Ms. Transformation

Hi Ms. Transformation, this is Kristen from MBA Prep School. It sounds like your moniker is a perfect description not only of your job but also of your journey. As a former MIT Sloan adcom, I always felt that the candidates we admitted from the waitlist ended up being some of the strongest contributors to the class. Your academic success and extracurricular leadership experiences will surely help you in your pursuit of an MBA. It is great to see your community engagement not just as a student, but internally at your firm and as a volunteer. It also sounds like your immigrant experience has helped you build resilience and develop your voice, and I especially like your passion for breaking barriers and positively impacting others. Your work at a Big 4 is solid, but I can’t get to the heart of your impact from the big life wins you mentioned. You’ll obviously need to go deeper into the outcomes you achieved in a quantifiable way. This will be even more important for top programs where you will be competing with MBB management consultants, who tend to be a bit more successful in the admissions process at H/S/W. You will want to emphasize your accomplishments to showcase you are right on par with applicants from those top firms. Does your firm offer MBA sponsorship or an offer to return? This is usually a very strong signal to admissions officers, even if you are opting not to take it. Your 720 GMAT is also just a little below the average at HBS and Stanford. This alone is not a make or break criteria and you are still in range, but it means you will again need to emphasize those other differentiators. Lastly, I think you will want to polish your career goals a bit further to detail why a growth company, which ones or which industry sector would you want to be in, etc. You want your story to connect from the past to the future in a cohesive way so your goals make sense and show you have an awareness of your skills and passions. This is especially true at GSB where they seek applicants who intend to change not just their organizations but the world at large. I think your odds are better at Booth and Haas, but would be happy to offer you a complimentary consultation to chat more about how to position your application for success overall!