Deferred Admission Advice for Rising Senior

I'm a rising senior at a target Ivy, currently interning at a lower BB with a 3.8+ GPA. I've been looking into the deferred admission MBA programs and are planning to take the GMAT senior spring and apply when the time comes. Would really appreciate your advice in terms of how to maximize my chance of getting an offer from H/S/W. Feel like this pipeline isn't necessarily talked about a lot and, due to the deferred nature, it's not as easy as banking networking to find people who have secured offers on LinkedIn.

Thank you!

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Most Helpful

Hey Op,

Happy to chat via PM, from non-target, currently in IB and applied to a variety of M7 deferred programs including HSW this cycle

General advice:

1) Find a reason why it makes sense for you to be admitted NOW rather than in four years i.e. what risks would getting admitted now allow you to take?

2) Find a vertical that interests you (I find certain careers pertaining to entrepreneurship to work well) to talk about in apps/essays/interviews. Without a compelling story, it may be hard to find traction with IB -> PE -> B-School -> PE again (not saying this is you, but just a commonly talked about finance career path)

3) Consider hiring a MBA consultant if you're serious about getting admitted and/or aren't the best essay writer on earth. Really important to craft your story well.

4) You'll need two recommenders, I assume one will come from your undergrad target school but start thinking about someone in industry to serve as your second one especially since COVID caused a lot of internships to be a bit of a joke

Cheers

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