Hi Stacy, your opinion would be much appreciated...

[dwilliam]

Hi Stacy,

I hope all is well. Here is a brief rundown of my case:

My dream schools are: University of Chicago, Northwestern, and Michigan, with a backup of Ohio State, or Michigan State.

I am pursuing an MBA in marketing to land a job as a brand manager at a large consumer goods company such as Procter and Gamble or General Mills. I have a clear goal of where I want to go to say the least.

I finished Ohio State with a 2.54 GPA. This was no where close to my ability. I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder/Panic Disorder my freshman year. This is in no way an excuse, nor do I plan on making it one in my application, but it had a large effect on my life and my grades. Instead of dealing with it the proper way, I drank to self medicate after diagnosis, and did not see a doctor again for 8 years, not to mention I worked 40 hours a week to finance my habits. This carried on from when I was 19 to when I was 26 and pretty much dependent on alcohol. To make a long story short, I have not had a drink in almost 3 years, nor will I ever again. Again, I want to state, this is not an excuse, but something I am proud to overcome, as well as a complete admission of how poorly I handled things versus the person I am now.

Since graduation I have been successful in business, even given my drinking and anxiety for the first couple years. I worked at Enterprise Rent a Car in the Management Trainee program for 2 1/2 years with much recognition, was a sales engineer for a network infrastructure company for a year and 3 months, and I am now an account manager for specialty retail company, responsible for running over 1 million dollars of our business. I have proven successful in all of these positions.

As for addressing my undergrad GPA, I am taking 2 night classes a semester at a community college in San Diego. I have taken Financial Accounting and got an A, and will earn an A in Marketing and a Selling for Business class I am in now. I plan on taking Macroeconomics, Business Grammar, Algebra, Statistics, and Social Sciences Calculus and getting A's in all of them as well. This should remove any doubt of my ability in the classroom.

As for the GMAT, I hope to score in the upwards of 650-710.

I am also developing on a website for Anxiety Disorder to help people who have had the same issues as I did, and I do a little volunteer work when time permits.

Hopefully this gives you enough to make an assessment of my qualifications. My question is, how competitive will my application be in the aforementioned schools? Northwestern is my top given the strength of the marketing program!

Your time is much appreciated. Congrats on your success as well.

[Stacy Blackman]

The GPA is what it is and it will be a handicap. However, you certainly seem to have an interesting personal success story, and you should tell it, but you will need to be careful as you do not want the schools to even have a chance to think that drinking, anxiety, etc...could be an issue for you. You seem extremely educated on the subject so I am sure you will handle it well.

Taking the classes is also a good idea. Finally, I believe the website you are developing will be very helpful to your candidacy as it will add legitimacy to the anxiety disorder as a real issue.

I am not going to lie to you - the GPA can be an issue, but I encourage you to apply, tell your story with honesty and maturity, and I know that Kellogg admissions (and the others) will take you seriously.

[dwilliam]

Thank you for the response, and for your candor. I realize I can't change the past, which is why I am putting so much effort into overcoming it.

If you have any other reccomendations I would love to hear them.

Do schools have a negative impression of prospective students from a sales background? Salespeople are often not looked at as the "smartest" in an organization, so I am a little concerned that it is something else I will have to address.

While I see where that point could be made, I look at having a sales background as learning the skills needed to interact with people, which is crucial to success on every level.

[Stacy Blackman]

A potential problem with sales is that it can be viewed as a solitary job within the organization. You have your accounts, interact with them, but are not necessarily working with a team within your company. As such, it can be hard to demonstrate teamwork and leadership. If you can show that you have gone beyond a simple sales role and taken initiative within your organization, that would be great. For example, you notice inefficiencies in the sales process, or reporting, or poor communication within the group - so you take it upon yourself to craft a solution and implement it. This would require strong communication, leadership, project management, etc... and would be very well regarded.

[dwilliam]

Thanks for the quick response. Your post is good news.

Enterprise was a management training program, and a large focus was teamwork and leadership. I lead several after work "sales schools" for newly hired team members, and a few "grill" review sessions, which is a review for the 6 hour verbal test that you must pass to get into management.

As for where I am now, we get individual bonuses and team bonuses, so teamwork is a must.

Thanks again for responding to my questions.