Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Hi,

I'm applying for the Sept. 2010 class and here's my background:

- 24 yr old Asian Canadian male

1. Undergrad - University of Toronto (considered the best school in Canada, and extremely stringent on the gpa with no bell curves...not sure if adcoms are all aware of this fact). Major in Economics.

2. I have 2.0 gpa which is absolute garbage (reason - I was accepted on full scholarship at age 15 after finishing high school with a 97 avg and I never cared to study while in undergrad. By that I mean literally skipping whole semesters of class and only studying a week before the final exam. - immaturity at its finest)

3. GMAT - 760 90 Quant, 98 Verbal (I think that's the break out but I don't remember exactly). I took the test after taking 3 practice tests and getting 750/770/760.

4. Work experience - total - 5 yrs now, will be 6 yrs by matriculation. 1.5 yrs as a treasury analyst in a foreign exchange company, 1 yr in the middle office in a large bank which I hated, then 1 yr in Asia as a financial advisor in a wealth managment company, 1 yr as a business analyst and 0.5 yr recently promoted to business manager in a large advertising firm (our clients include a slew of the top fortune 500 companies)...will have a total of 1.5 yrs of pretty solid intermediate to senior management responsibilities by fall of 2010.

5. Life experiences - born in China, grew up in the US from 7-14, since then lived in Canada except for 1 yr where I worked in China. I'm fluent in Mandarin Chinese (speaking, reading, and writing). In the long run I'd like to work in Chinese related businesses...so I'm hoping my international background will help this cause.

6. Addressing some of my weaknesses - I started university at a very young age and due to my immaturity never cared much about the school work. I've done extremely well in some of the courses I was interested in but just kinda dragged along in most of the other courses that I found boring. My transcript has a number of A's and F's (I had a yr of severe depression and got like 4 F's after not attending any of my finals) and shows a pretty wide variance. I really believe my gpa has no reflection on my academic abilities. I went from being one of the top of my class at an uber-competitive private high school to not studying at all during university to working really hard post-graduation again and having a successful career.

Upon graduation, because of my low gpa, youth, and lack of knowledge of the working world, I had to bounce around a bit to find something suitable for myself. In the process I got some decent international exposure, but also found out that I didn't enjoy finance/investments as much as I thought I would. Also really hated working in a large bank. Now I'm finally settled into a good career in marketing/advertising with a huge global employer, so I'm looking for an MBA to push me further in my career.

In terms of strengths, I'm still only 24 now (graduated university at 19) and I'm easily the youngest manager in my office (probably in all the global offices across my company). I'm responsible for all the financial and business aspects on the piece of business I work on, which generates revenue of almost $10 million annually and has 30-40 people on the team. Basically I'm working in a position now that most ppl get POST MBA. The problem is that if I stay in this role then the next promotion will take a long time (they're not gonna make me a 26-28 yr old VP or whatever in the company). However I think if I have an MBA that can change...especially if I'm willing to go to the Asian offices and deal with the Chinese clients. Then my MBA + solid experiences + language skills should make me a pretty attractive package. Heck in Asia I can even run my own agency with the right contacts.

Right now I'm hoping to get into the top tier schools - LBS/INSEAD/Wharton (especially the Lauder program with Chinese as a 2nd language). Others I'm interested in are Columbia (possibly early decision...how much easier is this than the regular admissions?)/Chicago/Oxford/Yale - Ox/Y being backups. Basically I know my gpa is weak but I also have a pretty legitimate reason for it...I'm hoping at least some adcoms will accept that it was more of a measurement of my youth rather than my real aptitude or drive. In terms of work, I have a broader background and more yrs than almost all applicants my age(finance and marketing/advertising). At the same time I have a solid yr of international experience and a fluent second language. I'll also have a pretty unique perspective and experience on management due to my age.

So in the end, what do you think? My gpa is squarely in the bottom 1% of the application pool but my GMAT is in the top 1%. My experiences are solid and while my age is young I'm in a fairly senior position with lots of responsibilities in one of the biggest advertising agencies globally. My problem has always been effort/maturity in school and I think I've addressed those pretty thoroughly with my work ethic and career progression.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my chances of getting into these top schools. I don't think I have the typical B-school applicant profile so I'm hoping at least one of the top schools can give me some consideration...

Thanks!

Also extracurriculars - I co-founded www.tiffreviews.com which is one of the largest forums/sites for the Toronto International Film Festival.

Hi--

Okay...there is a lot going on here so let me take this point by point and then see if I can give you an overall take at the end.

1. Undergrad - University of Toronto (considered the best school in Canada, and extremely stringent on the gpa with no bell curves...not sure if adcoms are all aware of this fact). Major in Economics.

AdComs may not be aware of this fact but are certainly willing to listen if you explain that this is the way that they grade. The place to put this is in the "anything else?" section of the application.

2. I have 2.0 gpa which is absolute garbage (reason - I was accepted on full scholarship at age 15 after finishing high school with a 97 avg and I never cared to study while in undergrad. By that I mean literally skipping whole semesters of class and only studying a week before the final exam. - immaturity at its finest)

4. Work experience - total - 5 yrs now, will be 6 yrs by matriculation. 1.5 yrs as a treasury analyst in a foreign exchange company, 1 yr in the middle office in a large bank which I hated, then 1 yr in Asia as a financial advisor in a wealth managment company, 1 yr as a business analyst and 0.5 yr recently promoted to business manager in a large advertising firm (our clients include a slew of the top fortune 500 companies)...will have a total of 1.5 yrs of pretty solid intermediate to senior management responsibilities by fall of 2010.

Okay...taking points two and four at the same time, there are, as you point out, two stories going on here: one is that you are obviously hyper-intelligent and appear to be fairly quant-oriented. This is, obviously, a terrific asset as long as it is coupled with...

...responsibility. And that is why I am joining two and four. Blowing off your exams as an undergraduate does not make you look good but it is POSSIBLY excusable given your age. But even given your age, the vibe I get is that that there is something more than just undergraduate irresponsibility going on here. Cockiness? Sending a message? Just being a complete doofus? Hard to say but it doesn't speak well of you.

Then...combined with your jumping around a bit in your work experience tells me that the irresponsibility as an undergrad may possibly be something that you haven't outgrown. I mean, you have really jumped around. So...the question that I am left with is: what's going on?

In short, you are going to need to come up with a VERY compelling story that explains why you have bounced around as much as you have. Ad Coms do not see business school as a place for you to start being responsible; they see it as a place for you to continue being responsible.

In terms of the depression, that's a tough break but it doesn't excuse your behavior and is not going to fly with the admissions committee as an excuse for your A's and F's transcript.

3. GMAT - 760 90 Quant, 98 Verbal (I think that's the break out but I don't remember exactly). I took the test after taking 3 practice tests and getting 750/770/760.

This is good but, upon examination, not as great as it might first appear. This is obviously an outstanding score but the 90th percentile on the quant gives me a bit of pause. I mean, if you are as super-smart as you appear to be, what happened on the quant? In anybody else, I wouldn't even mention this but your academic and work background means that something like this is going to get scrutinized and wondered about.

Upon graduation, because of my low gpa, youth, and lack of knowledge of the working world, I had to bounce around a bit to find something suitable for myself. In the process I got some decent international exposure, but also found out that I didn't enjoy finance/investments as much as I thought I would. Also really hated working in a large bank. Now I'm finally settled into a good career in marketing/advertising with a huge global employer, so I'm looking for an MBA to push me further in my career.

I hear you on this and, in some ways, have had a similar experience (though after business school rather than before). I'm really glad that you have found a good place for yourself but, in my opinion, your best chance for getting into the kind of business school that you are talking about is to stay where you are, continue to excel, and not worry too much about getting another promotion at the moment.

Right now, what I think you need to show is that you can stay somewhere, do well, and execute cleanly over time.

The more time passes, the more your undergraduate GPA will fade into the background (never entirely, obviously) and your work experience and GMAT will take on greater prominence. Furthermore, your age will be more in line with peers that are also applying.

I know I'm not answering every single one of your questions but these are my first thoughts on what is a very complex situation. Why don't you share your thoughts in response and we can continue the conversation.

Thanks--

Paxton

Thanks a ton for your breakdown of my application!

The undergrad thing, if I really have to dig down deep and talk to the adcom about it, comes down to sending a message to my parents. I grew up in the US and completed grade 10 in the US. Then I was forced to move to Canada and finished the rest of my high school in 1 year here. Now comes the problem...with my profile back then, the high GPA from a prestigious private school and all the extracurricular leadership roles I was involved in, and 1500+ SAT practice test scores, I was pretty well rounded and felt like I should've been able to go to a top school in the US. But here I was in Canada, and because I was so young, my parents essentially forced me to stay in Toronto. Their idea was that...hey, U of T is a prestigious school in Canada, you have a full scholarship, so why not stay near home? So during my first year in school, I was sitting there watching all my high school buddies applying to Harvard, Stanford, etc. and I'm helping them edit their essays and looking over their applicatoins and feeling pretty bitter and pissed off that it could've been me doing the same had I NOT let myself been controlled by my parents.

Another thing is, I started off studying neuroscience in school as a pre-med. Why? Also because I was young and heavily influenced by my parents. This was definitely NOT what I wanted to do but I couldn't get out of it/convince my parents until the end of my 3rd year of university. So during school this was consistently a huge issue for me as I was studying something I didn't want to study at a school that I didn't want to be at and that I didn't feel was good enough for me all the while seeing all my friends in the US loving their schools.

I never quite got over that during school and really never forgave my parents for controlling me the way they did. So in the end the only way I could send a message to them was to blatantly ignore school work. I know it's not exactly the greatest way to send a message and in the long run I'm only screwing myself...but of course I was young back then and didn't really consider those consequences.

Of course now I'm much older, more mature, and much more responsible (especially with my work responsibilities...anything finance related on the 10 million dollar revenue we get from my business is 100% me...this includes systems, reporting, budgeting, invoicing/billing, staffing, forecasting, etc.). Also my relationships with my family and everyone around me are different. I feel like I'm finally at a stage in my life where I'm ready to walk into the next stage and go to school again. That's also why this time around I'm really hoping to get things right from the get go and not mess up. I've been somewhat of an academic cripple during school and after graduation, and this has had a pretty big effect on my life and my career. Now if I can go back to school for an MBA, I'm pretty sure I have both the aptitude and desire to handle the work load. It's like if a crippled man being offered a chance to walk again...I'm not f*cking up this time.

I think if adcoms understand me on this level, they'll understand that I'm not the usual guy who's all talk about doing better in school. I've done what I could outside of school to get myself back on track and now I'm ready to get back into it.

On the taking classes and getting a "2nd transcript" thing, I've gotten lots of advice to do this. However, instead of doing that I've done graduate level research in finance for a professor at Queen's University here. It is HEAVILY quantitative and should be enough to show that I'll have no problems getting back in to academia or handling basic finance/math. In fact I'm pretty sure I can apply for the Masters in Finance program at Queen's, which this professor teaches, and he'd take me in a heartbeat. But that's not what I'm looking for (since I'm not really looking to go into i-banks again) and I'd prefer the versatility of an MBA for management purposes. There will be some papers published this year (soon hopefully) that'll have my name on it and I definitely hope the adcom will look favorably on that. In all honesty, between work, research, mba app prep work/essays, I'm busy enough that I'd like to avoid taking additional courses if they're not absolutely necessary.

I hope this gives you a better understanding overall of where I'm coming from and maybe you can now better evaluate my profile. Thanks for helping out!

Thanks for your note and your clarification. The research in the quant stuff should dispel any (lingering, though there really shouldn't be) doubt about your quant chops. You are, as I have said, obviously an extremely bright guy.

Now...in terms of why the grades, I get it and, believe it or not, telling the story of being muscled into doing something that you didn't want strikes me as a legitimate and sincere story. Believe me, I can tell you that the BS-detectors of admissions committees are EXTREMELY finely tuned and can detect the faintest whiff: you are wise to level with them though obviously groveling is not recommended.

So...where now? My suggestions, in a nutshell:

- Get a steady stream of solid work experience in a given field; stay with the company even if its kind of boring. If you MUST switch companies then do so in the same field. In my opinion, any more jumping around should be avoided if at all possible.

- Get some extra-curriculars.

- Get some professional (admissions consulting) type help when it comes to write your app. Tell them that you need internal consistency and somebody that has handled unusual cases. I can, of course, recommend Kaplan but the main thing is to find somebody that you're comfortable with.

Keep me in the loop and let me know if you have any other questions--

Paxton

I will have had 3 yrs of experience at my current job by the time I matriculate. 1.5 yrs as business analyst and 1.5 yrs as business manager. is that still not enough in your opinion? The jobs I did prior to this were all still heavily financial and professional positions...they were just more geared towards banking/investments, which was a career I ultimately didn't enjoy and had to switch out of.

Also for extracurriculars what would you recommend? One of my interests is film and I co-founded www.tiffreviews.com with my friend, which provides a very active community for the Toronto International Film Festival. Is there anything in particular that the adcoms like to see?

Thanks a ton for your replies. Your insights have been very helpful.

Three years sounds reasonable to me so I think you're in the clear, there. In terms of extra-curriculars, I would say that the film festival is great; and, other than that, why not pursue things that genuinely interest you?

I have been thinking some about your application. You are definitely a wild card in some senses but, given your extraordinary intellectual capacity and the fact that you seem to have hit your stride professionally, I think you should do fine.

Keep me in the loop--

Paxton

Thanks a ton Paxton! I definitely will be posting here more once I finalize the list of schools I'm applying to and get to the actual essays and apps process. Wish me luck!

Good luck!