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Hi experts,

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I am white/hispanic, 26-year old male born and raised in the US looking to apply to H/S/W along with Booth and Columbia in round 2 - H & W being my top choices.

GMAT Score: 780 - Q50/V47/IR7

Undergraduate education:
Completely unknown small private university in the Northeast
Majors - Economics; Mathematical Finance (minor in Math)
GPA - 4.0

Work experience:
28 months as of November working in sell-side Equity Research at a large multinational bank (despite its size and breadth, it is not very well-known and doesn't even come close to competing with the conventional investment banks).

Career goals/Why GMAT:
I'm ideally looking to stay in finance but transition to a buy-side role at a large hedge fund (would settle for an asset manager or a private equity fund). Up until this point, I've been rather unsuccessful in making this transition without an MBA. Obviously, if the stars align and I could make this transition without going to business school, then I most definitely would - but that happening seems more and more unlikely.

Extra Curriculars:
I have a very skewed work/life balance so this is something that has been put on the back burner since I left undergrad. I'm sure if you twisted my arm I could list a few, but they would all be stretches and require some massaging at best.

So I guess my questions are:
Given my current situation, there is little benefit at all career-wise in attending a school outside of the ones listed above. What are my chances of getting into H/W? the others mentioned?
Obviously my ECs are going to be my biggest weakness - is this something that could/would be overlooked given my situation?
Lastly, would I realistically be looking at scholarships if my application were to be accepted at the schools mentioned?

Thanks for the help!

JC

Hi JC,

Given your career goals, you shouldn't look much beyond the schools you're targeting. Beyond HSW, somewhat Booth, and few other top schools, recruitment in these industries fall sharply.

You've brilliant GMAT score and GPA, which no doubt is helpful, but because these schools receive lots of top scores, you need to also matter in other aspects: evidence of at least normal career progression, leadership, problem solving, some outlier achievement, some personal story etc. With some of these, you can have a good shot at your target schools.

ECs matter to the extent of showing a well-rounded personality, and here quality trumps quantity. It's good to have one or two, especially when you're applying to highly competitive programs. Think of one, if not two, thing outside work that has deeply interested you and where you made some tangible contribution. Your super-high academic stats, in absence of ECs and other things, otherwise may portray a skewed profile. (Remember, an MBA program is more a managerial/ leadership program than an academic.)

As far as scholarships are concerned, GMAT (among other factors) does play a role.

Thanks for sharing.

In addition to the advices above, in the absence of strong extracurriculars, it would be better for you to play up collaborative experiences at work, showing your ability to engage people will be important to complement your strong academic potential.

All the best!