Profile Evaluation

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Profile Evaluation

by jmn231 » Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:50 am
Greetings!

I've begun thorough research on B-schools as the inevitability of the MBA presents itself and wanted to get your input on where you think I fit in.

-I graduated from a large, public university (mid to average rank), majoring in finance. Overall GPA of 3.6, with a GPA in my major of 3.94.
-I am in the midst of studying for the GMAT and have shown steady improvement on my practice exams (650, 690. 740, 740, 750, 760) and would conservatively project Q46 V44 (let's say 720).
-I work for M&T Bank, a NE/Mid-Atlantic regional bank, on the commercial side, having received credit training and subsequently managing relationships (first on the private banking side, now on the RE side) and have achieved the rank of associate in my 2+ years here, having excelled; previously I had a 6-month internship experience in Cincinnati, OH, with Johnson + Johnson for which I took a semester off of school
-I'm involved in several activities outside of work, notably Youth About Business (a program for teaching high school students about mergers + acquisitions) and have been working on the establishment of a new not-for-profit for about 3 months
-I have a fairly generic background. I'm a white male born in Richmond, VA, lived in Birmingham, AL, and my family settled outside of Philly. I'm currently in NYC.

Fortunately, I consider my writing ability to be among my greatest strengths (now I appreciate that my mother was an english teacher and grammar fiend). Though I'm not planning to apply until fall 2009, I have a detailed game plan of each of the qualities and topics I want to discuss and plan to hit every major point during the essay process.

My dream (since I was a little guy) was and is to go to Wharton. Also on the shortlist: HBS, Chicago, Stanford, Michigan, Columbia (though I'd like to get out of the city for a while)

Is my list of target schools reasonable? I understand the need to be conservative and to lease oneself "outs" in the admissions process.

Thanks!
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by Lisa Anderson » Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:22 pm
Dear jmn231,

Assuming you score over a 700 on the GMAT, I think your target list of schools is reasonable. I always encourage folks to have at least one safety school, so you will want to have a school between the top 15 and 40 as your backup plan. The other thing you can do to improve your application is seek out leadership opportunities both at work and in your extracurrciulars that you can write about on your applications.

Best of luck,
Lisa
Lisa Anderson
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Stacy Blackman Consulting

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