Ask mbaMission

Hi, and thank you for the opportunity to review your profile and offer my thoughts.

Recognizing that I'm missing a couple of pieces of information (which I'll get to), I think you're a strong candidate who, if you position your story well and can really showcase multiple sides of yourself, has a good chance of doing very well in this process.

First, the committee will look at your academics, and there your grades seem strong. I think it will also give them confidence that you were at a US school (and the American University) in terms of confidence of your English skills. What's missing here for me is your GMAT - are you taking it soon? Your goal should be 700 with an 80%/80% split; they already know from your GPA that you can handle the workload, so the GMAT is just providing further confirmation.

Secondly, they will look at two factors regarding your work experience- how it demonstrates your leadership skills and how your past builds towards your future. I liked that you phrased your work experience in terms of accomplishments, not responsibilities; that shows me that instinctively you hav a good understanding of what the committee will be looking for. You also seem to have excelled at work, driven results, shown initiative and had some management experience. Be sure to highlight career progression as well as areas where you personally had an impact on the business (e.g. if you had an idea, convinced the company to implement it, led implementation and saw results). In terms of career, if you will be returning to your company that can be viewed as a positive by the AdCom because they know it will boost their employment figures, so if you do plan on returning to the company make sure you mention that in your career goal, and have your references corroborate it. However, it also puts some extra pressure on you to be very clear as to why you need the MBA. In a specific way you will need to show that without the MBA you would have a much harder time achieving what you set out to for your company.

Finally, the AdCom will look at your engagement with the world - basically trying to understand if you recognize that there is life outside of work. You seem to have several interests and community involvement, but what is missing here for me is how recent they are. For example, someone who volunteered to tutor English for one summer during college 5 years ago is not (along that dimension) as strong an applicant as someone who is doing it now and has been for the last few years. Except for the diving you mention, you don't tell me how recent or current these activities are.

Finally, being Egyptian will help as well because it is not a country that typically sends over hoards of applicants!

So, recognizing that those gaps limit my answer to some degree, my reaction to your list is that you are selling yourself a bit short. Bocconi, Babson and Rotman all seem like quite safe choices for you, and NYU and Darden (which are very different kinds of schools; we do not usually see both on someone's list) are places where you will be competitive. I would like to see you stretch yourself a bit and apply to some top-ranked schools, and also to a couple of other schools where you will be competitive. For that latter category, I think Ross (University of Michigan) might be very interested in you given the school's location near the heart of the U.S. automotive industry. Other schools where I think you would be competitive include Duke, Cornell, UCLA, Yale.

Best of luck,

Jessica