Painful Profile Evaluation

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m022104: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 2; Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 5:46 am

by m022104 » Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:03 am

If you don't mind I would appreciate some brutally honest feed back on my chances of getting into a few MBA programs. In particular, I plan on applying to McCombs, Indiana, UNC, Emory and Georgetown. I have a goal industry to get back into which is Energy Finance - Risk MGMT/ Strat.

26 Years Old - White Male
BBA. GPA 3.0 (Jr. Sr Year 3.5)
M.S. Finance GPA 3.7 3.0

1 year Retail/ Customer Service

2 yrs exp. Banking (BOA) - Mortgage/ Commercial Banking

2 yrs exp. Constellation Energy Group - Corporate Finance - Commodities Division/ Trading Floor ( quit before I was fired by) - 2 Solid /Director Level References - 70+ Hours work week plus purchased a second home (limited extra circ)

6 months exp w/ BoozAllenHamilton - Government Consulting - Finance/ Cost Accounting

GMAT 510 - 540 - 560 (Kaplan Round 1) - retaking GMAT in Nov. and Kaplan A second time.
Verbal 20 29 27
Quant 40 36 39
AWA 5.5 5.5 5.5
Total 510 540 560

I experience a high level of Test Anxiety especially over this type of test. Nothing like testing with a racing heart beat.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant | Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:03 am

Cindy Tokumitsu: Legendary Member; Posts: 590; Joined: Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:51 pmFollowed by: 7 members; Location: New York; Thanked: 47 times

by Cindy Tokumitsu » Sun Oct 11, 2009 6:30 am

Hello,

It's possible that the low GMAT could be a deal-breaker. On the other hand your strong grad GPA (and strong undergrad GPA the last 2 years) clearly indicates academic capability. I'd say that with a stellar application, among the schools you mention you may have a chance if you do two things. First, in an optional essay make a strong case for why the GMAT doesn't reflect your academic ability (if you had a low SAT, you could state that this score didn't predict your strong academic performance once you got traction). Second, research the programs and present your profile in a way that highlights strengths that would be differentiating factors within those programs. Doing these things would I think give you a chance, though these programs would still be reaches. In essence, doing the first thing would make it possible for the adcom to overlook the GPA if they had a good reason, and doing the second thing would be giving the adcoms that reason.

Good luck with your MBA efforts.

Best regards,
Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
www.Accepted.com

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