Do I have a chance at Top 10
Hey everyone, I am new here and wanted to see if I could get some opinions on whether I may have a chance at getting into a Top10 / MBA business schools">M7 MBA program (I know the chances are slim,if any). Below is a little about my background. Thank you in advance.
I graduated from a non-target state school in Florida with a BS in Finance (3.2/4.0 GPA) in 3 years, and jumped into the MS in Finance program that 4th year (3.56/4.0 GPA) and graduated in 2010 (currently 26 yrs old). Since I been working for a large F100 transportation and logistics company showing good career progression from Associate Financial Analyst to Senior Business Analyst over that time period. The first two years were in revenue management and I spent the last two years in strategic / corp development finance (non-M&A strategic business cases), I have worked some interesting cases and achieved some decent company savings, but nothing mind blowing. I am also a CFA III candidate sitting for the exam this June.
I am curious to see what my chances would be in getting into a top 10 target MBA program. I am thinking about taking the GMAT after June, and applying in the early rounds for the 2016 fall start date. Lets assume I could get a 720+ gmat score, and would be a CFA chartholder. Would I have any shot at getting into one of these programs???
Also, I have two career opportunities that I have a shot at getting into rather soon. 1) is Corporate Development doing large international M&A for the company I currently work for and 2) is a junior portfolio manager & strategic asset allocation associate for a subsidiary of a large bank with Bs of AUM (this position would be in NYC). Would either of these positions add any value in terms of getting into B school? The position in NYC would at least put me in the Finance Capital for other opportunities.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
What're your goals post mba?
I am not 100% sure what to do in life yet, as I have only had my current job. I think my goals post mba would be to work for a HF or VC/PE firm, or do Corp Dev for a large tech company (Google, FB, etc.) to lead to running a VC/PE firm after. If I got really lucky, I'd team up with some like minds at school and shoot for launching a start-up, of one of my business ideas.
bump
Tough to tell. Depends on how much you can sell your experience professional growth and how exclusive your position is. A 3.2 with a 720+ COULD get you into a top 10 program, and SHOULD into at least something at the Cornell/Anderson level or higher (Fuqua/Ross/Darden).
However, I wouldn’t say you want to go into HF/VC/PE, AMZN or GOOG. Business schools are judged upon graduation rates and starting salaries, so they want people with clear AND attainable career goals. That 5-10% of people you see on career reports not employed within 3 months usually either did not know what job they wanted until late in the process OR had job goals that were too specific or unattainable. That second stipulation is you. It’s quite tough to get into any of those positions in general, let alone without prior relevant work experience (buy side or tech strat) before business school. Furthermore, those positions almost go exclusively to students from M7 schools.
Best of luck!
Disagree with you on AMZN. Amazon hires tons of students from all of the top 20 schools, with variations here and there. At Johnson (my school) they were the top hirer last year and will be again this year. At Tepper I believe they're also the top hirer, and same at Ross. So no, for Amazon you don't need an M7 school, and also to a lesser degree you don't need it for Google (Anderson does well there). For HF/VC/PE, I agree, it's almost exclusively M7.
Either way, I still think it may be a bit shaky to say you want to go from financial analyst at transport company -> GOOG/AMZN strat. I dunno, the arc just doesn’t seem to be there. Maybe say management consulting with focus on supply chain logistics? Maybe I’m just having a case of the Mondays.
Despite the above, focus on getting the 720/730+ gmat score. It can get you into a T10 program and (partially) offset the low GPA.
You're correct, the roles available from Amazon at my school are PM, GM (Retail) and Finance. Actually, Amazon made a mistake when they gave their corp presentation here and left in the notes that "Corp Dev/Strategy Roles are only available at Wharton, Booth, HBS" (I think there was one other school too). I didn't realize you were specifically referring to those roles.
I agree with you in that SFA to corp strat/dev might be hard, but I think it could be doable were he to get into an M7.
And to reply to the original poster, yes I think you have a shot if you can get that 720+ gmat score.
Thank you all for the feedback. Also, my current role is strat finance as apposed to just a financial analyst.
Are there any opnions on the positions I am pursuing and if either of those could help getting me positioned for the top B schools.
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