Hi all - question for people who got an MBA from a top ~10 business school. What was your GPA/Major/MBA program applied to/Accepted or not?
Ignoring other factors (which I know there are many), does a 3.5 overall GPA on a Math Major (target school, not Ivy, esteemed math program) have a decent chance of acceptance to HBS/Columbia/Sloan/Booth?
Thanks
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Business school admissions don’t put as much as a weight on GPA as colleges do for your high school GPA. Focus on getting a good GMAT, having solid work experience, and volunteer experience.
Right, I guess a better question would be: given an applicant who meets the criteria you just mentioned, a 3.5 GPA in and of itself would not be considered too low for top schools?
People below 3.0 GPA get into top B-schools for an MBA. Every business school is different and weigh each category differently. While they care about your 3.5 GPA - you also need to show what you did in college. Any SGAs? Clubs? Leadership roles? I will say that 3.5 GPA will make ad coms look at your application. So after that rest of your application package needs to be good to make the cut.
There is no such thing as "you meet the criteria". You could have amazing GPA and still be rejected because your WE sucks or low GMAT or no extracurriculars.
GPA is a category that you cannot change - it is what it is. Focus on GMAT and putting together rest of the application.
It's all about the full story for B School. If you are a relatively flat candidate, you better have high GPA and scores. If you're coming in with the cool story of starting a solar farm in Ethiopia, it is different. The traditional, path of target undergrad school --> banking/consulting --> b school, will put more focus on your GPA and scores. this is mostly because top b schools get a ton of kids like this and it is hard to differentiate. Their recommendations are written by the same types of people describing candidate performance on the same kinds of work.
Probably a better post for BSCH forum, no? Anyways, I had a sub-3.5 undergrad GPA and was accepted into an M7.
Re: "Ignoring other factors" - this is the exact opposite of how b-schools look at your apps. You're much better off starting with "ignoring the GPA, how can I make my profile competitive?"
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