Chance me at Northwestern's JD/MBA Program

I am looking to apply to Northwestern's JD/MBA program in the fall with the following credentials:

25-30 US Undergrad 3.7 GPA, Economics Major
Master's in Accounting at same undergrad
Big 4 Accounting experience (3 years at matriculation)
GMAT 690

Please let me know chances and what I can do to improve them.

Thanks

 

You improve it by going somewhere else for 2 years with your experience. Get a promotion. Do an overseas stint. Get heavily involved with a charity. Raise a bunch of money. Make your resume stand out from the standard accounting resumes.

 

I agree that you should raise your gmat score. Also be prepared to show how you intend to use the joint degree. Why do you need both to pursue your goals, especially since your JD/MBA will be on top of a MAcc. (and probably a CPA). Finally be prepared to show that you know how to write -- that will be very important for the JD portion of your app -- and why you want specifically the Northwestern JD/MBA.

Linda Abraham President, Accepted | Contact Me | Admissions Consulting
 

Yes, but...they are vague. What skill that you will learn in law school will be valuable in business? Be more specific. How will legal analysis help you as a consultant?

Given that you have a masters in accounting and you don't plan to certify financial statements, I don't think a CPA will be significant advantage for you.

Also realize that there is more to admissions decisions than the info you posted above. Finally, no gmat score gives you a "lock."

Linda Abraham President, Accepted | Contact Me | Admissions Consulting
 

No, that is not a good reason. You do not need a JD to go into consulting. At all. If that's actually your reason for applying (not just some story you came up with for the application), I'd seriously reconsider whether you need both degrees. There are very few career paths that'd benefit from having the JD on top of the MBA, and you should think about whether the extra academic load, years lost, and debt is truly worth it for you.

 

If you write that the reason you want a JD/MBA at Kellogg is to get into consulting I wouldn't be surprised if you got auto-dinged. If I were an adcom and I saw that, I'd immediately throw your application into the garbage

B-School feeds way more people into Consulting than law school and you absolutely don't need to do 3 years of law school to be good at consulting. Not to mention that doing law school at an accelerated pace will be brutal.

Sounds like you need to do a little more research on what you want to do. A 690 with 3 years in accounting would place you into a top 10-20 business school which could place you into most Tier 2 consulting firms and maybe an outside chance at MBB. If I were you, that's where I would start.

 

Well they have a program for both and there's good demand for it. The grads typically go into corporate law, investment Banking and management Consulting. So idk what reason people give to adcons but many have the same thinking in keeping options open and getting two great degrees for only one extra year

 
Best Response
anonymous9191:

Well they have a program for both and there's good demand for it. The grads typically go into corporate law, investment Banking and management Consulting. So idk what reason people give to adcons but many have the same thinking in keeping options open and getting two great degrees for only one extra year

Why post a thread asking for advice if you're going to shit on and ignore all of it? @pnb2002 and @mrharveyspecter are both spot on and everyone else is basically echoing their sentiment.

The very fact that you list "corporate law", "investment banking" and "management consulting" as exit opps as if they're even remotely similar suggests you frankly have no fucking idea what you're talking about or even what you want to do. Coming from someone who knows people in all the industries mentioned, I can tell you the nature of their work is very different. This lack of clarity (re: why business school) will definitely stick out to adcomm, so, like someone mentioned (above), you need to do a little more research on what you want to do.

 

I'm not sure what people cite as the reasons for getting a JD/MBA in their application essays, I'm sure a google search could reveal an answer pretty quickly.

The point I'm trying to make is that with the exception of corporate law, banking and consulting DO NOT require any sort of legal knowledge and will likely utilize very very little of what you would learn in law school. To go further on this point, law school is (in my opinion) extremely tedious and requires a ton of reading and study of detailed and intricate laws. It takes a specific type of person to do well in law school and for a JD/MBA it usually requires the type of person who might want to do banking/consulting down the road but is interested enough in law that they're willing to forgo the traditional MBA experience and spend hours in the library grinding away. It also requires someone who is seriously considering becoming a lawyer or has a very specific need for the JD/MBA(and truthfully there 0 jobs that absolutely require both degrees).

Not to be an asshole, based on your presence on this forum and your profile, it doesn't seem like you're that type of person. Doing accounting for three years and then getting a slightly above average gmat score doesn't make me think that you're going to love spending hours interpreting old legal cases and learning about all the details of Tort laws, contracts, etc.

A JD/MBA is a labor of love, only way I'd do one is if I had an abundance of time, money, and had an unfulfilled passion for law that I had always wanted to pursue. What I see in you(OP) is someone who should apply to B school, go to Tepper, Kenan-Flager, Ross, or Johnson and go from there.

With all that being said, I don't know much about you and its unfair of me to judge. Maybe you're just learning about all this stuff and you're ready to make some big moves in your life. Feel free to prove me wrong, I'll be curious to hear how your JD/MBA goes and make sure you give it some though before spending all that money.

 

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