This great 11-page writeup of business school admissions came across my inbox this morning from Poets and Quants. I know I'm going to get comments about Rotman being a "top business school", but this is an interesting and revealing article nevertheless.
Some interesting excerpts, with insights about age, GMATs, and the interview:
When an application arrives at Rotman, da Silva will see it first for a quick screen that might last only a few minutes. If a GMAT score is woefully low, something in the 500s, or a candidate is too old for a full-time MBA program, in the mid-to-late thirties, da Silva might immediately toss out the file. This is the sorry fate of 5% to 10% of all the applications Rotman receives in any given year.
“She has an interesting story,” continues da Silva. “What else can I tell you about her in terms of data? The weak point of her application is a GMAT score of 630. Interestingly, her breakdown is fairly even between verbal and quant, 73rd and 61st percentile. I will tell you why I don’t think it’s an issue or a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination......So the reason she wants to do the MBA is because at her consulting firm she has actually built this really interesting career as an industry specialist which is very atypical for a young consultant. She was promoted after two years onto the consulting side. She is co-authoring white papers and thought leadership on strategy. As I read through her reference letters early this morning, her referees say that ‘she is exceptional.’ A partner lists her in the top 2% of consultants at the firm. And he is very explicit in saying that ‘we would love to have her back anytime and she has had more of an impact on me than any of her peers.’ You really couldn’t see a stronger reference... Da Silva goes on. 'Her recommenders point out the same things that were fairly apparent in her interview. I gave her a 17 out of a 20 on her interview... She is very impressive,” adds da Silva. “She has some room for growth and development but seems quite coachable. She is aware of some of her areas of weakness. She’s young. She turns 25 this year.”
“Unfortunately, I have a no. This person’s name is Sameer. His resume is decent. He has four years in a pretty big company in India as a test engineer. He is 28. He scored 710 on the GMAT. He wants to get into IT consulting.“At first glance, he seems pretty good,” she continues. “Then, I discovered that his GPA falls below our minimum requirement so he actually has second class standing.”
“I decided this person would not be a good fit for Rotman when I interviewed him,” Roy revealed. “He was very informal in the interview. He came across as immature. When I asked him to talk about a negative, he mentioned that he was a procrastinator. I thought it was probably not a good idea to tell me that especially for an intensive program like ours.”
Read the rest at Poets and Quants.
Thanks for posting, very helpful!
Soo, a third rate school automatically dings low GPAs and people in their mid 30's.
Cool story.
SB to UFOInsider. If Wharton admits people in their late 30s, so can these people.
Lol, I bet the first bish was a quasi-smokeshow. Good ol' 'Rotman', whatever that is.
What I got from that is that if they "like" you, you can overcome a big weakness like the GMAT and have someone fight for you...which is what I've heard several time in terms of crafting essays/stories
The first page of the article indicates that not many people apply to Rotman (1,200) and a huge fraction of them get admitted (half). So WTF are they doing with these mickey mouse processes?
Really dislike articles that don't let you view as one page
These are such fear mongering tactics and so school dependent. MBA consultants are BS.
So in the eyes of these guys, a person who scored 710 on the GMAT is somehow lower than someone who only scored 630 simply because of past GPA? Shouldn't the fact that someone with a low GPA managed to outscore someone with a much higher GPA by 80 points on the GMAT(which more standardized) show that perhaps some schools have higher standards and thus should be taken into consideration?
ahhh the stench of pretentious, hole-in-the-wall Academia
I'd rather read something with more detail and honesty about candidates. These bios seem very misleading, like the silly short bio you see trying to make someone really successful seem like a loser: Bill was nearly suspended for hacking at the age of 13. Although he had a near perfect SAT score, he failed to graduate from harvard before attempting to start small business. that business: MICROSOFT
I would venture to guess the poor 630 GMAT girl's application was never in jeopardy and the Indian guy must not have had that 'decent' of a resume.
I'm still convinced that 70% of b-school admission is placement management. If you can't get a job upon graduation, why should we admit you? You are only hurting our numbers.
Animi id non rem. Optio aspernatur impedit natus vel suscipit in omnis.
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