NYU / Columbia

what kind of score would i need on my GMAT to get into Stern or Columbia B School

3.2 GPA from target school, was 3.43 before death in family at end of senior year

3 years of consulting experience in financial services industry

 

OP, just explain the GPA well and with tact, take care of the GMAT (try to be at least the school avg), nail the essays making sure you can highlight how you were an all-star, have your recs back that up and apply ED if you want Columbia... people get in with this.

 

taking very strong essays, good recomendations, promotions within my consulting job will a 700 get me in to one of these schools or does my gpa kill me?

 

700 gives you a shot if your quant piece is ok but if you think you could retake and do a little better than I would do that. Get the score that you think reflects the best you can do and move on. I'm assuming you aren't applying this year anyways as it's too late in the process (even if final round deadlines haven't passed) to give yourself a real shot esp at CBS.

 
Best Response

Lol... I got dinged after interview for CBS with a 770 GMAT, 3.5 GPA in engineering program at the University of Chile, work experience 1 yr MBB consulting + 1 yr non-profit (+ 1 yr part time BS at an M&A advisory boutique before graduation), also applying from latin america (should be a plus, right?)

Point is both of these schools are exigent as hell... not even a high GMAT and good GPA are enough, you have to murder the essays and really be able to show how you had leadership roles at work (this is where I failed as I have no experience managing people)

Still kicking myself for not applying ED to Columbia... sooo stupid.

 
greengohome:
Lol... I got dinged after interview for CBS with a 770 GMAT, 3.5 GPA in engineering program at the University of Chile, work experience 1 yr MBB consulting + 1 yr non-profit (+ 1 yr part time BS at an M&A advisory boutique before graduation), also applying from latin america (should be a plus, right?)

Point is both of these schools are exigent as hell... not even a high GMAT and good GPA are enough, you have to murder the essays and really be able to show how you had leadership roles at work (this is where I failed as I have no experience managing people)

Still kicking myself for not applying ED to Columbia... sooo stupid.

Interested in what happened: did you get accepted to another program? what's happening now?

 
redpringles:

Interested in what happened: did you get accepted to another program? what's happening now?

Actually I was waitlisted but I don't have my fingers crossed. I'm still waiting for an answer from MIT, 2nd round, deadline was at the beginning of Jan so it's probably not a dealbreaker that I haven't been interviewed yet.

MIT is a good school, even though I really wanted to be in NYC for a couple of years, I'd be retarded not to go if I get in.

If I don't get in anywhere, I'm chocking it up to work experience and I'm going to hunker down and just work until I am managing a couple of guys. I absolutely hate the non-profit where I am now; I'm debating going back to MBB (a VP-level guy I'm friendly with has indicated that they'd be willing to do that) or trying to find something in asset management or M&A advisory. A problem for me is that I was able to leverage MBB experience into a high salary for the non-profit, so without experience in finance I'm too expensive to go work as an entry level analyst unless I take a pay-cut.

Finance is attractive because I feel like I've done the consulting thing, both at MBB and this non-profit, and the fluffy nature of the work just doesn't fulfill me. I really enjoyed the prestige at MBB, working with smart and cool people, basically I left because I chose between a girl and the job (I couldn't balance the hours and her needy bullshit)... and the girl didn't work out (what a surprise). So I'd be willing to go back, but on the other hand, all my friends at local banks are really happy about their career, people they work with, hours are no worse than MBB, etc, so why not give it a try?

Bottom line I will wait to hear from MIT, April 2nd, decide if I'm going to try to get back to MBB, or just ramp up the job search for something in finance. GMAT score is good till Sept 2016, so I have quite a while to beef up my resume.

 
greengohome:
Lol... I got dinged after interview for CBS with a 770 GMAT, 3.5 GPA in engineering program at the University of Chile, work experience 1 yr MBB consulting + 1 yr non-profit (+ 1 yr part time BS at an M&A advisory boutique before graduation), also applying from latin america (should be a plus, right?)

Point is both of these schools are exigent as hell... not even a high GMAT and good GPA are enough, you have to murder the essays and really be able to show how you had leadership roles at work (this is where I failed as I have no experience managing people)

Still kicking myself for not applying ED to Columbia... sooo stupid.

Wow! I would have thought you would be a shoe in coming from LatAm with those stats even with only two years of work ex. Maybe they dinged you because they assumed Columbia was your back up. This is one of the craziest dings I've seen.

 

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