Ask Stacy Blackman

Dear Stacey,

First of all I would like to appreciate your commitment with us candidates. I think we will not able to thank you enough for your help and expert advice!

I would like to present myself. My name is José Gómez, and I’m and Spanish Engineer pursuing an MBA in the US.
My profile is the following:
- My academic background is general engineering, majoring in Energy field, in the one of the top engineering schools in Spain (ICAI). As in Spain we do not have GPA system, I can not provide it, but I was in top 20% of the class and I calculate my GPA between 3.4 and 3.8.
Also I started while working a distance degree in economics, having completed succesfully first year with honors. Unfortunately, a work transfer hinder my career in economics.
- I obtained a 760 in the GMAT 760 (Q49, V45, AWA 6.0). My CBT TOEFL is 294 (99% percentile)
- I have 7 years of experience:
o Half a year (May-November) in a automobile parts company in the United Kingdom. I had the opportunity to participate in the ellaboration of new strategic program and actively conducted business development activities.
o Three years in the fifth electric utility in the world (Spanish power generation company IBERDROLA). 7 years of work experience in 3 countries. I started as an IT manager, then moved to economic risk assesment for the whole fleet of power plants, the I headed the development team of a investment assesment software oriented to the top managers decission-making. We developed it in collaboration with EPRI, which gave me the opportunity to travel to the United States several times to share our developments and discuss how to really implement it in organisations. Finally my team was in charge of assessing investments of the company.
o Three more years in IBERDROLA, but as head of the Company in Ukraine. In this rol, I founded our offices in Ukraine, hired and manage our team, developed relations with top management of Ukrainian Power companies and state departments, managed consulting projects, and any type of task imaginable in a new established company.
- In parallel, in 2006 I founded my own consulting company in international commerce. As the company CEO, I took all business functions since the very beginning and now I lead a 5-consultant team which has served more than 40 european companies. In the last months, I’m launching a translations company for russian language.
- I have a strong implication in social work, teaching for disadvantaged children, organising summer camps, acompanying elder people, and currently I’m engaged in an NGO which tries to fight the prostitution traffic in Ukraine, writing projects for them.
- I speak Spanish as mother tongue, English and Russian fluently, some French and notions of German.

I want to participate in an MBA program in the US in order to acquire the skills and credibility required to successfully settle a start-up. Also I want to share my interests and objectives with enterprising people from which I could learn and share experiences. My interests lies in General Management and Entrepreneurship. Studying two years in the US will provide me time to calmly think about my future and a set of vital experiences that I’m sure will mark me (in a positive way).

After a thorough review of MBA programs in the US I have made a short list of BSs: Stanford, Harvard, Kellog, Wharton, Berkeley (HAAS), Tuck.

I’m planning to invest a great deal of time in preparing my essays and recommendations, and having everything reviewed by alumni of those schools to which I will apply.

I would like to have your expert advice about:
- Taking into account how difficult is to get inside a top MBA, I would like to know whether my profile is solid enough to try to get into those top schools.
- Do you think those programs I have short-listed could help me fulfilling those objectives?
- I would like to know other, if not top Business schools, second tier schools which could help me to fulfil these objectives and in whose process I would have better chances rather than at a top school.

I would like to thank you in advance for you expert advice and I hope to hear from you soon.
Best regards

Jose Gomez

Hi rafaelo_kiev,

Honestly, I think your chances in the top 10 are quite strong. I would focus on the essays, because I think your academics are obviously solid, your leadership/management experience is quite impressive and the task will just be to communicate it all as clearly as possible.

I think your list does achieve your goals, all of those programs will attract impressive people who have similar big picture objectives. Perhaps Sloan or Columbia and NYU would be other options - Sloan is strong for technical/start up aspirants, and both Columbia and NYU have the NYC factor of diversity and international students.

Good luck!

Amy

Dear Amy,

Thank you very much for your prompt answer.

I would like to pose the following questions:
- Does Columbia have a competitive entrepreneurship program?
- I'm greatly attracted by Harvard curriculum and prestige, but I have some references which define the school as encouraging little the teamwork, and that somehow the average student is more high handed than in other schools, impoverishing human experience and perhaps making your life at school more complicated. Could you provide me with some insights about this?
- Following your posts, I have noticed that the fit with schools is one of the most important factors for admissions. How an entrepreneur could show fit with a finance school, such as Wharton or Chicago GSB?
- Do Admission Committees value significantly when making their decission, if an applicant has communicated often with the adcom, if he has travelled overseas to visit the campus, assisted to events, etc..? It is clear the value for the applicant (obtaining more info), but I'm interested in the adcom perspective.

Thank you very much for your time and advice.

Best regards

Jose

Hi rafaelo_kiev,

Are you asking about the quality of the entrepreneurship program at Columbia? I believe it's strong, Columbia is a very well respected program.

Harvard is an excellent program, and I would suggest reaching out to current students and alumni in order to gain your own insight into the culture - often reputations are based on a very small sample of experiences.

While it's simple to categorize a school by its dominant reputation (Wharton = Finance, Kellogg = Marketing) the fact is that most programs are extremely strong in multiple disciplines.

Demonstrating fit with the program will be assisted by the amount of research you do and the personal experiences you have had through school visits, info sessions and interactions with the students and alumni. In that sense, it will help your application. Just the fact of attending school events won't provide any major admissions benefit, but the information will help you be convincing in your applications.

Good luck!

Amy