Ask Admissionado

Hi,

I'd like to know your thoughts on my chances to obtain a scholarship to the IU Kelley Direct program (yes, I'm assuming admission, for better or worse).

GMAT - 750 (49Q/44V/8/5.5)
B.A. Mathematics University of Louisville, 3.812 GPA
4 years full-time management experience in UPS Plant Engineering (~9.25 years @ UPS, 7 months hourly, 4.8 years PT Mgmt, 4 years FT Mgmt)

From 18-30, sporadic job history mostly due to drug abuse, including a military court-martial. Finally sobered up in 2004 at age 30, started working as a part-time hourly employee at UPS to get free tuition to UofL. I've averaged one promotion every 3 years. In the last 10 years, I have volunteer experience including Committee Member of City-Sponsored neighborhood enrichment program, V.P. and Board Member of Neighborhood Assn, organizing many events and support for low-income neighborhood community center...although most of the volunteer work came to a grinding halt about 1.5 years ago when my daughter was born. Have recently become involved with United Way fundraising through UPS. I know my GMAT and undergraduate GPA are well within the scholarship range for the online IU degree, but not sure how my age (40) and history up to age 30 should be handled in application essays, etc. My wife and I would like to stay in the Louisville area so I'm only realistically considering Kelley Direct or part-time Louisville MBA options. In my opinion they are fairly equal options as far as allowing me to continue working and make local connections. IU is the better school although the online option is less prestigious so that allows the lower-ranked Louisville to gain some ground along with providing more in-person networking opportunities. I don't exactly know what I want to do post-MBA but I don't really like Plant Engineering and I'm very open to switching careers and/or employers.

Thanks,
Steve

Hi Steve,

As Jon already said: great story and great score! I recommend you speak directly with our admissions team. They are going to be the ones making the decision about scholarships. Would you like to setup a call with Erin Vincent, our Director of Admissions & Students Services? You can email her directly with your questions and availability for a meeting: [email protected].

Good luck!

Pathik Bhatt
Associate Director of Interactive Recruiting
Kelley Direct Online MBA & MS Programs
https://kelley.iu.edu/onlineMBA/

Pathik,

Thanks for your suggestion - I'd actually been speaking with Lindsey Spoonmore about the application process and my prospects for scholarship money prior to completing my application earlier this week. I did notice that Erin viewed my LinkedIn profile and I'll try not to spend too much time reading into what that means for my application status during the agonizing wait for the results. Haha, I'm mostly kidding there although I'm not sure which is greater - my disdain for waiting or the feebleness of my attempts to predict the future!

Steve

Steve, I'm glad to see you connected with Lindsey. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Received my Kelley admission letter yesterday and have been awarded a ~$20k scholarship!