Please advise - 3.0/780

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Please advise - 3.0/780

by bschoolhopefull » Tue Oct 23, 2018 1:58 pm
Hey guys,

I'm looking for some advice on which schools I should apply to given my profile.

Age - 27 Male

Education Background
-B.S. in STEM field (3.0, immaturity/focus on sports) from top state school (Think UNC, UVA, University of Texas). No noticeable trend.
-M.S. in humanities field (3.86) from top non-ivy private school

GMAT - 780 (Q51, V46)

Undergrad Extracurricular Activity
-Varsity athlete (team captain)
-A few professional societies
-Fraternity with some minor leadership roles
-Active in local church

Post-Grad Extracurricular Activity
-Olympic trials/olympic alternate
-Youth sports coach
-Tutor to underprivileged kids
-Active in local church
-Served on two non-profit boards

Work Experience
Year 1 - Development role at University. Raised 1MM in scholarships (Focus was still on sports)
Years 2-3 Executive assistant to nationally known and respected President/CEO
Years 4-6 Founder & CEO of startup (just sold for 60MM)

Additional Work Experience
Co-Founder of medium sized cattle ranch (my co-founder now runs it full-time. I just helped in early stages)
Captain in the US Army Reserves

Short-Term Post-MBA Goal
-Three options (I will tighten this up for the applications)
1. Starting another company with friends from b school
2. Consulting
3. Tech

Target Schools
-Stanford/Harvard/Booth (Stretch?)
-Tuck/Haas/Yale (Target?)
-Darden/Ross/McCombs (Safe?)

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by Michelle@ARINGO » Tue Nov 06, 2018 11:22 pm
bschoolhopefull wrote:Hey guys,

I'm looking for some advice on which schools I should apply to given my profile.

Age - 27 Male

Education Background
-B.S. in STEM field (3.0, immaturity/focus on sports) from top state school (Think UNC, UVA, University of Texas). No noticeable trend.
-M.S. in humanities field (3.86) from top non-ivy private school

GMAT - 780 (Q51, V46)

Undergrad Extracurricular Activity
-Varsity athlete (team captain)
-A few professional societies
-Fraternity with some minor leadership roles
-Active in local church

Post-Grad Extracurricular Activity
-Olympic trials/olympic alternate
-Youth sports coach
-Tutor to underprivileged kids
-Active in local church
-Served on two non-profit boards

Work Experience
Year 1 - Development role at University. Raised 1MM in scholarships (Focus was still on sports)
Years 2-3 Executive assistant to nationally known and respected President/CEO
Years 4-6 Founder & CEO of startup (just sold for 60MM)

Additional Work Experience
Co-Founder of medium sized cattle ranch (my co-founder now runs it full-time. I just helped in early stages)
Captain in the US Army Reserves

Short-Term Post-MBA Goal
-Three options (I will tighten this up for the applications)
1. Starting another company with friends from b school
2. Consulting
3. Tech

Target Schools
-Stanford/Harvard/Booth (Stretch?)
-Tuck/Haas/Yale (Target?)
-Darden/Ross/McCombs (Safe?)
I would say that with the right essays and letters of recommendation none of these schools are a stretch, so that's the good news! Your profile is great and you have a lot of strengths that you can highlight in different ways in your essays.

The bad news is that your post-MBA goals won't do. You need to choose one, and stick to it (at least for application purposes, no-one is going to do anything about it if you change your mind after you've completed your MBA of course). So you need to work on that part.

Depending on what you choose as your post-MBA goal you might want to consider the top rated schools for entrepreneurship, you can find those here:
https://aringo.com/mba-entrepreneurship-specialization/

Or alternatively, look at the top schools for consulting, to be found here:
https://aringo.com/mba-corporate-strate ... alization/

Last but not least, the "tech" part needs to be much more specific. What interests you in tech? What role? What field? etc. You need to make it tangible, should that end up being your post-MBA goal.

Good luck!
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by MargaretStrother » Thu Nov 08, 2018 4:12 am
The good news is that everything here looks great! Your MS GPA will do a lot to outweigh your undergraduate GPA, and top MBA programs will love that awesome GMAT.
I agree with Michelle from Aringo that nothing is out of reach for you, if your essays are really well done -- deep, well-researched, self-aware, humble, non-pompous, etc -- and if you nail down one hypothetical set of short term/long term post-MBA goals and run with that. Since you have entrepreneurial experience, that might make sense as a post-MBA goal, although consulting is always a safe (and realistic) bet.

Your long-term goal is also important, however, because that demonstrates your commitment to an industry, a region, some kind of leadership vision that makes you top MBA material. Your experience seems to pretty scattered, so any consultant who has the terrific luck to be working with you will help you pull all of that together into a clear vision that takes you from a collection of positive data points to a leader who will add value to the school's brand -- even if the school is HBS.

One thing I didn't see in your notes is anything international, so that's one area where you'll want to invest some time and effort. If you haven't built any international business or education experience, you'll certainly want to identify specific ways that the global aspect of your MBA class and program would be a must-have for you.
Margaret Strother
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Stacy Blackman Consulting

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