Meet Georgetown McDonough’s MBA Class of 2017

Christopher Gomez Blank

Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business

Hometown: Arlington, VA

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Virginia, Foreign Affairs and Spanish (double major)

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

            New York Bar Association, Immigration Outreach Coordinator

Brooklyn Family Defense Project, Development Associate

Sesame Workshop, Coordinator, Strategic Partnerships

Recalling your own experience, what advice do you have for applicants who are preparing for either the GMAT or the GRE? I took both the GMAT and GRE. For both tests, make sure you give yourself ample time. If you know you are not the best test taker or you have not found the area of a cylinder since high school, then expect the process to take a few months minimum. Create a study schedule and stick to it – that one week you “take off” from studying will become a month before you know it. Expect to sacrifice time with friends and family during the process, so let them know that you will be going dead for a while. If you are coming from a non-quant undergraduate or professional background, I suggest taking the GMAT over the GRE. The admissions committees have reams of data on how people perform on the GMAT and their success in their MBA programs. In order to “prove” that you can do math, take the GMAT which has a more difficult quant section. Also, the main difference between the verbal sections on the test is vocabulary vs. grammar – the GRE is vocabulary heavy and the GMAT is grammar heavy. So, if you are good at memorizing words or Latin roots, I would suggest taking the GRE. If you are a good writer or editor, the GMAT Sentence Correction section will be a breeze.

Based on your own selection process, what advice do you have for applicants who are trying to draw up a list of target schools to which to apply? Do not get hung up on rankings – get hung up on what the school can do for you and your post-MBA career goals. Do research within your network, figure out the perception of the school in the industry that you want to enter post-MBA, and let that guide your target school list. Consider the network you want to have post-MBA and look at the demographics of the past few classes and employment reports (U.S. vs. international students; percentage of graduates going into consulting vs. finance vs. social impact, etc). Consider geography and how it compares to the industry you are trying to get into. If you want to work on Wall Street, you will be in New York almost every weekend of your first semester recruiting, so if you are going to a school out West, those plane tickets are going to add up. Think of your undergraduate education and how you were successful. If you need space and silence to study, a school in a big city may not be the best fit. Consider your finances and loans. Schools in small towns have a much lower cost of living than schools in urban areas.

What advice do you have for applicants in actually applying to a school, writing essays, doing admission interviews, and getting recommenders to write letters on your behalf? Try to visit the schools to which you are applying. This will enrich your essays and help you get a feel for what the student body is like, which you can reflect in your essays. Your essays should prove that you would fit right into a particular MBA community. You should feel like you belong in that MBA community. And, be yourself in the essays! Do not force it – the admissions committees can tell if you are trying too hard. Prepare to write multiple drafts – do not wait until the last minute to write the essays. Through the process, I found outlining the essays first was a better strategy than just sitting down and writing them, but use the writing style that you think will produce the best essay. Finally, before you begin writing, have a clear vision for why you are getting an MBA. Be able to say “I am doing XYZ in my career right now and I want to get an MBA for XYZ reasons because it will allow me to do XYZ career after.” Even if you are not completely convinced that you want to go into consulting, if a consulting career links up with your current work experience, go with that story. Once you are into school, no one is going make sure you are pursuing consulting. 

For the admissions interviews, they are not as intense as some people make them out to be. The interviewers are not looking to trick you, but you should know your story inside and out. You should be able to talk about everything that is on your resume without having to look at it. Also have some wild cards up your sleeve – meaning think of additional details, stories, or life experiences that are not on your resume and be able to relate them back to why you are getting an MBA. Finally, do not email your interviewer right after the interview. I made the mistake (with an interview for another school) of writing the interviewer within an hour after the interview when I was still decompressing and I was not really in the right frame of mind to write the thank you email. I looked back at the email a few days later and saw that it was awkwardly worded and made me seem a bit desperate. So, while you should write the thank you note within 24 hours after the interview, write it when you are a good frame of mind to represent your best self.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? I knew I wanted a global business career, and Georgetown, being in D.C., offered that. I also wanted a school with a global brand, and Georgetown offered that as well. It also was important for me to have a student body that had integrity and a grounding in ethics regardless of their professional history and aspirations. Georgetown’s Jesuit tradition is central to everything at the university – including MBA admissions – so I knew that I would graduate with a network of thoughtful, principled global business leaders.

What would you ultimately like to achieve before you graduate? I want to meet and have at least one meaningful conversation with every member of my graduating class. With 270 of us, I know it is possible. I do not need to be everyone’s best friend, but the network I graduate with is very important to me and I want to be able to pick up the phone 30 years from now to congratulate one of my classmates when their company goes public, makes it onto the Fortune 500, or they make it to the C-suite.

The MBA class of 2017 is the most diverse ever at McDonough, but I want the next class to be even more diverse especially in terms of underrepresented minorities. Being both a Consortium and MLT Fellow, I know I have the networks to make that happen.