Profile Evaluation

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Profile Evaluation

by Travis Mc » Thu Feb 06, 2014 5:20 pm
Target Schools: HBS, Stanford, MIT, Kellog, Booth, Tuck, Yale, Tepper

Background: Caucasian male, 24

Application Plan: First round, October 2014

Education:
College: Top 20 Liberal Arts College
GPA: 3.63
Major: Mathematics
Graduated: 2011
Awards: A named Prize for having 'contributed most to the general welfare of the College'
High School: Worth noting I spent my junior year in Mexico to learn Spanish

GMAT: 710 (V 42, Q45, W5.0, IR 8)

Work Experience:
(Current) 3 years - Product Delivery Manager (recently received the title promotion) at a small software start up. Designed and implemented CRM, handled client support and training, set up Quality Assurance processes, authored documentation, and assisted sales team. Also translated the application into Spanish.
(Internship) 3 months - Assisted director of a basketball camp with increasing sales leads, logistics and event oversight.

Extra Curricular/Leadership/Volunteer:
Chair of Student Government Budgeting Committee - (2010)Oversaw allocation of $250,000 for student club funding.
Sectional Coordinator for USA Ultimate - (2012) Organized a 20 team tournament as part of USA Ultimate's National Club Championship Series
Captain and Organizer of Ultimate Frisbee Team - (2008 - 2011)Included organizing 2 profitable tournaments with 250+ attendees
Volunteer for Bard Nicaragua Exchange - (2010) Fundraised for construction materials then went to Nicaragua and build three houses
Founded of a silk screening co-op and chaired of a free textbook exchange.

Recommendations:
1 - VP of Technology at my current company. I expect a glowing recommendation.
2 - Potentially one of our clients (either an associate director from one of the major global audit firms or the VP of Engineering from an international IT Management company)

Goals: Use work experience and organizational skills to rise to the next level of business either as an entrepreneur or a consultant.
Source: — Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant |

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by GeneralEducation » Fri Feb 07, 2014 4:53 am
Hi,

You have decent profile and you are at the right stage of work experience, so focus on your career goals and also start doing research on your target schools. List of schools looks highly ambitious but not impossible. Also look at few safe b-schools as a backup option.

Regards,
Manish
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by CriticalSquareMBA » Fri Feb 07, 2014 6:37 am
Hey Travis,

Thanks for all the info! Definitely helps. I'll give you a quick sound check on parts of your profile and then wrap up with a question or two for you to mull over. If you want me to clarify anything or expand on anything, don't hesitate to let me know. Sound good?

1) Academically, you've got this covered. Good GMAT, great GPA, prestige institution, etc. Your Quant score is kind of low but you majored in math, so that's good.

2) Professionally, you lack the firm pedigree but definitely have the scope, impact, and leadership that an adcom will be looking for. However, certain schools (i.e. higher ranked ones) do value pedigree so when they see a company that isn't well known they'll apply a little more scrutiny. Which makes sense, right? They'll do to your application the same thing your clients do to your start up. Your description of your job responsibilities seem super tactical but I'm basing my assessment on your title. That leaves a little room for interpretation error.

3) From an extracurriculars standpoint, you were pretty involved in undergrad and have some clear themes, which is good. However, you haven't mentioned your involvement since then. Have you had any?

4) Lastly, your goals. They're realistic if not overly unique. That'll be something that needs to be articulated really well or your application has inherent risk of falling into a general pile.

So one question was what have your involvements been since you graduated? More importantly, your list of schools is a) a little long and b) seems a little random. I can see you picked the first 5 off US News rankings but then the inclusion of Tuck, Yale, and Tepper, is strange. There's a variety of teaching styles, cultures, career opportunities, etc. I agree with the range of your programs - Top 5 are definitely stretches, 5 - 14 or so are good targets and then after that you start getting into the safety range. This is where the main question comes in - how'd you pick these schools? What were you looking for? Or is this just a preliminary list?

Bhavik
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by Travis Mc » Mon Feb 10, 2014 7:50 pm
Hi Bhavik,

Thank you for the detailed response. I do have a few follow up questions if you don't mind. I've put them as responses to your points below.

1. Glad to hear! It was my first pass on the test without too much studying so I'm glad its essentially out of the way.

2. On the lack of pedigree: Do you think having a recommendation from one of a large global business will help make up for working at a small company? Like you said our prospective clients sometimes express concern over our size. In those cases we use some of our big clients as references to provide pedigree. As I work closely with those clients I expect they would write a recommendation from having worked with me as a client.

On the title: The title was a recent promotion and my boss admitted it was tough to come up with a precise title considering the many hats I wear. Is there a type of title adcoms look for?

3. Recently my extracurriculars have included reffing for Major League Ultimate but otherwise I have been focused on work. This is certainly something I can work on in the coming months.

4. This is just a preliminary list. Though rankings had a factor the list mostly has come from discussions with family and friends currently in b-school.

Again thank you for your time and thoughts.

-Travis

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by CriticalSquareMBA » Tue Feb 11, 2014 7:08 am
Hi Travis,

You're very welcome. So let's see about these questions you have...

1) Yup - it's a great feeling!

2A) Absolutely - having client recommendations can be a great way to augment and show a different side of yourself professionally. It doesn't directly overcome the fact that probably no one has heard of your company but if you have a Fortune 100 VP or SVP writing a recommendation and you've sold them a lot of services and products, then that is definitely a step in the right direction.

2B) As for the title, there's no direct title they are looking for. There are a few ways to spin this in the application so that they understand what your responsibilities are regardless of the title. The title itself is rather vague so that's good and bad at the same time. Don't worry too much about the title - worry more about how your professional perspective comes across.

3) Definitely do so. See if you can pick something back up that you were involved in earlier or where you can put a story around it. In other words, try to avoid picking something completely out of the blue.

4) Fair enough - at least you're honest about the ranking influence! There's definitely some work that needs to be done in narrowing your targets but that's something you can do in a couple of months.

Bhavik
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