Ask Stacy Blackman

I am applying to the Darden executive MBA program. My undergrad gpa of 2.9 is obvously not that great. My major was accounting and information systems. I took the GMAT once and scored a 670. I am 29 with 7 years of work experience. I am CPA certified and am an officer and Director of Internal Audit for a Public REIT and a private Real Estate investment/bank holding company. I started in public accounting was promoted quickly and received an unsolicited offer to start an internal audit department from the CFO. Since, I have built a department of 5 and am responsible for all aspects of SOX, Risk Compliance, various regulatory compliance, and report directly to the Audit Committee.

I am planning on writing an essay to address my gpa. During college I was a founding father and president for two years of a Fraternity. I was also very involved with other activities. After graduation I was recognized with a citation from the Fraternity's National President. I obviously should have focused more on school, however, I feel obtaining a CPA and my work experience proves that I have been succesful since.

I am hoping that my work experience and accomplishments will offset the low gpa. I can retake the GMAT if you think it is necessary. I appreciate any insight that you might have.

Hi , I have posted in the topic below about my low GPA.


I've recently Started preparing for CFA 1st level exam. Will this add significant weight to my application , together with strong GMAT ( hopefully 720+) to be competitive in Top 10 universities?

Hi Stacy,
Ive posted before about overcoming a low GPA but something is worrying me about my undergraduate education. I cant estimate my GPA as I studied in the UK, but I think it would be right at the lower end of the scale. The most worrying thing is that there is a downward trend in my results ( I suffered with anxiety and depression for two of the the three years).

Since university im a different person and havent had any of the problems which plagued me. I scored 720 on the GMAT and am hoping to have good work experience before I apply in a years time.

How damaging will this downward trend be to my application? Would developing an alternative transcript help?

The difficulty I have with developing an alternative transcript is that in the UK its hard to do college courses without enrolling for a whole new undergraduate degree. How should I deal with this?

My target schools are ASU, Eller, USC, USD, Rice, U of T @ Austin and thunderbird.

Thanks for any advice you can give

I've read that it's best to not give excuses - which makes sense. And I'm sure working full-time during undergrad, taking on an overwhelming number of leadership roles in student orgs, and a lot of extracurriculars or sports can help your case.

But what if the sad truth is that a student just wasn't as motivated as she should've been, or just didn't have the discipline and focus? What is the best way to explain that type of scenario in your optional essay?

Hi Lisa,

My situations is a little bit different.

I'm from Uzbekistan. Got my bachelors in International economic relations from University in Uzbekistan, graduated with GPA of 3.94. GMAT score 710.

In 2007 got admitted and accepted an offer from US top 25 b-school......and now I am a freshly baked MBA holder with a final cumm.GPA of 3.1-3.2. No progress throughout the coursework: 3.1-3.3 each semester.


I am planning to apply for MIT's Masters of engineering in supply chain program, which is a very selective program with only 30 students accepted each year. Because the program is built upon MIT's Sloan MBA supply-chain track, with its narrow specialization as its biggest difference, I'm assuming that both programs' adcoms have similar selection criteria.

My questions are:
1. How does adcom generally view grad GPA as opposed to Undergrad GPA?
2. Does the fact that I am not a native speaker mitigate the effect of low GPA?
3. How bad is 3.1 or 3.2 for top ranked b-school adcoms?

Thank you for your time,
daler

I would appreciate if someone can give me an assessment of my current situation and what I can do to mitigate my low gpa. First, I want to say that I took five years to complete my degree and I'm not sure if that will go against me or not. The reason why I decided to spend an extra year in school was to boost my gpa, but I think I largely failed on that part because my cgpa stayed flat (probably because of the large amount of credits that I have accumulated over the years which makes it hard to raise my average).

Anyways, I'm currently studying at the University of British Columbia and just finished my BA (double major Asian Studies and Political Science). My cgpa is 69.5% which according to the university's gpa conversion to a 4.33 scale, would give me a gpa of 2.7. Some universities take the last two years of my degree and in that case my gpa is 2.9 (a full year at UBC is 30 credits and therefore 2 years will equal 60 credits). However, there is a little problem in that because if you just take the last 60 credits, then that will exclude at least 3 half-year courses or 9 credits because I took a total of 69 credits worth of courses over the last year so I'm having trouble figuring out how to calculate my gpa from the last two years.

I know it's really early to ask this since I'll be graduating very soon and have no full time work experience. To be honest, the reason why I've achieved such a low gpa is for several reasons. Over the past 5 years, I've lacked focus in my studies and I think that's probably because I don't have a lot of interest in the subjects. I know it sounds stupid, but I reached a point where I couldn't really go back and start all over. I mind as well finished my degree. I also did part-time secretarial work over the past three years to help pay off my tuition. I genuinely thought that maybe in my fifth year, I can achieve something special, but I failed. I know it was a bad bet, but nonetheless I made it. Despite my low overall gpa, I did get several "A-"s in my classes, but I'm not sure whether that will make a difference or not.

I know that while I'm not completely screwed, I know I'm in a pretty bad position. I know that I'll have to achieve good work experience over the next several years and try to get a high GMAT score. I think I'lll probably need to get at least a 690 or 700 just to mitigate my low gpa.

I read up about an alternate transcript, but I'm not really sure how that will work. I'm scheduled to go away for a one month vacation and when I come back, I intend to enroll in a Math 099 program to relearn basic algebra and prepare myself for calculus. I haven't taken a single math course over the past seven years. I was told the course is a non-credit course and it's part of UBC's Continuing Education program. I'm definitely going to read up on the GMAT and do research on some schools. So having said all of this, I'm wondering what more that I can do to overcome my low gpa and lack of extracurricular activities?

Thanks and sorry for the long post!

Hello Lisa/Stacy:

Undergraduate: BS in Electronics Engg.: Bombay University, India: 59% (Second Class Honors) - Various awards - debate competitions, technical papers etc.
Graduate: MS in Electrical Engineering: Average US school: GPA 3.9/4.0 - research published in top scientific journal


Work experience: Currently working full time - 8+ years solid experience in electrical engineering software with a company having various fortune 500 clients (client facing role)
: 2 years university experience - part time as programmer and teaching assistant


GMAT: Not taken yet

Volunteer work: Currently doing some volunteer work for local non-profit.

Intend on taking Calculus, Statistics, Economics courses at a local college. I have following questions:

1) What are my chances of getting into a Top 15 Business school? Given my profile, what GMAT score should I work towards?

2) For the business/math courses mentioned above, does it matter if I take them at a university or community college? Also what courses would help prepare me best from admissions and B-school academics perspective?

3) Ideally would like to work full time and pursue an EMBA from a top school, however do not mind going full time for a top program, what is the best option? What are my chances of getting into a top EMBA program?
what part of my application should I focus most on?

Thanks a lot!

Lisa Anderson wrote:Dear lsquare

It is not a negative to take a 5 years to complete your degree. What matters is your overall academic performance and your performance in quantitative coursework. To calculate your last 2 years, you need to look at your last two years of school (your 4th and 5th years). While the credit system might be different at your university versus US schools, most business schools understand these differences.

You are right that the best way to mitigate your GPA is to score well on the GMAT (>680). Since you have not taken any quantitative classes, then taking some math classes and earning high marks will also help. Ideally, you need to take classes where you will earn a grade and can provide a transcript showing your marks for these courses to strengthen your application. Finally, doing well in your career and having quality experience to show in your applications is critical. Seek out opportunities to broaden and deepen your knowledge/experience. If you do not have many leadership opportunities at work, then pursuing them outside the office with community work is also helpful.

Good luck,
Lisa

Hi Lisa,

I think I'll have plenty of time on this. I'm going to have to do this one step at a time and a good way to get me prepared to do calculus is to take a pre-calc course. I guess there are no guarantees that I'll eventually take the GMAT, but I'll do what I can to give myself the best chance to take the GMAT in 3-4 years' time. Hopefully by then my work experience will be enough to dampen my weak gpa and I'll let the GMAT score do the talking (assuming I even do well on the GMAT).

How will US business schools calculate the difference? Can you explain to me how it works? Like I said, 2 full years at UBC will be the equivalent to 60 credits. With summer school, I have taken 69 credits. There is a differene of 9 credits. Does that mean, they will take my best 60 credits out of the 69 credits? I'm really not sure how it works?

I know it's all hypoethical right now, but let's say I score between 680-700 on the GMAT and have decent managerial experience with several promotions, will I have a decent shot at the top 15 US business schools?

Will it go against me if I take the GMAT multiple times? Say, I score better with each subsequent test that I take?

Now, in terms of have an alternate transcript. Can you provide me with a little more information in how that is usually done? How many credits will I have to take to satisfy the admission committee that I do have potential despite my poor undergrad gpa?

Thanks for your help Lisa, you've cleared up a lot of confusion for me.

Hello Lisa:

First off .. thank you very much for your response. It is extremely helpful for someone like me who is new to the business school admissions process. I will do more research regarding my options as recommended by you. You have mentioned in your reponse that :

"Since you are in an over-represented subset of the global MBA applicant pool (software experience, engineering degree, home country of India), "

I have lived/worked in the US for last 10+ years and my entire professional experience is from the US (came to the US as a student, got my masters in the US and worked in the US). I am a US Permanent Resident (Green Card holder). Given this additional information, will I still be competing with "global MBA applicant pool" during the admissions process? Or will this give me some advantage during admissions process?

Thanks and have a great day!