Ask Stacy Blackman

Hello, I'm just curious as to see what my chances are of getting into some of these schools. I know my score is borderline 80% range, but that didn't hold me back since I feel my application and essays and recs are very strong. Here it goes:


GMAT - 640 (78%) - 47 Q (81%) - 31 V (60 %) - 6.0 AWA ( 89%)
GPA - 3.2 - this is cumulative from all of my undergraduate institutions, 3 in total. Suffolk Community College, New York University, and Stony Brook University. Economics major

I'm 21 years old and have been working 40 hours a week for the past two years at UBS Investment Bank as a compliance analyst. I deal with accounting, finance analyzing, due diligence, etc. I got the job while at NYU because I guess they thought I was smart.

I also work as a manager at a top restaurant at nights

and I also created my own start-up .com company. We deal with market research, trading education, etc. I have created my own derivative trading models based on mathematical equations. This is my reason for an MBA, I want to switch from compliance to derivative trading professionally. We generate income from advertising campaigns and a book that I personally wrote. I've received buyout offers for around 65k for the site from venture capitalists.

On top of all of this, I go to school full-time. So my life is very hectic, and thus the reason for my low GPA and GMAT scores. I clarified this point in the optional essay

1- New Orleans Missions trip
Leader of my group
2- Platoon Commander
Naval Academy Preparatory School
Elected position by the Cadre and administration
3- Varsity Lacrosse
Naval Academy Preparatory School
Co-Captain
4- Honors Club
Suffolk County C.C.
5- Varsity Lacrosse
Suffolk County C.C.
Co-Captain

Here are some achievements:
Professional Achievements
-Anti-Money Laundering certificate
-Assigned the project leader for 2007 Account audits at UBS Investment Bank North
America. This includes analyzing over 5,000 accounts.
-Platoon Commander of Company 2, Platoon 1
Naval Academy Preparatory School
Elected position by the Cadre and the administration
A leader of 56 other students
-Received the National Defense Medal while at the Naval Academy Preparatory School
Publications & Creative Work
-I wrote an investing Polemic on Fundamental Analysis. It is sold on the website. Over 300 copies have been sold and I received the Yahoo Finance Alpha Badge, which is a certification for quantitative knowledge, for the work.
-The site has top ranked searches by Google, and has over 235 registered
members.
Inventions
-Invented, developed, and copyrighted many unique derivative trading models for the foreign exchange market. The strategies measure the covariance between two inter-related derivatives to determine
market entry timing. Hence, they are called inverse and covariant trading strategies.
Societies
-Honors Society at Suffolk C.C.
Scholarly Achievements
-Made the Dean’s List two semesters in a row while at Suffolk C.C.
-Made the Dean’s List at Stony Brook University
-Honors credit at Suffolk C.C.
Scholarships
-Received a half-ride academic scholarship through New York University’s CCTOP
program.

Do you think I have a shot considering my age, work experience, leadership roles, gmat and grades? I'm applying to CMU Tepper, Columbia, NYU, Yale, UNC, Darden, and Georgetown.

Thanks, and sorry for the long post!

Hi TepperPlease,

Your profile looks very familiar - have you posted here before with this question?

Overall I think your work experience and activities are definitely impressive, but for some of the more competitive schools you will have to deal with having a fairly low GMAT/GPA and therefore having a slightly less competitive overall academic profile.

Good luck!

Amy

Well i just received my Columbia interview invite today! I applied ED!

This was my first post, i'm new on this forum and wish I'd found it earlier for my gmat preparation!

just out of curiosity, How do you go about evaluating member posts? If you don't work on an admissions committee and each committee says each component is holistically evaluated and the gmat is not the only factor then what qualifies you to say that some of these schools are reach schools for me?

I'm curious and maybe I missed out on your introduction to the forum!

TepperPlease wrote:Well i just received my Columbia interview invite today! I applied ED!

This was my first post, i'm new on this forum and wish I'd found it earlier for my gmat preparation!

just out of curiosity, How do you go about evaluating member posts? If you don't work on an admissions committee and each committee says each component is holistically evaluated and the gmat is not the only factor then what qualifies you to say that some of these schools are reach schools for me?

I'm curious and maybe I missed out on your introduction to the forum!

I'm probably stepping over my boundaries here, but it doesn't seem right for people on this forum to continually ask Stacy and Amy the same questions under different user names--it's happening more frequently lately.

IMO, you should provide your profile once and glean as much as you can off their advice. Treat them like the valuable resource they are.

Just my two cents...

i'm a little confused here...

TepperPlease wrote:i'm a little confused here...

TepperPlease,

Other than the fact that you didn't use this site for your GMAT studies, your profile is quite similar to "maolivie." Maybe it's just a coincidence.

okay well so much for a happy community of people going for one goal.
if you want to accuse me of i dont even know who that is then i'll make my own points.
1- if you have the etime to compare and contrast someone who has supposebly been on the board for a while with me i'm sorry for you
2- that time was a waste of time since that is not i.

i'm done with this community. thanks amy for your brief input

Tepper, check out the admission success stories and under "Ross" there is a link that is a tad old but still a great benefit. I believe there is some info on that link reference Columbia...may be worth a visit prior to your interview.

I agree with Sadowski.... These consultants are as valuable as you deem them to be...if you are going to base your decision solely on what one person tells you then you may want to gain additional leadership/management experience to understand the whole decision making process. You see the common word "holistic" again and again. There is no standard profile that is going to be a definitive yes or no. Personally, I posted in this forum to gain a warm and fuzzy given my school selection. Thanks to Amy's advice I will also be applying to McCombs, a school that did not make my short list, yet a school where I am more competitive that will meet my objectives.

I think that's about $.05.

p.s. those two profiles are hilariously the same.

But either way, congrats on the interview and meeting your objective.