Hello,
I have been a follower of BTG for some time now, but this is my first significant post. I apologize in advance for the lengthy post. I would like a profile evaluation to gauge how competitive I would be in applying to top 10-15 MBA programs and some advice on whether I am better suited for a full-time or part-time/executive MBA.
The Numbers:
-29 year-old Caucasian male
-gmat - 690 (Quant. percentile ~ 70%, Verbal percentile ~ 92%, overall percentile ~ 90%)
-Undergraduate GPA - 3.4 from a lower-tier school where I played collegiate golf (as my profile name implies!), skewed down by a terrible freshman year. I did very well my junior/senior years and won a number of awards/scholarships including scholar-athlete of the year my senior year (only awarded to one male and one female athlete each year). I majored in business with a concentration in accounting. My business GPA was approximately 3.7 and my accounting gpa was approximately 3.9.
-Graduate GPA - 3.8 from a middle-tier school (masters in accountancy).
Work Experience:
-I originally worked in accounting for regional firm. I passed both the CPA and CFP on first attempts and was promoted from associate to senior associate and then to supervisor (over a 5-year span).
-I was not fully satisfied in public accounting and wanted to look at some options in M&A/investment banking. I did not think I had a shot because I did not go to a top-tier (probably not even 2nd-tier) undergraduate program, but I lucked into an interview, interviewed well, and got the job. So now I am a senior analyst at a middle-market investment banking firm and I work primarily on renewable energy transactions. Since starting, I have passed the series 79 (i-banking exam) and series 63 (uniform state securities exam). I am doing well in this position and they have indicated that I will be promoted at the end of this year.
Extracurricular and Community Service:
While my stats as listed above may appear extraordinarily ordinary, I do feel that my community service may help me to stand out. I have faced a series of obstacles over the last few years. While I was in college, my mother took her life - a devastating blow at the time, but I picked myself up and finished college on a strong note, winning numerous awards/scholarships in both athletics and academics. Next, my grandmother passed away about a year and half ago. This was certainly sad, but the real kicker came when the family dove into the estate paperwork. The majority of her assets were left in trust to her two sons (who are both mentally handicapped), and low and behold and unbeknownst to me, yours truly was set up as the sole executor of her estate and trustee/guardian of her two sons (my uncles). So overnight, I became the caretaker of two mentally handicapped adults and sole decision-maker for all of their wants, needs, and arrangements. At the time, I was a newlywed in my mid-twenties, working 100-hour weeks in my brand new investment banking job. The thought of squeezing my already limited time to catch myself up to speed on everything needed to care for my uncles (living arrangements, meals, bills, insurance, health issues, doctor appointments, etc.) was overwhelming...to say the least. Making matters more challenging was the fact that they both live several states away from me. With that said, I "grew up" very fast. I finalized my grandmother's estate, read everything that I could on social security, medicare, etc. I read up on all of their health issues and all of their prescriptions (on top of their mental handicaps, one is on oxygen for emphysema and the other is on seizure meds for epilepsy). I situated arrangements for all of their meals, bills, appointments, and similar such needs (they do not wish to live in a nursing home and they will not live with each other, so they each live independently). I make it a point to talk to both of them every day and I usually have to make several calls on their behalf each week.
I do not, in anyway, mean to discredit other forms of community service, but I can say that volunteering at a soup kitchen a few Saturdays a year to have some form of a community service to put on the resume is pale in comparison to an undertaking like this. For what it's worth, prior to my guardianship responsibilities, I was in a junior leadership role with my state's society for certified public accountants.
Evaluation:
So, all along, I have had it in my mind that I want to go back to school to get an MBA. The primary reason I want an MBA is to "rebrand" myself in a sense. As I mentioned, I went to a sub-par undergraduate program. I grew up in a small town and was honestly just a little naïve about my undergraduate college search. I only looked within a small radius and wanted to play college golf, so I went to a school close to home that gave me golf and academic scholarships. I feel that if I go back to a top MBA program, it will reposition me academically. I also feel that an MBA from a top program could provide me with a deeper network. I do not have much of a business network from my former classmates, but I have managed to build a solid network on my own (golf helps with that!). Nonetheless, I feel that an MBA program could provide me deep, life-long connections. Lastly, I like to learn and I love to be challenged. In my undergraduate program (and my Macc), I felt that the professors did a good job of challenging me, but I did feel adequately challenged from my peers. In my MBA, I want a program where I can be challenged by and collaborate with the best and brightest. Whether I stay in investment banking, transition to private equity, or start the next Callaway Golf Company, I think a top MBA will help me get to where I want to be.
So that is my story and here is my dilemma. First, I have no idea where I stack up. I can read the numbers and know where I sit in terms of gmat and gpa, but I feel that I have certain things working for me and others working against me. At the end of the day, I am not sure how these intangibles might be weighed.
Going for me:
1) I hold a CPA, CFP, Series 79 and 63, and a Master's in Accountancy. How will admissions view these items? Will they help or simple be neutral?
2) I am very well rounded: good student, college athlete, and primary care-taker for not one, but two mentally handicapped adults.
3) I have worked across several challenging fields. I started my public accounting career in auditing and transitioned to the tax department. During that time, I was promoted twice into a supervisory position. I then was able to get in the investment banking door as a non-target candidate. Across these jobs (audit, tax, and investment banking/M&A), I have seen hundreds of businesses and strategized with their CEOs, CFOs, and other corporate strategists.
Going against me:
1) I do not have any blue chip names to put on my resume: I graduated from a small, relatively unknown undergraduate program, I worked for a regional (rather than big 4) accounting firm, and now work for a middle-market (rather than bulge-bracket) investment bank.
2) My gmat is pretty good, but not amazing. I am a little concerned that my quant is low. In my first gmat attempt, I actually scored well in the quant, but average in verbal, but my overall score was 650 (I guess this shows that the overall score tends to be a little weighted toward verbal). My pure math courses in undergraduate are very mixed. In full disclosure, I received an F in calc. and retook for a C (this was during the dreadful freshman year when my mother passed away). I earned A's is virtually every other math-based class (statistics, accounting, finance, econ). Will this F from my freshman year be my scarlet letter and badge of shame on my application, or will adcoms brush over this since my other mathematical coursework is good, I have been successful in quantitative work fields, and I have passed well-known quant-related exams (CPA, CFP, Series 79/63) and have a graduate degree in a quantitative field.
3) I am currently 29 years old. I would look to apply this fall and aim to matriculate at 30. This is approaching the older side of MBA candidate pools for full-time programs. Am I better-suited for a part-time or exec. Program? I like my current job and firm and I am relatively close to Duke, Darden, and UNC, so I would love it if my current employer would support me going to a part-time/exec. program at one of these schools (ideally if they would help with tuition), but there are no guarantees that they would and others in my firm have hinted that they may not support this because they may not think I will have adequate time to do graduate coursework on top of investment banking hours. I know there are pros/cons to both, so I would appreciate feedback on which style of program (ft/pt/exec.) would be the best fit for me.
So again, I apologize for the long post, but I would like to get a better grasp on my competitiveness at top programs. I would probably prefer east coast or midwest over west coast programs, but I am open to all suggestions. Am I at all competitive for a top 5 program? For top 10-15 programs, would I be a weak, strong, or middle-of-the-road candidate? Given my lengthy story above, any recommendations on the best programs for me?
Thank you very much in advance!
I have been a follower of BTG for some time now, but this is my first significant post. I apologize in advance for the lengthy post. I would like a profile evaluation to gauge how competitive I would be in applying to top 10-15 MBA programs and some advice on whether I am better suited for a full-time or part-time/executive MBA.
The Numbers:
-29 year-old Caucasian male
-gmat - 690 (Quant. percentile ~ 70%, Verbal percentile ~ 92%, overall percentile ~ 90%)
-Undergraduate GPA - 3.4 from a lower-tier school where I played collegiate golf (as my profile name implies!), skewed down by a terrible freshman year. I did very well my junior/senior years and won a number of awards/scholarships including scholar-athlete of the year my senior year (only awarded to one male and one female athlete each year). I majored in business with a concentration in accounting. My business GPA was approximately 3.7 and my accounting gpa was approximately 3.9.
-Graduate GPA - 3.8 from a middle-tier school (masters in accountancy).
Work Experience:
-I originally worked in accounting for regional firm. I passed both the CPA and CFP on first attempts and was promoted from associate to senior associate and then to supervisor (over a 5-year span).
-I was not fully satisfied in public accounting and wanted to look at some options in M&A/investment banking. I did not think I had a shot because I did not go to a top-tier (probably not even 2nd-tier) undergraduate program, but I lucked into an interview, interviewed well, and got the job. So now I am a senior analyst at a middle-market investment banking firm and I work primarily on renewable energy transactions. Since starting, I have passed the series 79 (i-banking exam) and series 63 (uniform state securities exam). I am doing well in this position and they have indicated that I will be promoted at the end of this year.
Extracurricular and Community Service:
While my stats as listed above may appear extraordinarily ordinary, I do feel that my community service may help me to stand out. I have faced a series of obstacles over the last few years. While I was in college, my mother took her life - a devastating blow at the time, but I picked myself up and finished college on a strong note, winning numerous awards/scholarships in both athletics and academics. Next, my grandmother passed away about a year and half ago. This was certainly sad, but the real kicker came when the family dove into the estate paperwork. The majority of her assets were left in trust to her two sons (who are both mentally handicapped), and low and behold and unbeknownst to me, yours truly was set up as the sole executor of her estate and trustee/guardian of her two sons (my uncles). So overnight, I became the caretaker of two mentally handicapped adults and sole decision-maker for all of their wants, needs, and arrangements. At the time, I was a newlywed in my mid-twenties, working 100-hour weeks in my brand new investment banking job. The thought of squeezing my already limited time to catch myself up to speed on everything needed to care for my uncles (living arrangements, meals, bills, insurance, health issues, doctor appointments, etc.) was overwhelming...to say the least. Making matters more challenging was the fact that they both live several states away from me. With that said, I "grew up" very fast. I finalized my grandmother's estate, read everything that I could on social security, medicare, etc. I read up on all of their health issues and all of their prescriptions (on top of their mental handicaps, one is on oxygen for emphysema and the other is on seizure meds for epilepsy). I situated arrangements for all of their meals, bills, appointments, and similar such needs (they do not wish to live in a nursing home and they will not live with each other, so they each live independently). I make it a point to talk to both of them every day and I usually have to make several calls on their behalf each week.
I do not, in anyway, mean to discredit other forms of community service, but I can say that volunteering at a soup kitchen a few Saturdays a year to have some form of a community service to put on the resume is pale in comparison to an undertaking like this. For what it's worth, prior to my guardianship responsibilities, I was in a junior leadership role with my state's society for certified public accountants.
Evaluation:
So, all along, I have had it in my mind that I want to go back to school to get an MBA. The primary reason I want an MBA is to "rebrand" myself in a sense. As I mentioned, I went to a sub-par undergraduate program. I grew up in a small town and was honestly just a little naïve about my undergraduate college search. I only looked within a small radius and wanted to play college golf, so I went to a school close to home that gave me golf and academic scholarships. I feel that if I go back to a top MBA program, it will reposition me academically. I also feel that an MBA from a top program could provide me with a deeper network. I do not have much of a business network from my former classmates, but I have managed to build a solid network on my own (golf helps with that!). Nonetheless, I feel that an MBA program could provide me deep, life-long connections. Lastly, I like to learn and I love to be challenged. In my undergraduate program (and my Macc), I felt that the professors did a good job of challenging me, but I did feel adequately challenged from my peers. In my MBA, I want a program where I can be challenged by and collaborate with the best and brightest. Whether I stay in investment banking, transition to private equity, or start the next Callaway Golf Company, I think a top MBA will help me get to where I want to be.
So that is my story and here is my dilemma. First, I have no idea where I stack up. I can read the numbers and know where I sit in terms of gmat and gpa, but I feel that I have certain things working for me and others working against me. At the end of the day, I am not sure how these intangibles might be weighed.
Going for me:
1) I hold a CPA, CFP, Series 79 and 63, and a Master's in Accountancy. How will admissions view these items? Will they help or simple be neutral?
2) I am very well rounded: good student, college athlete, and primary care-taker for not one, but two mentally handicapped adults.
3) I have worked across several challenging fields. I started my public accounting career in auditing and transitioned to the tax department. During that time, I was promoted twice into a supervisory position. I then was able to get in the investment banking door as a non-target candidate. Across these jobs (audit, tax, and investment banking/M&A), I have seen hundreds of businesses and strategized with their CEOs, CFOs, and other corporate strategists.
Going against me:
1) I do not have any blue chip names to put on my resume: I graduated from a small, relatively unknown undergraduate program, I worked for a regional (rather than big 4) accounting firm, and now work for a middle-market (rather than bulge-bracket) investment bank.
2) My gmat is pretty good, but not amazing. I am a little concerned that my quant is low. In my first gmat attempt, I actually scored well in the quant, but average in verbal, but my overall score was 650 (I guess this shows that the overall score tends to be a little weighted toward verbal). My pure math courses in undergraduate are very mixed. In full disclosure, I received an F in calc. and retook for a C (this was during the dreadful freshman year when my mother passed away). I earned A's is virtually every other math-based class (statistics, accounting, finance, econ). Will this F from my freshman year be my scarlet letter and badge of shame on my application, or will adcoms brush over this since my other mathematical coursework is good, I have been successful in quantitative work fields, and I have passed well-known quant-related exams (CPA, CFP, Series 79/63) and have a graduate degree in a quantitative field.
3) I am currently 29 years old. I would look to apply this fall and aim to matriculate at 30. This is approaching the older side of MBA candidate pools for full-time programs. Am I better-suited for a part-time or exec. Program? I like my current job and firm and I am relatively close to Duke, Darden, and UNC, so I would love it if my current employer would support me going to a part-time/exec. program at one of these schools (ideally if they would help with tuition), but there are no guarantees that they would and others in my firm have hinted that they may not support this because they may not think I will have adequate time to do graduate coursework on top of investment banking hours. I know there are pros/cons to both, so I would appreciate feedback on which style of program (ft/pt/exec.) would be the best fit for me.
So again, I apologize for the long post, but I would like to get a better grasp on my competitiveness at top programs. I would probably prefer east coast or midwest over west coast programs, but I am open to all suggestions. Am I at all competitive for a top 5 program? For top 10-15 programs, would I be a weak, strong, or middle-of-the-road candidate? Given my lengthy story above, any recommendations on the best programs for me?
Thank you very much in advance!
MBA Golfer
