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Hi, I'm hoping for general feedback on which schools would be considered to be in my range. Here are the basics:

Undergrad:
University of California, Berkeley
GPA: 3.7
Major: History (graduated with honors)

Gmat:
720 (Q46, V44, IR 7, no AWA grade yet)

Work Experience:
4.5 years at an international non-profit
Solid history of career progression and promotion
A lot of independence and responsibility: international travel, frequently represent the organization abroad and broker partnerships with other organizations
Only major quant element is responsibility for financial management of programs

Recommendations:
Can secure strong recommendations from current and former supervisors

Quant background:
Have not taken any math class since passing the AP calculus test in high school....
Will take statistics before applications are sent it. Will likely also enroll in an economics or calculus course that will be in process as the applications are being sent in

Community Involvement (definitely the weakest part of my application. very open to suggestions for improving it before applications are due)
Registered volunteer at community garden servicing underprivileged communities (have only done this since June 2014)
Have raised money for two charities for a 5k run and a marathon
Active in student government in college
I am a regular blood/platelet donor....definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel here
Team captain of work softball team....even worse scraping

White male planning on applying in the second round this year. I'm interested in applying to Haas, Anderson, and Yale SOM. Potential backups are UNC, Emory, and Cornell. Very interested to hear thoughts on which of these may or may not be within my reach. Thanks for reading!

Dear Tylertsmith,

Here are a few points for you to ponder:

1. Your academic pedigree and good GMAT score will hold you in good stead - purely from these numbers, you should have a good shot
2. You have not mentioned the nature of your work within the non-profit. Nor have you highlighted your post-MBA goals. Without those, it is pretty tough to make an assessment. In case of non-profit work, the post-MBA goals are a tad tougher to link - unless the nature of your work is more broad based. So feel free to share
3. The community/ECs you've mentioned are not too bad. Like I always say, dont do stuff just for the heck of writing a bschool application. Do stuff you like - in the process if that helps build your profile, great! In general, the more team related the activity, better the mileage though
4. Finally, for reasons mentioned here and the scanty information provided, I will refrain from dishing out gut-based school predictions. Purely from the objective aspects of the profile though, the school list is not so bad.

Hope this helps,

First, thank you both so much for your feedback.

Okay, two kind of varied responses. Perhaps that's due to the lack of detail on my work and MBA aspirations. I have been working on this a bit since taking the GMAT and will add below. I've honestly never really considered HBS or GSB options without laughing, so that surprises me. Would be interested if that advice holds now that I have included my work experience and goals.

Work experience:
I am program staff for an international non-profit that among other things offers best practice consulting to political parties and NGOs in other countries, often connecting them with American and international experts in topics such as political campaigning, advocacy, organizational management etc. Essentially it can be thought of as pro-bono consulting for organizations in developing countries.

My specific role is quite varied in that I secure us funding through proposal writing and meet with funders, manage the financial aspects of the programs ensure we are compliant with our grants, and also execute the program, which not the norm at my organization. I travel frequently and have visited 7 countries now over the course of countless trips, establishing and managing partnerships with other organizations and subgrantees, carrying out workshops, building relationships with recipients of our assistance, negotiating with vendors etc. A huge part of my job is also the conceptual planning of the program, both in terms of operations and management and in terms of the substance of the educational programming we provide.

Why an MBA and What After?
My organization is great, but you can risk becoming a generalist after too long. I crave learning more concrete skills that I could use to catalyze a career change, while still drawing on my wealth of international experience. As far as how this would work with an MBA, I am interested in doing a global management or consulting focus that will allow me work for a time in the private sector with the goal of working for an international consulting firm for companies and non-profits globally. Long term goal I'm very interested in the idea of taking my eventual private sector experience and bringing it to bear on the non-profit world. Even though I have a non-business background on paper, I think a lot of my incredibly varied experiences have prepared me well for this, particularly as I have a lot of experience managing staff and working with co-workers from diverse backgrounds.

With this information, it does appear that your experience is solid and useful from a business point of view as well. The goals story looks good too - though I dont agree to your opening statement; being a generalist isnt that bad. And in reality, the kind of work you are doing is rather a more niche type - not really what a classical generalist would do in a management/strategy consulting firm. Make sure you've done the right amount of homework on which is which in the consulting realm.

Though not going into school predictions as mentioned before, but with your profile, you should have a shot at some pretty good schools out there. So go for it

Cheers,

First, I do not think your work experience is non-traditional (this is not bad). You work in non-profit in an area that is more business development or marketing (from what I am reading) with strategic planning and grant writing. This is excellent.

For the community service, I would not present this as a weakness because hopefully your non-profit experience itself shows a form of service. This is similar to military candidates.

Jon made excellent suggestions in HBS, Stanford, Haas, Anderson and Yale. I would add Kellogg and Columbia because of their Social Enterprise focus.

Best of luck,

Thanks for your response. So far I have received a lot of feedback that I should aim higher. This seems good news, but I'm also worried about having too many reach schools and ending up with a few rejections, a few weigh-lists and no acceptances. This would be a nightmare scenario as far as I'm concerned.

Would Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Haas, and UCLA be a reasonable list or would I need to hedge a bit by replacing one of those top schools with a safer option?

I would recommend a third option of applying to those schools plus additional schools. Applications have fewer essay questions enabling applicants to apply to more schools. So, I would recommend you adding Kellogg, Columbia Duke and any other schools that fit your MBA School Selection Criteria.

Best of luck,