MBA -> IB with Poor Work Experience/Background

Hi All,

Pretty much as the title suggests, I’m looking to attend a top 15 MBA program in the next two years in order to make the jump from IT Consulting to IB. Before I get bashed, yes, I have read prior threads (and elsewhere - Poets and Quants, M&I, etc.) on this topic and I’m aware that some form of this topic is probably created on a daily basis. Nonetheless, I wanted to create this thread since my scenario is a little different, and I’d like to cover all my bases and have input from folks who’ve gone through MBA OCR to point out any overly ambitious assumptions I am making in deciding whether an MBA is a good fit or not.

With that being said, here’s a brief outline of my background: 1. International student that attended a small private liberal arts school (very non-target for finance) 2. Graduated first in my class 3. Student-athlete 4. Short stint in finance department as an intern at a commercial bank (5 months) 5. Have been working full time in IT Consulting for 2 years (small, private company - very unknown) 6. Have lived all over the world due to father’s old job (been to over 30 countries) 7. Trilingual 8. Visa was an issue in the past (F1 -> H1B), hoping to have all that sorted out prior to commencing MBA

In my mind, I see myself being able to make the jump by attending a top program - networking and hustling will be a major contributing piece.

I’d like some folks who’ve been through the MBA -> IB career switch process to shed some light as to how feasible making the switch to IB is, given a similar/not so "strong" background. I’m targeting both Columbia and NYU, since I’m close to NY - not interested in other programs as I do want to stay in NY. What I don’t want to happen is to risk time + money attending an MBA program, only to have to compete against “stronger” backgrounds, e.g. people who might’ve done MBB/Tier 2/ Tier 3 Consulting, BB/EB etc., and ultimately strike out.

Obviously, there will be competition, I’m not overly concerned about having to compete against other folks. However, I’d like to get a better picture on how intense that competition will be. E.g: 50 spots across all BB’s, EB’s and other lower tiered banks with 2,000+ candidates gunning for those spots vs. more like 300 spots across all banks but less candidates gunning for those spots. Does my poor work experience hurt me? I certainly think it does, the only positive I see is that we do some interesting work (lots of work with technology such as RPA, ML, etc.) and thus can spin it very well (and I have a solid “excuse” as to why I ended up there).

Any insight would be appreciated. 
 Cheers