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Married with 3 Children, 7 years work and a poor GMAT Score

Launched April 26, 2006
Expert replies
by tngearhart » Wed Jul 12, 2006 12:59 pm
Profile:

29 years old

Married for 7 years, 3 kids

Started career with Morgan Stanley in 1999, worked for Wells Fargo Bank for most of my career. Currently a Private Banker at Wells Fargo.

Completed school going full time at night for the past 3 years while advancing my career durring the day. Graduated with a 3.29 GPA from Arizona State University.

Took the GMAT last spring and bombed it, got a 580. I hope to retake in 6 weeks and am shooting for a 750. I won't apply unless I get better than a 700.

Target Schools:

Harvard
MIT
London Business School
Carnegie Mellon
Stanford
USC - Marshall

I hope to go into management consulting for a firm like McKinsey or Bain.

Concerns:

I've spent a lot of time working and going to school. Most of the schools on my target list are greatly concerned with leadership roles. I have worked with my church in a couple of minor roles. My career has been one of an individual producer. I have not directly managed or served in a leadership role in work. I feel that I have lead my life. As the sole bread winner for my family I have had to manage the finances and household needs for the 5 of us. I was the top sales producer in our region (Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico) in 2005. I've been able to do this while performing adequetly at school. I did all of this and managed to keep up my responsiblities as a father, husband and church member. I take pride in that fact, but I don't know that it really means anything to an admissions board.

My GPA is sub par for the schools I have targeted, and I still need a decent GMAT performance to even consider applying.

I have been banking on the fact that I did a very difficult thing over the past three years and proved myself under trying conditions. I am hoping that this type of endurance and dedication toward a goal will outweight deficencies in my GPA. Asuming that I can recover and deliver a 700-750 GMAT score, will my personal story provide me with enough "application power" to make a realistic atempt at my target schools, or should I reformulate my list?
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Source: — Ask Stacy Blackman |

by Stacy Blackman » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:01 pm
Your GPA is not all that low - and you achieved it under challenging circumstances. I am quite confident that you have the potential to be admitted to more than one of the schools on your list. A 700 GMAT would be great but I do no think that you should make that arbitrary cut off.

Regarding the leadership issue - leadership comes in all different forms. Yes, you have led your life and your children. As a key contributor at work there is probably some opportunity to be a leader there...to influence others, inspire, motivate, provide an example...if you have not reached out beyond being an individual contributor thus far, perhaps you can put some thought into untraditional ways to "lead" now. As a private banker, you also lead and guide your clients. Finally, I am sure you have some good examples of leadership within your church and community. If you are creative and think broadly you will probably have a lot of content for your applications.
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by tngearhart » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:34 pm
Thanks for the timely response. I really appreciate the imput you give to this forum.
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