Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Good evening!

I am on this forum to see what the professionals think of my profile and my chances of getting into a top business school program. I am a 28 year old white male. I graduated with a 2.7 GPA, with a degree in Political Science, at a top Californian public university. After college I took business math, Calculus, and accounting at a local university and I received As respectively in each of them. I have 5 years of work experience and 2.5 years as a manager at a rental car company averaging between 6 - 100 employees being managed by me. I don't want to make my application to business school about the reasons why I didn't do well in college: depression and a lack of proper decision making with course choices. What I want to make my application about is my successes - after - college. I have been promoted multiple times, to several rental car branches, and I have performed exceptionally at each of them. I have also taken several post-graduation courses at a local university and I got As in all of them. I don't necessarily have a strong extracurricular story to tell after college. I was heavily engaged in the Associated Student Government and working with political clubs on campus as director. I loved being active outside academic life. I made a commitment to myself to succeed in my career so ive put a lot of work in ny career life and post graduation academics. Im worried this will negatively will affect me the most. What I have been trying to figure out is something that I can get back into that won't take all my time. Also, I have been reading over GMAT prep books for the last couple months and I recently scored 720 on a practice exam. My reason to go to business school is to take my career to the next level and get professional training in management consulting or sales management (general management). How does my profile look and what colleges would I have a reasonable shot at if I have great recommendations, officially score 720+ on the real exam, and have a strong essay?

I would love to go to Kellogg Business School however I don't know how strong of a candidate I would be. I live locally to UCLA and I would preferably like to work in California. This is one reason I wouldn't mind going to Anderson Business School.

Proto-pseudo-sci wrote:Good evening!

I am on this forum to see what the professionals think of my profile and my chances of getting into a top business school program. I am a 28 year old white male. I graduated with a 2.7 GPA, with a degree

<<snip>>

I would love to go to Kellogg Business School however I don't know how strong of a candidate I would be. I live locally to UCLA and I would preferably like to work in California. This is one reason I wouldn't mind going to Anderson Business School.

Dear Proto-pseudo-sci,

Here are a few thoughts on your profile:

1. Not sure I understand the motivation here fully. You mention that you'd like to do something that wont take so much time, and then you are talking about MBA and consulting and career growth. Those things do not necessarily go hand in hand. So make sure you are doing the right thing before you go down the MBA route
2. For reasons mentioned here, I wont go into school specific recommendations in detail. But important to keep in mind that for the top 5 schools or so, something has to literally jump out of your resume. From what you've mentioned in your post, that doesnt seem to be true. It will all depend really on the quality of your experience and the impact you have had. If those are really significant, you may have a shot at it.
3. It may not necessarily prudent to 'avoid' talking about your failures. A bschool application/essay should be comprehensive. Part of the reason why you are successful for instance could be because you dealt with failure in early life. My recommendation would be to not shy away from sharing your complete life story.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,