Ms. YES To M7

Hi, it’s Nisha from mbaMission. I definitely admire your enthusiasm about pursuing an MBA, making positive change, and entering a career that’s meaningful to you.

Top schools evaluate candidates by considering a few main categories: academics, professional progression and impact, viability of post-MBA career goals, and community impact/personal characteristics. Your academics are solid, though your GMAT is slightly below the average for the top U.S. programs, so retaking is worth it if you feel that there’s opportunity for improvement. Regarding your professional accomplishments – working as an industrial engineer for a F500 in Aerospace is impressive, but I’d have to know a lot more about the progression and impact you’ve made in your time there to be able to evaluate this part of your profile. It’s great to see that you mentor high school students – how long have you been doing so, through which org, and what is the impact you feel you’ve made?

Regarding your career goals – MBA programs want to see that you have a defined path that you intend to pursue (even though this could change once you get to bschool) so you’ll definitely want to do a lot of reflection on this part – think about what you want to do after school industry and function-wise, what motivates this goal, the transferrable skills you’ll bring from your IE career, and how an MBA from each target school will help you achieve this goal.

From the limited information you’ve provided, the schools you’re targeting appear to be a reach – do keep in mind that there are fantastic programs outside the M7 that could be a great fit for you and your goals, so keep researching programs with an open mind, especially once you have a stronger idea of your goals and are able to objectively evaluate your profile based on the info I’ve provided here. Hope this helps for now – best of luck and please get in touch if you’d like to discuss your profile in more detail.