Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

I currently live in San Francisco Bay Area and I everything up in my life to now is pushing me to overcome everything as my aspirations of obtaining my MBA is important to me

Profile:
-Ex African American Infantry Military Officer in a Ranger Unit that managed 50 soldiers and 2.5
million in military weaponry, vehicles, and communications equipment while being in US Army/
National Guard
-Work now as a Media Consultant with YP generating over $4000 a month in new business sales
-Sold newspapers as a Outside Sales Representative with The Commercial Appeal
-5 years in Military and 2 years in Sales
-BA in Marketing w/ low gpa from Georgia State University
-Looking to score a GMAT score of 730 (minimum)

Extracurricular Activities:
-Physical Fitness, nature walking, and trying/experiencing new things in life with my fiancée or wife

Community Service:
Mentoring inner city youth /Big Brother Big Sister

Extenuating Circumstances:
-2.78 gpa in college due to providing for my family during college while my mother was unemployed,dealing with homelessness my last two years of college, and having troubles learning and my known cases of Dyslexia

* Started out 3.4

Other Info:
-Took a gig working on 2 movie sets, Selma and Term Life, in Atlanta,GA to help pay bills; worked between 12 - 13 hr shifts Monday - Friday at night

-Sold domain names with a private company called Up Market DNS

Post MBA Goals:
-Create a self sustaining clean tech product that focuses on Renewable Resource Applications or product/service startup to help better advertising and/or marketing for small businesses to large corporations


How Do I stack up against the masses? What do I need to do to address the low GPA?

Hi CamCam,

Just reading through the description you give - there are some questions marks concerning the timeline of events. It might be useful to post your resume (without your name). Knowing more would help me to make some suggestions for schools you might reasonably apply to. At first glance I would say that Stanford, HBS and Sloan are probably not within your reach.

Best,
Leah Derus

Thanks for your reply but I'm not going to accept such a low standard for myself. I have been told this all my life and if I wanted to give up I wouldn't have got this far. I will get into one of my top three school. For any one else who wants to say their advice, please do so but don't count me out of the running for such great schools.

A high GMAT score is important because the higher the GMAT score the more you will compensate for the lower GPA. That said, regardless, apply as your candidacy is compelling enough. As a military applicant and as a diversity candidate you are competitive. Consider also applying to the Consortium (https://www.cgsm.org/member-schools/) to diversify your options.

Good luck,

You have a decent profile. A decent GMAT score and a strong set of essays will see you sail through.
You have used adversity as an opportunity and that is a trait which will speak volumes.Hence, you should not worry about your low GPA.

With a years of service and your current work experience, you will surely add diversity to the class and that is a point the Adcoms will find hard to ignore.

To add breadth to your choices however, it may be good to include a few more schools.Not that you may not hear from the top 3, but to widen your options and go strong on your picks.
All the best

I'm sorry if my advice seemed dismissive to you. I attended Sloan and the profile you shared did not strike me as reminiscent of classmates in the program. I'd assume that H/S would not be significantly easier or harder to gain admission to than Sloan. But that is just my opinion and it's important to go for 1-2 dream schools as well as 1-2 safetly schools - you never know :)
H/S/MIT are not in the Consortium but the Consortium does have other solid schools and is worth applying through.

CamCam wrote:Thanks for your reply but I'm not going to accept such a low standard for myself. I have been told this all my life and if I wanted to give up I wouldn't have got this far. I will get into one of my top three school. For any one else who wants to say their advice, please do so but don't count me out of the running for such great schools.

I'm sorry if my advice seemed dismissive to you. I attended Sloan and the profile you shared did not strike me as reminiscent of classmates in the program. I'd assume that H/S would not be significantly easier or harder to gain admission to than Sloan. But that is just my opinion and it's important to go for 1-2 dream schools as well as 1-2 safetly schools - you never know :)
H/S/MIT are not in the Consortium but the Consortium does have other solid schools and is worth applying through.

CamCam wrote:Thanks for your reply but I'm not going to accept such a low standard for myself. I have been told this all my life and if I wanted to give up I wouldn't have got this far. I will get into one of my top three school. For any one else who wants to say their advice, please do so but don't count me out of the running for such great schools.