The message below is a little different because the reader is asking about the topic in a different way. Instead of asking whether she can get into school X, Y, or Z, she’s asking whether she’s being too optimistic by even looking at school X, Y, and Z in the first place. Definitely a different take on it and made for a pretty interesting email.
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LM wrote:
My name is [name omitted] but from your blog I noticed you like to use initials so please call me LM.
I have seen your blog posts on what to do if you have a low GPA and I have a question actually 2.
1. My GPA is about 3.1/3.2. The actual scoring however is Upper Second Class Honors as the ranking system in my university in Kenya was 1st class, upper 2nd, lower 2nd then honors. Need I explain this in my bschool applications?
2. Am aiming for top tier schools HBS, GSB, Wharton, INSEAD. Am I being too ambitious????
I worked for 2 years at Ernst & Young Kenya office as an IT auditor/consultant then left to work for a telecom operator across Africa and Middle East. I have worked and lived in 24 countries in both Africa and Middle East. I quit this year 2012 for medical reasons (needed surgery) and to take care of my grandmother who had stomach cancer. (She raised me so I owe her). Am jobhunting now and hope to return to EY in Feb 2013. Wondering how all this will look on my bschool app ie my gap year.
Also, during the gap year I volunteered as an intern at Acumen Fund and loooved the idea of impact investing. Post MBA I want to follow your career path ie consulting firm (hence the universities I have chosen) then a private equity company (preferably root capital since am interested in impact investing with a focus on women).
I will be the first woman in my family to hold an advanced degree if I make it and well am wondering is all this making me er……….too ambitious? My undergrad degree is in IT but I hate it. Only studied IT because well my dad insisted it was the only course he would pay for and in this part of the world we dont work and study like Americans do.
Please if possible let me know your thoughts.
LM
Hi,
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My response:
Hi LM,
Thanks for reaching out to me with your question. Also, thanks for reading through some of my blog entries beforehand…the comment about me using people’s initials made me laugh. I do that when I post people’s emails on my site because I want to keep them anonymous online, but it’s totally fine to use your real name when emailing me. hahaha
Now, let’s get into your question. I’ll give you my high-level answer first and then I’ll give you some details because, based on what you’ve told me, I think some additional detail is warranted. OK, so, in response to your question about whether you’re being too ambitious in your school choices, my gut response is “no”, but I have to qualify that and say that you haven’t really given me much to work from to give you a more firm answer. So, when I say “no”, I’m more saying that nothing you’ve told me in your email makes me think that you have 0% chance of getting into Wharton, Stanford, HBS, or INSEAD. That said, you haven’t given me much to determine whether you’d be a qualified candidate for those schools either.
Here’s what I mean. You’ve said that your GPA is in the 3.1-3.2 range (I’m assuming that this would be out of 4.0), which is a solid B-average. I know several people (myself included) who were able to get into top MBA programs with this kind of GPA or even lower GPAs. One thing you didn’t give me a sense of is where you went to school, which is an important consideration because a 3.1 from a very competitive school will carry a lot more weight than one from a non-competitive institution. The “Upper Second Class Honors” designation is something that the B-school admissions committees should understand just fine, but they will also look at where you actually went to undergrad in order to make a judgment about your GPA.
The information that you provided about your work experience is helpful, but I have no idea of how long you were at the telecom operator, which leave a question mark about how many years of work experience you have. If you’ve got 4-6 total years of work experience, that tells a different story than if you’ve got 3 years of work experience. That’ll be something that the Adcoms will take into account. Also, the gap year that you spent taking care of your grandmother is something that you’ll have to explain somewhere in your app, but I don’t think it would knock you out of contention for your target schools. One thing that I would question if I were an Adcom is why you’re aiming to start a job in Feb. 2013 when it sounds like you’d be applying to school very soon afterward. That doesn’t paint a picture of you being back in the workforce long before trying to leave for school, which might be a concern.
Finally, there is so much of the MBA application that you haven’t even commented on in your email, which makes me wonder whether you’ve started thinking about it yet. Some of these factors include:
- Your GMAT score
- The strength/quality of recommendations that you can get
- Your extracurricular/volunteer activities
- Your ability to write good essays
- Your overall story for the educational and career choices that you’ve made and for why you want an MBA
That’s about all I have on your question. I hope the information above was helpful as you consider the plan for your MBA journey.
Marquis
RT @marquis930: New blog entry: MBA applicant wondering whether she’s being too ambitious (with her target schools); http://t.co/vhlJYOKeC4