Realistic MBA programs?

Hi mbastudentclass2015!

First off, that GMAT is good - and you're obviously aware of your challenges with the GPA. The fact that you ended college so strong is definitely a positive and it helps your chances a lot, but the cumulative GPA is in the danger zone.

We're happy to see that you're approaching this realistically in terms of what schools you're targeting.

Unfortunately though, we can't really suggest any schools based on just profile stats alone. School choice is a VERY personal and a lot of factors need to go into it - what is a great choice for one person is a lousy one for another. Probably the first criteria to use would be career goals and what schools are strongest for your chosen post-MBA field. Another is geography; then there's size of school and culture (that actually might be the most important!!). So it's tough for a complete stranger to toss out a bunch of ideas since we don't know any of those factors. (Shameless self-promotion: You could go through the Comprehensive Profile Review process with EssaySnark, whereby we're able to gather a lot more information about your background and interests, and we can give feedback on your school targets and the entirety of your profile - see https://essaysnark.com/tutorial/comprehe ... le-review/ for details.)

What can tip the scales and help an admissions team see past a flaw like low GPA is the entirety of the pitch. Your essays will matter A LOT. (Essays always matter, but yours will be carrying more of the burden than other people's do.) And, as you indicated, you'll need to do the optional essay. We talk about that on the EssaySnark blahg here (subscription required for some of these articles, others are available for free):
https://essaysnark.com/2012/12/low-gpa-a ... nal-essay/

Here's a critique of an optional essay about low GPA:
https://essaysnark.com/2011/10/essay-cri ... low-gpa-2/

And here's a post on depression and bschool apps:
https://essaysnark.com/2012/08/depression-and-bschool/

For anyone interested, we have a lot of posts on the EssaySnark blahg about GPA:
https://essaysnark.com/2010/05/omg-2-pos ... a-low-gpa/
https://essaysnark.com/2011/09/the-best- ... a-low-gpa/
https://essaysnark.com/2011/11/low-gpa-w ... e-serious/
https://essaysnark.com/2012/06/tackling- ... ue-1-of-2/

(Sorry that so many of the posts we've linked to require a subscription - this is a popular and important topic. A lot of the blahg content is available for free too!!)

Anyway, sorry to punt on your question about "which schools?" - here's a good place to start on that one: https://essaysnark.com/2010/06/how-to-choose-a-bschool/

If you want to lay out some additional details like what are your goals and geographic preferences and the like, we can try and offer something more useful here in terms of school ideas, but this is a big question you're asking!! And it's tough to do it justice without getting a lot more on you as a person.

Good luck with the process and we're around to help out along the way.

EssaySnark

This topic has expert replies