Please chance me at MBAs and exit opp possibilities
Hi All,
I went to American University (I know, not great, but I had a full ride) and had a 3.6 GPA in Business. I am white, male from the northeast. I did the following:
- Two years Audit at Big 4 in mid-atlantic
- Won employee of the quarter award
- CPA
- Worked on carve-out audit of defense sub
- Worked on tech IPO
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16 months Accounting Advisory at different Big 4.
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Lateral from Accounting Advisory to FDD/TAS group at same Big 4. I start in TAS in March.
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GMAT - 740
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I am planning on applying for August 2018 MBA programs. At that point, I will have 16-18 months in TAS. My questions are as follows:
A: Chance me at top 10 MBAs, more specifically: Wharton, MIT, Dartmouth, Chicago
B: Do I have an okay shot at post-MBA MBB interviews or does Audit/undergrad preclude me out of the gates?
C: Do I have an okay shot at post-MBA IB opportunities?
I appreciate any/all help you all can provide!
Not having yet gone to business school, I can't provide very much insight on your odds of gaining admission to those schools. However, I can provide a bit more color into your question about MBB (and management consulting) recruiting - I work at a tier 2 shop (Deloitte S&O/Strategy&/Oliver Wyman/LEK), and many of the same rules will apply.
There is an adage which says that once you have gone into business school, what you've done before doesn't really matter and that everything "resets." That's partially true - while business school is an equalizer in that it provides a credential and base skill set, it doesn't quite wipe out the rest of your resume. Thinking about the MBA's who started in my class, most of them had 4-6 years worth of work experience in Fortune 500 corporate strategy/line management, engineering, government/nonprofits, and in a few cases, finance. I can think of maybe one person who did audit beforehand; I don't know if that's "better" or "worse" per se, if intrinsically talented people tend to select those careers, or if there's self-selection going on; it's just what I've seen in my somewhat limited sample size of folks at my firm and others that I happened to know as an undergrad at one of the "Top 10" schools.
That said - 740 is an excellent score, and if you can get into one of the aforementioned programs, you should have a good chance of recruiting for consulting roles (my firm recruits at all of the schools that you mentioned). MBB might have somewhat higher standards (I'm not quite sure), but as long as you network effectively and do well on your cases, I can't see why you can't get an offer.
Hope this helps.
You'd be competitive for each of those programs depending on how well you put together your apps, perhaps a bit less so for Wharton only because of the "luck of the draw" factor since so many folks will have your profile or better.
Not knowing about any of your interests, outside experiences, or ECs, I'd recommend a consultant to see if there are any ways to increase your odds of standing out.
As for MBB, you'll get interviews from either of those schools. It will all come down to how well you perform during meet-and-greets and crack your cases-but be warned that MBB DOES care about prestige to an extent-so you'd have to figure out a way to compensate for your undergrad. At least at my program, every single person who went into MBB had either a top or very reputable school on their resume in addition to the stats-I suspect it wasn't purely self-selection.
M7/T9 are possible but all of those schools are reaches for you (a bit less so with Tuck). Definitely worth it to apply there but also sprinkle in some 10-15 ranked schools such as Darden, Fuqua, Ross. You have a strong shot at MBB/IB if you execute well, obviously better chance if you can get into a T9
bumpity bump for more opinions
once you drop off from MBA business schools ">M7 T10 then your undergrad records might make you less competitive. I'd stay in T10 with Haas/Tuck/Ross/Darden as the last few
All solid feedback from TheGrind, frankslaughtery and whattherock.
Source: In my 2nd year at b-school I graded applications for the committee.
A tangential observation: the difference between frankslaughtery and whattherock's comment illustrates the difference between T9, which makes sense, and T10, which is a convention but doesn't make sense. Everyone knows who the first 9 are. Ask any sample of people to pick the 10th and you won't get any unanimity. There's almost a handful of schools for whom you could make the case for 10th.
Somewhat similar background to you - graduated from AU a while back as well. Background Big 4 NY, emerging market IB and PE. Graduated from MBA this year and got into top schools (3 in top 10, 1 in top 15 and LBS+INSEAD) with a lower GMAT. As long as you put in a solid application, you will be fine anywhere (excluding HBS/GSB). As far as brand name, MBB really does not give a shit about your undergrad (well at least with AU). I Interviewed with all MBB in different offices with minimal effort. They mostly cared about GMAT and brand name post undergrad and big 4 is good enough for ANY office. Sure San Fran and NY might be tough if there is no prior connection to cities but otherwise, do not stress.
If I were you, kill it at work this year, focus on a solid app, get in, start practicing for case studies then "light" network with consultants in your target office.
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