His question for me was whether I thought he had a decent chance of gaining admission to the MBA programs at Harvard or Stanford with deferred admission, due to his young age and need to get work experience first. Of course, I’ve never worked in an Admissions Office before, but, after all of these years, I definitely had some thoughts to share with the guy.
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FR wrote:
Dear Marquis,
I hope this email finds you well.
Like many, I would like some advice from an experient person about Stanford’s deferred MBA enrollment – I would greatly appreciate any help you could provide.
I am in my senior college year in the best university in all of Latin American (in Brazil), where I am majoring in Engineering. I am a joint degree student, so I have also studied in, and will have a degree from, one of the top French Engineering schools (the degree in France is actually considered a Master of Science in Engineering).
I will start an internship at BCG in 2 months and odds are extremely high I will work there until I have enough experience for the MBA. I haven’t taken the GMAT, but I honestly don’t think it will pose a big problem for me, considering my grades in Math (A+ in the department, having scored 10/10 in 2 of my 4 semester-long Calculus courses). The verbal part may offset it a little, but I don’t think it will be a big obstacle either.
I am ranked in the top 5% (in fact, top 5.7%, am I allowed to say top 5%?) in my Brazilian university (no GPA grades here), but in France my GPA was “only” 3.46 unfortunately.
I have founded a Consulting Club in my university, which I managed to transform in the biggest student group in the school. I have also helped an NGO in my neighborhood, which aimed at improving the quality of life of my quarter. I have also had two blogs (one scientifical, with some beautiful math problems solved by me, and one about politics). Besides, I have ranked 1st out of 10 teams in a competition to create and manage a start-up in my French school.
Finally, I have had 4 scholarships during my joint degree program, all based on merit, and also received 13 Gold & 2 Bronze Medals, 4 Trophies & 3 Awards (Math. Olympiads, best student in class, etc.). I have held internship positions in a Fortune 100 Company in France, in a public Ivy university in the US, in Denmark’s top MBA school and in one of the top 10 fastest-growing companies in Denmark, for a total of 6 months. In this last internship, I have made some suggestions to the business development team of the company. They were considered so good that I was invited to present them to the VP, then to the CEO and then in a meeting with VP+CEO+Chairman. My suggestions were implemented by the company (a market entry).
I speak Portuguese, English and French fluently, and also have basic knowledge in German and Danish. Last but not least, as a hobby I play guitar – I have had several bands since High School, with concerts of up to 300 people, and managed to compose a whole album.
I hope I will not take much of your precious time. Do you think I have any chances of getting accepted at Stanford (deferred enrollment) or Harvard 2+2? How important my internship and posterior work at BCG will influence the outcome? Some people have told me that might even be negative, because it means I am already steered towards a business careers, whilst they mostly want STEM kids who are not thinking about any business career/education.
Thank you very much. Any help is appreciated!
Kind regards,
FR
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My response:
Hi FR,
I hope this message finds you well. Thanks for reaching out and looking at me as a resource for your questions. Even though I’ve been maintaining my site for 10+ years now, it always makes me smile to see that young people value my view on their situations. 🙂
As I think about your email, the best way for me to respond is to structure my thoughts as follows:
- Provide my thoughts/opinions about your overall MBA applicant profile
- Share my thoughts on your chances with the Harvard 2+2 program
- Share my thoughts on your chances with the Stanford GSB program through deferred admission
Before going any further, I have to state that what you’re about to see below is my opinion only. I’ve never worked for an MBA admissions office before and do not claim to have a “crystal ball”-level of insight into any school’s process. That said, I have done lots of research on this stuff over the years and have helped dozens of kids get into both of your target schools, so I wouldn’t say that I’m totally unknowledgeable here. If you’ve read any of my past blog entries, you’ll know that I give this sort of disclosure on every email where I am asked about someone’s chances of getting into an MBA program.
Let’s look at your profile through the lens of the main components of an MBA application:
- Essays: I have no idea of what you have in mind for your essays. This is the most important part of the app, so it is hard to make any sort of real assessment without the essays being part of the picture.
- GMAT: You’ve said that you anticipate getting a high score and I have no reason to doubt you. I’d advise you not to underestimate the difficulty of that test though.
- Undergraduate and previous graduate academic performance: Your academic performance sounds strong and the fact that you’ve already earned a graduate level degree in engineering is a plus. With the schools that you’re targeting, great grade aren’t enough to differentiate you though because most of the legitimate applicants will have strong grades. It is fortunate that you haven’t created a roadblock for yourself with bad grades though.
- Work experience: Your internships have provided you with a great foundation of work experience, which is rare for folks applying out of undergrad. I’m not sure what the person who told you that the BCG internship would be a bad thing was thinking because I don’t agree with that in the slightest. Rather, the fact that you were strong enough to earn one of the few summer analyst positions at BCG should differentiate you from other applicants out of undergrad. That said, you won’t have anywhere as much work experience as the majority of the applicants with whom you’ll be competing, so keep that in mind as you go into the process.
- Demonstrated leadership potential: Your extracurricular activities indicate strong leadership potential and that is a big plus for MBA admissions, especially for applicants who are trying to make the jump right out of undergrad.
- Recommendations: You didn’t mention this at all, but I hope you’ve identified a good set of people to recommend you.
OK, now with the information above, I’ll switch gears and give you my thoughts on what your chances for admission to your target schools might be. As I mentioned above, there are a few major gaps in your profile as of right now, so the following comments are made based on what you’ve laid out in your message:
- Harvard 2+2: I know a few folks who have been admitted to the 2+2 program and, based on what you’ve told me about yourself, I’d say that your profile is comparable to theirs. In particular, your leadership experiences and worm/internship experience should really make your application jump out at the Adcoms at HBS. The biggest question mark is around your essays because they’re so important to the admissions process. If you can put together some strong essays and get a good GMAT score, I think you’ll be in good shape here.
- Stanford deferred admission: Oh man…now, this is the tough one. based on what I’ve heard, deferred admission to the GSB is incredibly rare and difficult to make happen, so I won’t even try to guess at your chances of securing that. Instead, I’ll comment about general admission. Based on your email, nothing jumps out at me as being an obvious red mark on your profile as a GSB applicant. Unfortunately, I can’t really say whether you’re a surefire candidate for admission because so much of the admissions decision depends on how well of a fit you are with the class that is being put together and your essays are a key determinant there. I’d recommend that you put some serious thought into how to tell your story to the Adcoms to show them that you belong in the class that there building.
Take care and good luck with your upcoming internship with BCG.
Marquis
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