I will be attending NYU Stern as a full-time MBA student starting this August. I thought this is a good time to share my career path, MBA application process, why MBA, how to choose your target schools, etc. I learned a lot from the posts of many accomplished professionals on this forum and hope to have this opportunity to give back to this great community. Quick background:
- English is not my first language. I came to the United States at the age of 15 - I studied statistics as an undergraduate at a public university in California - Have work experience in insurance and bank risk management, in a consulting capacity - I have no graduate degree. I passed a few actuarial exams and am a CFA level 3 candidate I applied to Booth (Chicago), Columbia, Johnson (Cornell), Stern (NYU), and Tuck (Dartmouth), all round 1 / early decisions. Adding some advice / takeaway from my MBA application process: 1. Start Early Yes, we all dread the essays, they are indeed the most painful part of the process, in my opinion. However, researching schools and filing out the actual application are surprisingly time-consuming. Most of us apply to at least three schools, so start as early as you can. 2. Gather information for the actual application Although each schools may ask some unique questions, below are some of the materials you should gather: - all previous job and current job descriptions (present the job content that maximizes the transferability to your post-MBA career goal) - short-term / long-term goal - salary and bonus amount - amount of salary and bonus increases you have received - promotions - reason why you changed jobs - volunteer / non-profit roles and responsibilities 3. GMAT Get the right study materials. You should get recommendations from others too. Here are my recommendations: - Math and Sentence correction: use Manhattan GMAT - Critical reasoning: PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible - Reading: you just have to read a lot (read the stuff that does not interest you, for me that's science, so I read a lot of American Scientist, start pretending to care about how volcano was formed and why different kinds of ants behave differently). Do a lot of problems. Pinpoint your weakness. After every practice problem set / mock exam session, keep a spreadsheet of the problems you got wrong and figure out WHY. You should focus on understanding more about your weaker sections. 4. Be yourself or … internalize whom you want to be When you go to bschool info sessions or campus tour, you will get the advice of “be yourself” from current student and people from the admission office. As much as I think this is a great advice, I am sure there is a significant number of aspiring MBA students who are gunning for a career path that looks unreachable in the eyes of elite business school admission committee. So you worked in operations at Goldman Sachs for five years and now want to go to Wharton to break into hedge fund, what do you do? Be yourself? Remember you are competing with thousands (literally if it’s Wharton) of banking analysts, some of whom have done private equity, who also want to get into buy-side. In the eyes of admission committee, who looks more likely to break in? I would suggest coming up with a career path that is more reachable, preferably a track that your dream school has a competitive edge in (for example, for Tuck, it’s health care apparently). To make it believable, start thinking every day that you want to do health care after MBA and craft your essays and application around that goal. By interview time (hopefully your entire application is convincing enough to get you an interview), you sound convincing that health care is what you want to do. Once you get in, try to break into hedge fund all you want. This is a controversial and risky advice, but MBA application process is a competitive one. Present yourself in a way that gives you the best chance to get in. 5. Prestige doesn’t matter Everyone, I repeat, everyone wants to get into the so-called MBA business schools">M7 schools (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, Booth, Sloan, and Columbia? I am not sure). There are only that many spots and competition is global. They are ranked highest by some website, but they will not equally help you get into your post-MBA field. Do your own research and build your primary sources by reaching out to current students on LinkedIn. Not only will they be passionate about helping you since you are interested in their future alma mater, they can also be a resource for you down the road if you maintain and cultivate the relationship, knowing that they will have gotten into your dream field. GPA 3.1 / GMAT 720
Certainly.
First, get the right study materials. You should get recommendations from others too. Here are my recommendations: - Math and Sentence correction: use Manhattan GMAT - Critical reasoning: PowerScore Critical Reasoning Bible - Reading: you just have to read a lot (read the stuff that does not interest you, for me that's science, so I read a lot of American Scientist, start pretending to care about how volcano was formed and why different kinds of ants behave differently).
Do a lot of problems. Pinpoint your weakness is very important. After every practice problem set / mock exam session, keep a spreadsheet of the problems you got wrong and figure out WHY you got them wrong. You should focus on understanding more about your weaker sections.
With hard work, you will do great.