Ask Stacy Blackman

Hi,

I have a GPA of about 1.8 in Engineering. This was mainly due to some wrong decisions in terms of opting for an undergraduate course. I realized soon enough that I had no aptitude and involved myself heavily in an organization called AIESEC. This was mainly a leadership development organization and opened up a lot of avenues for interaction with corporates, ngos and the education sector itself. I have held mutiple leadership positions on a national level in this organization.
This also provided me the opportunity to detach myself from the traditional IT job profile mostly people with an engineering background take up.
I am currently working as a business engagement manager in my company in UK and have about 4 years of full time work experience (AIESEC and this company included). I have had the opportunity to be part of multi million pound deals and managing about 10m pounds worth of my companies business.
I am planning on taking my GMAT later this year and start my application process later next year. Having said that very unsure of the prospects and what else could I do to model a winning application

Regards,
KS

Dear Lisa,

I gave the GMAT a couple of weeks back and got a 720. I m looking for a Masters in Finance or a Masters in Quantitative Finance. I have worked for about 10 months after graduation of which 5 months were on investment banking tools. Apart from that I have certified myself in a very small derivatives course called the NCFM(Derivatives)

I have a lot of queries.

1)I was quite satisfied with the score till I saw the AWA which is 4.0. Should I be worrying about that?

2) I have a low GPA something like a 2.8. what can I do to improve my chances?

3) What are the Universities in US and UK I can apply to considering both my GMAT score and GPA?( I am very interested in teppers business school's MSCF)

Please guide me.

Thanks and Regards,

Ashish Menghani

Dear Lisa,

Thanks a lot for your reply. I hope you can help me with a few more questions. I am looking for a quant intensive finance program because I believe my biggest strength is my capacity to handle numbers which is a huge requirement in most trading companies.

with my GPA at 2.8 and GMAT at 720 do you believe I stand a chance at Carnegie Mellons( Masters of Science in Computational Finance). And what are the other good universities which also have similar programs and within my reach with this GPA.

Thanks and Regards,

Ashish

hi
i am doing my engineering 3rd year (5th sem)
can u tell me whether i am eligible for hbs 2+2 ?
1-what gmat score is req. to get in?
2-what toefl score is req.?
3-how many internship should i do? and where to apply for these internships?
4-in what fields should my leadership qualities be shown?
5-what else is req. to enhance my chances to get in hbs 2+2?
6-do i need to get some part time work experience?
i know that there are so many questions but
YOUR HELP WOULD BE IMMENSELY APPRECIATED !!!!!!!!!
THANK U IN ADVANCE !!! Rolling Eyes Very Happy Shocked

Dear Lisa,

I'm not sure how to best frame my optional essay about my low GPA (2.8 in an English major). I'm looking at top 50 schools in California (UC Davis), with Berkeley as a possible long shot.

There are a few avenues I could take on my essay:
-My undergrad was at the University of Toronto, where there is no grade inflation and the average grade is a C, so my B- is not quite as bad as it seems.
-I've taken several community college courses since then, with a 4.0 in two accounting and two econ courses.
-I left school after three years (family issues) to travel and "refocus". After about a year and a half abroad in South Africa and Israel, I finished my degree and more seriously settled down (got married, showed career progression in my nonprofit field, etc.)

My GMAT looks like it's going to be about 700, but with a big split between verbal and quant. (99% on verbal, but maybe 70 on quant).

I guess I'm wondering how much all these factors matter, and which factor to emphasize when I address my grades. It's kind of a mouthful to squeeze all that info into one optional essay--is there some aspect of my work and academic that you think is more significant than another when addressing my grades? Is Berkeley too far off considering my low GPA and the six years it took me to graduate?

Thanks for any help. Your other posts have been spot-on.

Best,
Hilary

Hi,

I graduated with a bachelors in science with a low gpa of 2. 95 on a 4.3 scale. Thats after getting kicked out of another university engineering program. In the science degree my grades are inconsistent except for my last 4 classes which average to a 3.6 gpa. My last 4 classes consisted of 3 science classes and a stats class. I had death in the family prior to entering university and worked part time throughout university which took a toll on my grades. Ultimately, I was just not ready for the challenges of university and made many wrong decisions throughout the degree.

I have 2 years standard work experience in a bank.

I would like to get in to an MBA program but am afraid my gpa and past mistakes wont even give me a chance.

Should I create an alternate transcript? what would I fill it with if I have already taken accounting, stats, micro and macro econ as electives and cal 1,2,3 in my major?

Also what do I need to score on the gmat to get in to a decent school.

Sorry for the long post...I just have so many concerns to see if an mba is even an option for someone like me. Some insight would be greatly appreciated.

Please be brutally honest.
Thanks.

Hi Stacy,

I have completed my Bachelors in Engineering in 2006 with a 68% aggregate. Now in India specifically there are very few univesrities following a GPA system of 4. My class's average performance was around 60% and i was in top 15% of my class. I just saw the system of GPA in a which puts me in a very unfair scale. Our official transcripts also just say that we don't have a GPA based system. Is there any other normalisation system available.

Please guide me.

Regards,
Siddhartha

Sorry Lisa,

I put stacy as the name in the mailer