School selection advice requested

Figure out where you wish to apply
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School selection advice requested

by GPT_55 » Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:02 am
Dear all,

I'm planning to apply to business school this fall, and with but atypical background but very definite post-MBA goals I would like to ask for the community's advice.

I'm from Eastern Europe, I have a law undergrad, I worked in the government and a non-government public service institution since my graduation (mostly legal work, but also a lot of exposure to international work with the EU).

I also have a "second", parallel career path that started out as a hobby during my high school years and has since turned quite serious. I'm into sports journalism and publishing, I worked for websites, magazines, and then ran my own website and a magazine together with some other guys, and we recently ventured into tablet publishing as well (I also did related work on radio shows, TV broadcast commentating etc.).

What I would like to do is to sort of mold these 2 paths into one by going for an MBA, and afterwards I want to end up in government consulting, more specifically back in Europe, since most of my government experience relates to the European Union.

With that in mind, I'd like to ask you for some suggestions, most importantly US schools. Why US schools when I want to work with the EU? I just want to get out of my comfort zone and get a different perspective on management etc.

Yes, I do have a list of schools I'm interested in but I wouldn't like to bias any recommendations so I'd prefer not to tell them. :)

My GPA is rather average but I think I can explain it very well (the parallel career path I mentioned ate up a lot of my time and I only learned to balance it properly after I started working full-time upon graduating), and I also didn't take the GMAT yet, but please suggest schools from the full range.

Although I didn't get "promoted" in the traditional sense in my 3 years of WE, as our public service is quite strongly based on seniority, but I recently switched jobs which can be considered a promotion since I moved to a more "prestigious" institution, and I'll have good recommendations from my bosses at both the earlier and the new workplace as well.

I hope I gave you all the info necessary, if not, please do not hesitate to ask. :)

And thanks a lot for your help in advance!

GPT
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by GPT_55 » Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:53 pm
Anyone, please? :oops:

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by Jon@Admissionado » Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:52 am
Sure!
Well first question: How is government consulting a blend of sports journalism and Public law work? (okay I see the public law connection, but how does sports journalism fit in?)

And your GPA, you didn't write what it was.. plus it's hard to say where you should apply without a GMAT.

Finally, if you really are sure you want to work with the EU, it of course makes sense to stay. I understand your logic about wanting something new, but maybe it would be more useful if you rubbed elbows with people on the right side of the atlantic?

Unless you can get into Harvard :)... Or if you do another Public Policy + MBA program, that could be a good idea, even in the US or UK...
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by GPT_55 » Thu Apr 26, 2012 2:51 am
Jon, thanks a lot for your reply!

I understand blending is not precise here, that's why I said it's "sort of" blending these two careers. What I meant to say with this second career path is that I have experience in business life as well, having set up a company and actually still running a business.

My GPA would roughly be a bit below 3.0. I also understand that without a GMAT, you cannot give me definite targets, but when I asked I was thinking more about recommendations purely considering school profiles in a wider range.

As for the US vs staying in Europe thing, I have had the same doubts you just mentioned but after doing my research I found that as far as learning the business curriculum, strategy, management etc. while perhaps taking some classes from the university's other schools would be just as good for me. (I'm not really interested in doing double degrees, just taking some extra classes outside business school.)

I did talk to some people working in similar circumstances (government consulting, EU institutions etc) who did an MBA in the US, and they said that you get a wide range of tools and it's your job to tailor it to your needs and implement them in your post-MBA work, and they had no trouble doing so when coming back to Europe.

In other words, I'm not looking for knowledge that is tailored to the European institutional system.

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by Jon@Admissionado » Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:35 pm
Got it. Now things are a bit clearer.

So the first place to look, I think is places with strong Public Policy program would allow you to meet the right people and take the right classes, even if you opt not to an MPP or MPA. The first that comes to mind is of course Harvard. Which with less than a 3.0 will be super tough. Depends of course on the rest of your application and GMAT score. Then, I can refer you to this ranking here: https://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... s-rankings which will give you a good idea of which schools have good programs. As you will see many of the top schools have also top MBA programs, so Haas, Booth, ross, Tepper, etc.

So I think that would be a good place to start looking.

hope this helps,
"Hands down the best MBA admissions consulting firm of all-time, and boy, what an incredible founder!" -- Raj Patil, Founder of Admissionado

Something for everyone:
https://admissionado.lpages.co/admissio ... nter-2018/
https://admissionado.lpages.co/50-essay ... ked-vol-4/
https://admissionado.lpages.co/case-studies-lp/
https://admissionado.com/mba/reviews/
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Admis ... 700945.htm

Reach out, and let's gab. Our only requirement is that you don't prefer warm milk over cold milk. Everyone else, 100% welcome.
Email: [email protected]
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Hit us up on WhatsApp.
Ping our satellite: 0884#&@-2#101101
Contact us via web form you lazy git: https://admissionado.com/contact/
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by GPT_55 » Fri Apr 27, 2012 3:18 am
Jon, thanks a lot for your help!

Indeed, I never thought about approaching the whole issue from the MPP rankings' side.

Thank you!