that has impacted everyone. And in your current role at a national nonprrofit, you launched an initiative and raised more than $5 million in a single year. Based on the quality of your profile, you should be interviewed by almost all of the schools to which you intend to apply. One serious question to consider, given the fact that you could not have earned a lot of money working for either an NGO or the government, is what kind of scholarship support you would be seeking. You are in a strong position for an award at Stanford, Harvard or any of the other schools on your target list. Stanford, Harvard, and Chicago Booth are most likely going to be more generous because those three schools have a lot of fellowship money to give. Your post-MBA career goals also mean that you could very well have a harder time paying off a big loan so whatever scholarship support you get will probably make the difference in where you go. My advice: Don’t get your heart set on any one school. Go to the MBA program that gives you the best deal, given these circumstances. Good luck to you. My odds are for Stanford where the admit rate is about 6%. Your chances at HBS, Wharton, Chicago and MIT are much higher for obvious reasons.