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I feel that you guys can still give me some good insight as I'm looking into a top business program.

I am hoping to obtain a MS Acct. Looking at UT-Austin (top choice), SMU, UTD, TCU, in short: any Texas school is under consideration.

Undergrad GPA/background: B.A. Advertising from Southern Methodist University. Upper Level Course GPA (what is used at UT) - 3.35 (may go up as I guesstimated this on the lower end).

Minor in Business Administration.
Grades in pre-reqs for UT-Austin program:
A in Macroecon
A- in Microecon
B in Financial Accounting
A in Statistics

Work experience during undergrad/present:

Present - I currently work at an advertising agency (200+ employees, 4 offices in 3 cities) specializing in internal operations and processes. Much of what I do relies heavily upon financial reporting and analysis. I work very closely with our Finance Manager, Senior VP Operations, and Director of Project Management and make a lot of effort to perfect our billable time (making sure everything that is billable has a billable rate associated, just for an example), in addition to manipulating lots of our financial data to get actual numbers to give to management throughout the company. This job has made me extremely proficient with Excel and I feel very comfortable and have created from scratch new reports to meet the needs of my manager.

Past - I have 6 months of teller experience working at a bank.

Irrelevant but still work experience: I have had a semester long internship at an advertising agency specializing in event coordination for promotions.

Letters of Recommendation (confirmed):

1. Financial Planning and Analysis Manager at current job
2. 2 professors from upper level undergraduate coursework (including my capstone class professor)
3. President/CEO of the bank that I worked
4. VP of the bank that I worked at

3&4 will probably double as personal recommendations, as they have known me my entire life.

Community Service:

I have put in a considerable amount of service to Campfire USA while in undergrad.

GMAT: I have not taken, hoping you all can advise on a score to shoot for to have my best chance at UT-Austin. I am a good test taker (I have scored a 174 on the LSAT when I was considering law earlier in my undergrad career). I have a plethora of the official guides on hand to study in addition to the set of 8 manhattan GMAT guides.


Other: I am a lifelong TX resident, first generation college student (first to graduate in my family w/ Bachelors).


Can you all advise on if I would have a shot at UT-Austin, if so what GMAT should I be shooting for? Does this work experience help alleviate what appears to be a lower GPA? Is this GPA ultimately going to kill me even with a high GMAT?

Thanks!

Hi whitneyb--

Based on this info alone (and obviously not seeing any essays) we think you *DO* have a chance at McCombs.

Yes, your GPA is below the average, but it's certainly not awful. Your grades in those important pre-req courses were fine. If you have a ~700 GMAT score you should be in good shape. Obviously if you can break the 700 mark, it can help, but we don't feel it's necessarily a requirement. Your background and professional experience all look solid.

On the recommenders, we'd go with two professional ones, particularly from your most recent experiences. Maybe the capstone class prof could add some value on the academic side but we do not see your GPA as a massive weakness. In our experience, most graduate programs actually do not want "personal" recommendations, and in fact it can complicate things if a recommender was a family friend before you worked for him - if that's the case, you may want to avoid using the contacts from the bank!! It all depends on the nature of the relationship and how the other pieces of your app are being presented, but our knee-jerk reaction would be maybe you don't want to use those. (Of course, if either/both of them have relationships to McCombs, then this advice might change!!)

Bottom line: Your GPA is not a showstopper. No, the work experience wouldn't overcome any issues with GPA, but your GPA doesn't seem to us to be an issue anyway!!

Hope this helps - our basic answer is GO FOR IT! - let us know if you have other questions!
EssaySnark

Thank you.

I think to solve the recommendation issue (I am from an extremely small town where everyone knows each other, hence the reason why he's known me for so long since my family has been customers at the bank), I will leave it on a note for a strictly professional basis.

P.S. The capstone professor is a UT alum. Not sure if that would help things though.

Looks like I'll be coming to you in the next few weeks to look at my essay once I get over the GMAT hurdle.

Oh shoot we forgot one very important thing!

The fact that you're the first in your family to go to college is important! Make sure you tell the adcom about this somehow - often it can be covered in the personal statement.

And we look forward to hearing from you once those essays are ready!

EssaySnark