The Application Process

Hey everyone,

Just hoping to get some advice as my profile is ridiculous. I am not really planning on applying until I get more work experience so please keep that in mind.

I have a double major in Economics and Finance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, with a 2.8ish GPA. However, the low GPA was on purpose; which, you may think is quite odd but I can gladly elaborate and prove it as my grades would be 100% on one test and a 40 on the next. It was very immature of me at the time, but what can you do. Basically, I didn't agree with a lot of modern finance, which I am not going to discuss here. HOWEVER, I helped manage a portfolio for the University and did very well. I also won my stock market game by purchasing AIG before the government bailed out the company at $2 a share and an ETF that tracked the S&P500 with the entire portfolio. No insider information, just me sitting in the library thinking I am quite clever. In my opinion, beating the S&P500 as an undergraduate was a great way to distinguish myself from other candidates from all over the world. I mean that is the goal, so who cares about gpa right? . Anyways, I broke my shoulder right before I graduated so I hung out in Lincoln being a teller, my college job. I ended up working at an insurance company for 9 months as an Agency Operations Specialist and was let go over things I could not control. I went unemployed for around 5 months after applying to nearly 600 jobs. I finally took some temp work at a Financial company and that is what I am doing now. I am hoping that my recent GMAT score will help me get my foot in the door in order to get some real work experience doing what I love to do, which is portfolio management/ value investing. With all that being said, I am only 25 so I kind of want to postpone going to grad school for awhile as I do not think my work experience is up to par. I may also retake the GMAT at some point down the road as I felt that if I took it again I would score somewhere closer to a 680 than 650. I also want to study under a guy named Bruce Greenwald, who teaches value investing at Columbia, so a higher gmat score would probably be necessary. That obviously won't be the only place I apply too.

If you could provide some candid advice that would be great.

-BP

Your thinking is correct regarding the timing for business school. I recommend that you wait until you have approximately 4 to 5 years of full-time post-baccalaureate work experience. Because admissions committees look at both the quality and quantity of work experience, you will want to obtain a solid position with a high degree of responsibility where you can work towards multiple promotions. Temporary work, unfortunately, is usually administrative, so this isn't the kind of quality schools are looking for.

That is quite an accomplishment to have won the stock market game. However, while quite impressive, admissions committees will few this as a college extracurricular activity. They care much more about post-baccalaureate accomplishments that highlight your leadership, innovation and teamwork potential. Your undergraduate GPA is low, but you can't change it now, so my advice is to focus on the GMAT along with securing a full-time position.

When it comes to the GMAT, please know that you can take it many times and admissions committees only take the highest score. With a low GPA, I would recommend shooting for the mid-700s if you want to secure a place in Columbia's class or another school of its caliber. Columbia's average is a 713.

I wish you all the best!!

Ms. Jacobs,

See this is where my dilemma comes into play: you simply see it as an extracurricular activity just as HR at a company sees it: Immaterial. However, what you don't understand is the logic behind what I was doing and that I predicted what the heads of the largest financial institutions in the United States were going to do before they did it as an undergraduate sitting in the library. I can't make someone hire me, or make someone give me some opportunity to display the qualities that I am sure most high level graduate business schools deem ideal for their school. Just like I can't control professors scaling courses so that everyone fits in a standard deviation; thus, taking the incentive away to work really hard for that A. Sorry, it has been a frustrating and partially my fault.

Anyways, I appreciate the candid advice. I will consider retaking the GMAT while I continue to try to find work in my field and continue to work on what I want to do: value investing.

Thanks

-Bp