Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Hello,

Thank you in advanced for reading my post. I have posted all relevant information about myself below. If you need any more information please let me know.

Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Indian (born and raised in the US)
Age: 26 (at matriculation)

GMAT
720 (94th percentile)
Quant: 49 (86%)
Verbal: 40 (89%)
AWA: 5.5 (77%)

Undergraduate Education
BS in Electrical Engineering from a large state school with above average academics (but not elite)
GPA: 3.11 (however I had above a 3.57 and was on the Dean's List in each of the last two semesters)

Graduate Education
MS in Electrical Engineering from a local private college
GPA: 3.6 (I have one class left before I graduate)
I have been doing this part time while working full time.

Work Experience
I work for medium sized government agency as an Electronics Engineering. I have had one promotion since starting 2.5 years ago. Some of my responsibilities include:
- Manage and conduct research projects that validate in house models
- Consulting military and project leaders on types of sensors to use in various battlefield conditions
- Write proposals for new programs in order to generate income for the division
- Prepare technical documents based on modeling and simulation results

Reason for MBA
I am some what unique compared with other MBA applicants to top schools. I'm not interested in i-banking or consulting. My passion has always been in sports. Specifically, after graduation I want to work for either the NFL, NBA, or MLB promoting international business development. I believe the biggest growth potential for US sports leagues lies in the international market. With my degree in engineering alone it would be almost impossible to meet my career goals.

Extracurriculars
- Volunteered two years as a Little League baseball coach
- I have gone on recruiting trips and interviewed potentials candidates for my agency
- I was the project manager for my senior design project in college
- I just started working for the local food bank as a weekend leader. My job is to get volunteers up to speed on how the food banks work and assign them various tasks to perform.

Other items
- I have three published papers from prior research I have conducted.
- Received an Official Commendation from the Director of my agency in support of a major program earlier this year.

Schools I am planning on applying to:
UVA
Duke
UNC-Chapel Hill
UCLA or Texas-Austin
UPenn (stretch)
Harvard (stretch)

Questions:
- What are my chances with the schools I have listed?
- Will my low undergrad GPA hurt my chances or will my high GMAT school and good graduate school GPA make up for it?
- I have done research on the strengths of various programs, but based on my career goals do you recommend any other schools not on my list?

Sorry for the length, I just wanted to give as clear of a picture as I could. Any additional feedback will be appreciated. Thank you again.

MBA is good for career switching, but I would make sure I laid out a logical, inspired story about why the sports industry makes sense for you as well as some evidence that you are working towards that now. Your core qualifications are good, so you should be able to get into some of your target schools. Might also look at Chicago Booth and USC Marshall. Going to school in a good sports town will build you a good network. As long as you are able to weave a good story that is personal and compelling to the ad committee, you should be on your way to achieving your dreams.

Thanks for the reply Bryant! I will look into those other two programs as well.