Handicapping Your Elite MBA Odds

He’s a 29-year-old military man with a highly unconventional background that includes a master’s degree in religion from a top-tier Ivy League school. After teaching for a year at a public school, he joined the U.S. Army where he has been for the past six years, three in special operations. Now he wants to get into a top MBA program.

This 25-year-old young professional works for a major Hollywood studio, providing marketing strategy and analytics for multi-million-dollar movie campaigns. An Asian female with an impressive 740 GMAT but a low 3.2 grade point avearage from a top 25 U.S. school, she is hoping to get into a prestige business school to unlock the next step in her career as an entertainment marketer.

A professional actor and co-founder of a theater group, this 30-year-old Brazilian male works as a senior marketing strategist for one of the most prestigious ad agencies in the world. With a 670 GMAT score and an undergraduate degree in advertising, he’s hoping to get an MBA to help him move into the entertainment industry.

Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com

What these three MBA candidates and more share in common is the desire to get through the door of a highly selective MBA program at one of the world’s very best business schools. Do they have a chance?

Sanford “Sandy” Kreisberg, founder of MBA admissions consulting firm HBSGuru.com, is back to analyze these and a few other profiles of actual MBA applicants who have shared their vital statistics, work backgrounds, and career goals with Poets&Quants.

As usual, Kreisberg handicaps each potential applicant’s odds of getting into a top-ranked business school. If you include your own stats and characteristics in the comments, we’ll pick a few more and have Kreisberg assess your chances in a follow-up feature to be published shortly. (Please add your age and be clear on the sequence of your jobs in relaying work experience. Make sure you let us know your current job.)

Mr. Grunt

GRE 166V/162Q/4.5W
3.74 GPA
Undergraduate degree in philosophy and math from a tier-two public university usually ranked between 90 and 110
Master’s degree in religion from an Ivy (HYP)
Work experience includes a year as a teacher in a public high school and then enlisted in the military for six years, with three years in special ops, creating political, cultural and communications products for foreign audiences
Intermediate working proficiency in Farsi (Iran) and Dari (Afghanistan)
Goal: To transition into marketing or political consulting
“I would like to pursue an MBA/MPP dual degree, both of which my job in the military draws its research and practices from”
29-year-old white male

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 30%
Dartmouth: 40% to 50%.
Yale:
Duke: 50%+
Virginia: 50%+
Cornell: 50%+
UNC: 50%+
Georgetown: 50%+

Sandy’s Analysis: There’s a screenplay lurking in your profile. It sounds like you were infiltrating local newspapers and TV stations. It’s a combination of writing propaganda and special ops. That’s a very interesting intersection of things. You are no Army grunt. You present an attractive profile of an well-meaning, thinking military guy. And then you want to go into political consulting?

You could walk into the Kennedy School at Harvard right now. It used to be the case that if you go to the Kennedy School you could get a job with McKinsey. If that’s the case, you should go to the Kennedy School. They would love a guy like you, and you would get into Kennedy. As our readers already know, I don’t like dual-degree programs. I just don’t think they are necessary.

Still, your chances at Harvard Business School are very good, too. HBS takes military guys. They are willing to go older for military guys. And you are Mr. Bookish, Special Ops. You are cerebral with a helmet. And you are a Tuckie type, too. An intellectual military guy like you would ring their bell. With Yale, Duke and Virginia on your list of target schools, you also are really picking them. Those schools are the filet mignon of smart military candidates

Let’s just look at that GRE score of yours. It’s the equivalent of a 700 GMAT. GREs tap out at 170. So the 166 verbal is strong. Your quant at 162 is pretty low for some of your target schools, even though you only missed something like eight questions. But with everything else in what is a strong profile, it’s good enough. Having been a math major, there will be no fear that you can’t do business school math.

But here’s the deal: My advice is just go to the Kennedy School. You don’t need an MBA to be a political consultant, if that is what you have your heart set on.

Ms. Hollywood Marketing Guru

740 GMAT (Q49/V42)
3.2 GPA
Undergraduate degree from a Top 25 U.S. university
(Low GPA due to “severe depression, plan to write separate essay on this; have taken post bacc quant-heavy courses with a 4.0 GPA”)
Work experience includes two-and-one-half years of internships during undergraduate years at top entertainment companies such as Disney, Warner Brothers, and William Morris Endeavor, followed by a year after graduation at at Edelman where she was promoted to senior analyst, running major entertainment accounts, and finally one-and-one-half years at a major Hollywood studio, providing marketing strategy and analytics for multi-million dollar movie campaigns and also overseeing teams from IBM/internal IT group for the creation and implementation of sn in-house Box Office prediction model tool
Extracurricular involvement as a mentor at a nonprofit devoted to children who have relatives diagnosed with cancer (her father has Stage 4 cancer and it’s shaped much of who she is); also serves as co-chair of marketing of studio business group aimed at promoting women in the workplace
Goal: To head up worldwide marketing at a major Hollywood Studio
“I’ve reached a point in my career where in order to move up, they’d prefer I have an MBA and my boss highly encourages it. After consulting with multiple executives and learning their career paths, I’ve concluded that obtaining an MBA would allow me to become more well-rounded marketer, and allow me to unlock the next step in my career”
25-year-old Asian female

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 30% to 40%
Wharton: 30% to 40%
Northwestern: 50%+
Stanford: 20%
Columbia: 40%

Sandy’s Analysis: This is a classic case of how to overcome a low GPA and a less than gold-plated job to get into an elite business school. Your 3.2 GPA is on the low said and your earlier job in public relations is considered silver because it is not thought of as selective.

You overcome that by getting a 740 GMAT and then landing a prestige job. You did both. You say that one reason you have a lowish GPA is because you suffered from depression during your college years and you intend to write about it. I would go lightly on the depression story because the 740 goes a long way in offsetting it. Plus, you have done a lot to ameliorate that 3.2 undergraduate transcript.

Let’s start with all your internships while in college. Disney or Warner Brothers are great places to work. Everybody at business school loves them. And William Morris Endeavor is also very impressive. Those are great internships and to get them you either have to be very charming, physically attractive, or you have to know somebody. And I am not being sexist. You get this jobs the same way you get a newscastor job at Fox. It’s just a fact.

Then, after you graduated, you got an internship at an agency which turned into a promotion to a full-time job dealing with digital analytics. It’s one of those boring sounding things that has ended up as a hot field. And then you worked for a year at Edelman. If you have to work at a public relations agency, Edelman is a good one because it is a huge, well-known firm.

Finally, you gained your job at a major Hollywood studio, working with analytics and marketing of films. Prediction models are the Holy Grail in Hollywood, to predict Box Office revenue to inform marketing budgets for a movie.

There’s one thing I would suggest. I would change out your goal. There aren’t many Hollywood studios so you don’t want to tell a business school your goal is to be one of six people in the world. Instead, you want to say your goal is to be a marketing leader at a media and entertainment company. That way you sound smarter and, by the way, I doubt you would care that much if you were able to become the head of worldwide marketing at Google.

Basically, you stop the music at working for a major Hollywood studio. Schools love that. Kellogg is historically known for markerting so you would be a welcome admission there. Wharton is the one that could have the hardest swallowing that 3.2 pill. HBS will go, come on in. I think you are a very strong Harvard candidate.

The trick to getting into Stanford is to find out where the back door is. We’re talking about someone at Disney who is in charge of taking the three to four people a year who go to Stanford. That is the way it works or close to it. Columbia is always suspicious of being someone’s second choice so you would have to convince them you really want to go. I would apply to Columbia becuase as good as your odds are, no one can completely count on getting into Harvard, Wharton or Stanford.

You have a really powerful story. I think you are going to have a Hollywood beginning.

Mr. Brazilian Advertising

670 GMAT (planning to retake to get 690 to 700)
8.8/10.0 GPA
Undergraduate degree in communications, with a major in advertising
Master’s degree in communications management
TOEFL: 110
Work experience includes three years as a senior marketing strategist for IBM at Ogilvy Mather in Sao Paulo and small local agencies earlier
Extracurricular involvement includes being a “super awarded student and profession who got many medals during undergrad school and won the first ever Cannes Lion for IBM Brazil
“I’m also a professional actor and co-founder of a theatre group – we’re now rehearsing a new play and I’m having the opportunity to work on every aspect of it”
Goal: To work in a business position for the entertainment industry
“My mother is Taiwanese and my father is Brazilian, so I have a multi-cultural experience even at home; a lot of relatives live in the U.S., some of them are alumni from top business schools such as Harvard and Columbia. I’m a proud gay man and my partner is also applying for an L.L.M. at most of the schools I’m thinking of”
30-year-old male from Brazil

Odds of Success:

Northwestern: 20%
UCLA: 20%
Berkeley: 20%
New York: 30%
USC: 30%
London: 20% to 30%

Sandy’s Analysis: So you work at a famous advertising agency in Brazil and you have an international background. Your mom is Taiwanese and your father is Brazilian. All that’s exciting to business schools.

The numbers are, as we say here, silver and not gold. You have have a 670 GMAT and want to get that to 690 or 700. I would advise doing that. The difference between 670 and 700 is more than 30 points. It’s just one of those conceptual differences.

You also have a TOEFL socre of 110. It’s hard to get a bead on the average TOEFL score is at business schools. The only marker out there is HBS. Harvard is on the record saying that they are concerned about any TOEFL score below 109. So your score could be above their concern or simply above 109. One of the things I would like to know is the breakout of your 110. A lot of people can do well on the writing, reading and listening parts of the test, but speaking score is really important for business school. My guess is that your score is in the bottom half of the average at most top business schools.

You are working on a major account—IBM—at a prestigious advertising agency so you know a lot about advertising. Like a lot of advertising guys who used to be secret novelists, you are an actor who wants to go into the business side of entertainment. A lot of the schools you are targeting are near entertainment centers in Los Angeles and New York.

But you are 30 years old. You work at an advertising agency. Yuu have a marginal TOEFL and a low side GMAT. You are a smart, culturally interesting guy but someone is going to have to blink at a few things in your application. They need to say they are taking you because you are exciting and you are an international guy who knows about IBM.

You sound like a go-getter for things you like and want. I like you. You are a guy I would like to have dinner with. You are lively, you are smart, you are enthusiastic and you are the kind of guy who would make the class fun.

But you are not a shoe-in, anywhere. You are going to have to get lucky and execute well.
At Kellong, you are 50 points below their GMAT average and they are going to see you as an East Coast or West Coast guy. So I would guess your chances there are about one in five. It’s similar at several of your other target schools.

One suggestioin for you: Apply to Cornell. I know students who have gone to cornell and they have gone to New York every weekend to cold call investment banks. By their second year, they get on the road Thursday night and spend Friday in New York just trying to make stuff happen. That is what you should do, if you can get into Cornell.

Ms. Quant Girl

760 GMAT (49Q/44V) on first attempt
3.5 GPA
Undergraduate degree in math with a minor in management at a top State University of New York school
Work experience includes two years as an actuary in a mid-sized benefits consulting firm, working mostly with pharma clients; then did a career switch to management consulting at Accenture, where she has worked one and one-half years in the life sciences practice with big name pharma clients
Promoted twice, over two years ahead of schedule (hoping to have good recommendations reflecting this)
Extracurricular involvement as a math tutor for underprivileged kids through a non-profit in tutored statistics classes all through college to fellow students; intern mentor at both companies
“I wasn’t planning to apply to B-school until next year but I just took the GMAT and am hoping my high score can compensate for my younger age. Do you think I should wait until R1 next year? What other schools should I consider?”
Fluent in Russia
26-year-old who moved to the U.S. at age five from Eastern Europe

Odds of Success:

MIT: 30%
Northwestern: 30% to 40%
Chicago: 30% to 40%
Harvard: 25% to 30%
Wharton: 30% to 40%

Sandy’s Analysis: You are totally solid. I think you underestimate yourself. I have a hunch that you haven’t lived in an environment of over-achievers. The schooling is silver not gold. SUNY Stony Brook is a great place but there are a lot of people there who want to be dentists and not doctors. Not that there is anything wrong with that and I hope my dentist isn’t reading this. Anyway, it would be great if you got into a real top school that could change your whole mindset. It would be transforming for you.

And I think you can get into a great school and should apply in round two. There is nothing to be explained away in your story. And you are exactly in the sweet spot for age. You need to write about your side story, coming to the U.S., where you went to high school, what your family life was like. You have to set up a story about how you came to the U.S. at five and why you would go to SUNY in New York. My guess is you went to SUNY because you lived in New York and it was inexpensive. I’m thinking you weren’t in a college-oriented environment.

I think you would be attractive to MIT Sloan, even if the odds in round two might be slightly lower than they would be in round one. My take is that MIT eats fast and they stop eating when they are no longer hungry. Plus, they have a small stomach because the class is small. But they will like the quant stuff and they could like your proleterian story. You sound like a hard-working, salt-of-the-earth character. If you are ready and you want to go to business school next year, apply now. There is no penalty. You can always re-apply next year if it doesn’t work out for you this year.

Kellogg and Booth would just dig a profile like this. I would throw an application into HBS. With a 760 GMAT and a 3.5 in a math major, HBS would find you attractive. You add a lot of value to a Harvard class. Besides being an actuary, you also have in-depth pharma knowledge and can explain accounting and finance to your classmates. You have a lot to offer. Also try Wharton. They would go for this profile totally.

You’ve got it all. You are quanty. You have a business background. You work for a name brand company. The Accenture thing is explained by the fact that you are a side door story. You didn’t go to a feeder school. I don’t think McKinsey or BCG interview at SUNY Stony Brook. It’s about time you get to experience what it is like to be at a place that is gold, not silver.

Mr. Grunt

Ms. Hollywood Marketing Guru

Mr. Brazilian Advertising

Ms. Quant Girl

Handicapping Your MBA Odds – The Entire Series

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