Handicapping Your Elite MBA Odds

Our highly popular MBA handicapping series is back, with a new video and four great legacy assessments of real candidates who want to get into a top business school.

After focusing on his round one and round one clients, Sanford “Sandy” Kreisberg, founder of MBA admissions consulting firm HBSGuru.com, is returning to analyze these and a few other profiles of actual MBA applicants who have shared their vital statistics with Poets&Quants.

As usual, Kreisberg will handicap 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.)

He’s also willing to answer any other questions you might have on the current round of the admissions cycle.

Sandy’s tell-it-like-it-is analysis:

Ms. Automotive

• GMAT: 710
• Undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering
• 3.8 GPA
• Master’s degree in mechanical engineering from a U.S. public university
• 3.9 GPA
• Work experience includes two years for a major locomotive company and slightly under a year for one of the Big Three automakers with a focus on zero emission standards vehicle development
• Had an internship on electric vehicles at the Department of Energy
• Goal: Short-term to move into high-level management strategy at an automotive firm; long-term to become a strategy consultant and move to the tech sector.
• 27-year-old Indian woman

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 50%
Stanford: 40%
Berkeley: 50%+
Columbia: 50%+
Northwestern: 50%+

Sandy’s Analysis: Yes, yes, yes, and yes! You are a totally impressive, consistent, screwed together package. You are female in the automotive industry with very high stats and a consistent story. And you have worked for a locomotive company and that is a good one. And now she is working for a Big Three auto company and you don’t want to go into private equity.

She wants to stay in the auto business and that is a plus. Business schools have to pay a certain homage to the Big Three. Though they may not like them, they are not going away. She has positioned herself as a progressive in zero-emissions standards vehicle development. She is a successful engineer who wants to transition into management. It’s just a tight, consistent package.

The basic advice for you is to do no harm on the application. Position yourself as you have and don’t blow the interview. For Stanford, for the essay on what matters most to you and why, you shouldn’t do a victory lap or a collection of next hits but a story about what has influenced you and what you have learned from others. It doesn’t have to be locomotive or automotive. It could be what you learned from a parent or a mentor or a life event and how that influenced your goals in a broader sense, not just professionally. That is what Stanford is looking for in that first essay. In the second essay, they are looking for the more traditional answers.

Your might expand your long-term goals to say the auto industry is changing in dramatic ways, and you want to play an impactful role in it. You should say that the auto industry is a very exciting place to be, and it presents a lot of management challenges. Say that you want to be an innovative, exciting leader in that industry and use Mary Barra at GM as a role model. But that is just the cherry on the fruit salad.

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Ms. Finance

• 740 GMAT (46Q/46V)
• 2.3 GPA
• Undergraduate degree from an “average university” (grades suffered due to distraction of terminally ill parent)
• Work experience includes year and one-half in current job as head of operational finance for a software startup with 90 employees in seven countries, managed growth from 20 employees to current size, experience with PE capital raise with major PE firm, up for promotion in the next three to six months; year and one-half as a regional finance manager for a telecom company, went from 2 to 35 direct reports, promoted three times, and two years in a regional CPA firm specializing in privately held construction and technology companies
• “I’ve built a pretty solid career on being able to use my natural deductive and inductive reasoning skills to solve problems, but lack in fundamental “business” knowledge (i.e. during this capital raise, I’ve spent countless hours Google-ing investment jargon to translate what our investment bankers were saying). I’m also interested in using the MBA experience to become more ‘global.’”
• Extracurricular involvement in board gaming (including some local tournament wins), state and county political party executive board member, treasurer of county political party auxiliary group, certified in campaign finance reporting, volunteer at local nonprofit in resume lab, congressional intern in undergrad
• Goal: Consulting for rapidly growing companies to ease growing pains related to rapid expansion and using that experience to eventually move into a COO role at a mid-sized or large multinational
• “LBS or Yale are my “dream” schools – Duke and UNC are local”
• 28-year-old American female

Odds of Success:

Chicago: 20% to 30%
Yale: 35%+
Duke: 40% to 50%
UNC: 40% to 50%
INSEAD: 40+%
London: 50+%
Cambridge: 50%+
HEC-Paris: 50%+
ESADE: 50%+
IE: 50%+

Sandy’s Analysis: What we got here is a smart, 28-year-old, American female with a LOW GPA (2.3 from Average U.) and a Boffo 740 GMAT, who also has had five very successful years of trench warfare jobs at three companies we probably never heard of.  In reverse chrono:

• 1.5 years as the head of operational finance for a software startup;
• 1.5 years as a regional finance manager for a telecom;
• 2 years as a galley slave for a regional, Southern CPA firm.

Since a) your current job as head of operational finance (whatever that means) with the software “start-up” seems to be with a substantial start-up and not two kids in a rented closet, i.e., it was “recently valued at $150mil with  90 employees in 7 countries,” and b) you managed growth from 20-90 employees, and c) you  seem like a real go-getter with promotions and accomplishments, there is d) lots to like, including your spirit, raises, and shoes on the ground work experiences.

Once we deal with the 2.3 GPA and the fact you have been in the boonies all your life (so it seems, regional CPA firm!), we got maybe not a diamond, but a diamond chip in the rough. Adcoms have a hard time judging work experiences at companies they don’t know, but sure, they know what a regional CPA firm is (no place they would be looking for applicants) and also a telecom (better fishing here, it depends on which telecom and what you did there, and how selective it was).

Your school choices are: Booth, Yale, Insead, LBS, Cambridge, HEC, ESADE, and IE, and also Duke and UNC, as “I’m local.”  “LBS or Yale are my ‘dream’ schools.”  Phew, maybe I’m missing something, but why are you considering Euro schools at all? Your great strength as an applicant is how down-home your work, attitude and accomplishments have been, and that would get bleached out  when read by some adcom in France or the UK. They are also less likely to cut you some slack on the GPA since they won’t understand that you have had a pretty gritty but successful U.S. career. Maybe I am being parochial myself, but Euro schools may just put you in the “Does Not Compute” file.  The odds I have listed for those schools are based on their liking paying Americans and your GMAT, but I could be woefully optimistic.

Also, getting a job back in the USA will be harder from those schools, as will schmoozing with future employers, who similar to the adcoms, may not instantly get this story.

Booth may gag at the GPA, however sympathetically presented, and the low-brow employment history. They are not totally robotic and wink at things, but you are asking for more than a wink. You are asking for a double wink or a brief turn-away. They may not do that, and your pick-up finance skills — in your own words “during this capital raise, I’ve spent countless hours Google-ing investment jargon to translate what our investment bankers were saying . . .” — is not the kind of charming detail they fall for.

It is the kind of charming detail I FALL FOR but  I’m easy –you had me at “Google-ing,” both the fact you did it and also fully spelling it, as if you have some inherent respect for the Google company. I could hear you saying all three syllables, almost Yoddle-ing them.***

*** FYI, fast-talking and nabe-bred wiseguys like me would say that, “Googlin” if not “Googlyn,” sorta like “Brooklyn.”  That would be one syllable and a slur.

I also don’t think Yale would like the cut of your jib, although unlike IE, HEC or INSEAD, they will have seen it before (low-ish  grades, high GMAT, bunch o’ heartland down-home jobs). In Yale’s  new incarnation, they are trying to upgrade stats and status. You are not their kind of current risk.

Duke and UNC and also Darden are where you should be focusing. I realize the fact that they are nearby could be a detraction at this point, especially for someone who is interested in using the MBA experience to become more “global.” But keep in mind, you’d meet some very global types in those programs, although, agreed, Chapel Hill is nice but it is not Paris.

Still, any of those schools are classy and you could start making real connections. Also, in light of your intense interest in local politics  (“state and county political party executive board member, treasurer of county political party auxiliary group, certified in campaign finance reporting . . .”) staying where your connections and support groups are is a worthwhile consideration.

You might also consider MBA programs like Michigan and Cornell, where, yes, you’d have to buy some winter clothing, but you would also have a ticket to schmooze with profs, visiting big shots, and the classier part of your peer cohort. If you want to locate some American reaches, try Berk, Tuck and NYU, which is a close reach.

Career goals  . . .you are “fuzzy” but thinking about “consulting for rapidly growing companies to ease growing pains related to rapid expansion.” And then using that experience to eventually move into a COO role at a mid-sized or large multinational.”  That is fuzzy — close enough for blogging, which is what we are doing — but come game day you will need to marshal your assets and present as yourself  someone who wants to build out your SME experience as either a consultant or the COO of such powerful and innovative SMEs as 1, 2 or 3.

Position yourself as someone who has seen the rodeo several times and who wants to help run it. Allude in your application to your political and business contacts so schools have a real good sense that you will be employed come graduation, one way or the other.  Cite leading SME consulting firms and say you could start there to learn best practices and then transition into being a leader in a dynamic and growing company.

If you make that case in spades and without hesitation, and if you quickly and compellingly explain the low GPA, and if you get two Boffo recs from your current employer (or one from the telcom), you might also break into Chicago or Yale.

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Mr. Early Start Changer

• 750 GMAT
• 3.9 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in music business from a low-ranked Christian college (home-schooled; started and finished college two years early)
• 4.0 Graduate GPA
• Master of accountancy from Vanderbilt’s Owen Business School
• Work experience includes two years in the audit practice of a Big Four firm
• Spending next six months (in Germany and in a developing nation) with a mission organization in a non-leadership role
• Extracurriculars include being an English tutor for immigrants and various small but enjoyable volunteer experiences
• 23-years-old
• “Although being a CPA was a great first job, I’d love to work towards becoming a social entrepreneur with an impact in developing nations. I’m on the younger side, but getting an MBA now would open doors to my ultimate goals.”

Odds of Success:

Harvard Business School: 40% to 60%
Wharton: 60+%
Chicago: 60+%
Dartmouth: 70% (convince them you want to go)
Berkeley: 60% (convince them you want to go)
Yale: 70% to 80% (convince them you want to go)

Sandy’s Analysis: Schools love hi-testing, corn-fed innocents (or innocent seemings) like you, especially ones who have the sitzfleish to survive Big Four hell. Sitzfleish? (calling Linda ! or you can look it up . . . .kinda means “can sit on a chair for hours and get it done” — one of the 100 most common Yiddish words, the way Eskimos have 40 words for snow). The missions you refer to will matter, if this is LDS (Mormons, for you clueless folks), those are respected by schools. If you are doing this with some other organization, well, its size and pedigree will make a difference, as will how hard the gig is to get. See my remarks to Tchotchke Girl on the same issue.

You say: “I’d love to work towards becoming a social entrepreneur with an impact in developing nations.” That works but you need to support it as much as possible by stuff you have actually done as a base, given that this is a real switcheroo. It would also help if you had recommenders saying that that is what you want to do, and alluding to stuff you have already done.

“Various small but enjoyable volunteer experiences” brother, you are really going to have to milk those. If you somehow, by dint of personal story, recommendations, and events in your life, come off as just a rare, winning type, full of pep and promise, that can sometimes be enough, and that seems supported by the record so far. But one or two marquee accomplishments would really help. “Interned with the firm in India for 2 months before starting full-time in the U.S.” Try to get a story out of that as well.

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Clik here to view.Mr. NGO

• 720 GMAT
• 3.8 GPA
• Undergraduate degree with a triple major in international relations, political science and Spanish from a top non-Ivy University (think Georgetown/Tufts/Johns Hopkins)
• Work experience includes one and one-half years in consulting at a small company and one year as a project coordinator for a prominent NGO. Have lived in four developing countries to work on these projects.
• Extracurricular involvement starting a technology commercialization company at my university to evaluate university-developed technologies; also taught SAT prep to underprivileged high school students and taught English to recent Latin American immigrants
• Goal: To commercialize technologies and improve business performance in developing countries. “I’m not sure whether to come at this from a Private Equity/Venture Capital angle or from a social enterprise angle.”
• 24-year-old Caucasian male

Odds of Success:

Stanford: 20%
Harvard: 30%
Berkeley: 40% to 50%
Chicago: 40% to 50%
Columbia: 40% to 50%

Sandy’s Analysis: Dunnno, all the pieces are here, including a solid GPA and GMAT, as well as your current gig at what seems like some “prominent” NGO to quote you. Guys like you get into Harvard and Stanford depending on execution, luck, and sometimes having someone pull a string. String pulling is not strictly necessary with this story, although it often develops naturally, e.g. someone at a Ivy-connected NGO knows someone at H or S. Sorta legit, when you think about it.

The only small glitch is odd-ish first job, so it’s crucial to do a good job not quite ‘explaining’ that, but describing what you did there as important and elite (in a non-obnoxious way).

Solid extra currics and starting some kind tech-commercialization company at your university has the potential to be a real plus if you can explain what the hell that means? Was it a for-profit company? Or done within the university? Make that clear!

Ditto as to goals. Maybe it’s me, but it just sounds like pre-molded buzz words and not totally in-line with what you have been doing, although it does build out what you claim to have done in college, which I don’t understand, either. Problem could be me, or could be just the shorthand we use in these back and forths. But make it clear, and no BS.

My problem is, specifically, don’t most “top universities” already have well-established tech transfer programs, and YOU are claiming to have started one?  Anyway, solve that problem, with either clarity or honesty, and if rest of application lines up clearly, you got a solid shot at S and H.

You should get into Berkeley, Chicago, and Columbia if you convince them you want to go, and going there makes sense.

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Ms. Financial Analyst

• 700 GMAT (expected)
• 3.7 GPA
• Undergraduate degree in business economics from Arizona State University, graduating in two and one-half years
• Work experience with Payless Shoe Source for three years (one year as a store manager and two years as a financial analyst); also spent two years with Teach For America, teaching high school math
• Extracurricular involvement on Arizona State’s competitive cheer team, assuming a community relations role; treasurer for a sorority and a colony member for that chapter at my school; currently tutors underprivileged students and help with charity runs in my neighborhood
• 
Goal: To help manage the way schools and districts are run so every child can get access to great education
• White female

Odds Of Success:

Harvard: 20% to 25%
Stanford: 10% to 15%
Chicago: 30% to 35%
Duke: 50%+
Northwestern: 40%+

Sandy’s Analysis: Phew, I’m about to say some harsh things about why you are not getting into HBS or Stanford, but let me begin by saying I really like you, and I am sure most of our readers do too. The reality is that kids

1. from 3^rd tier schools like ASU (save your angry letters Sun Devil fans, I love the place, but it does admit 83 percent of applicants)

2. with non-selective jobs and save-the-world goals,

3.  need immaculate stats to get into HBS or Stanford — if they ever do.

How come? I’m not totally sure what a regression analysis is, but let’s try this experiment. Let’s keep your exact same story but make these substitutions:

For Arizona State, substitute a Top-20 liberal arts college.

For Payless, substitute a Disney or even Target.

We get a totally different outcome. Instead of you being a very likeable and smart Payless item, you become a very likeable and smart “elite” item with a passion for helping people. If you want to be someone from Arizona State who wants to help people and reform education, you need a ~4.0, a very selective job, and a 720+ GMAT.

There is a name for stars like that, they are called White Ethnics, it is a recognized category although not written about per se in B-school admission circles. That is your category, I am assuming (often white kdis from working class backgrounds, first generation to attend college).

If you were near Ivy, and had a 3.7 GPA, a 700 GMAT, that might do because in most cases that person would have a selective job because, duh, those selective jobs at Disney or Johnson & Johnson or Nike  go to elite liberal arts majors with 3.7’s.

The entire point of the above is to say, sorry, I do not think you are getting into HBS or Stanford because you went to a prole school, your job is odd, your GMAT (assuming 700) is OK but not distinguished and Payless, especially as a store manager, sounds a bit off and overweight  to most adcoms at HSW (despite the job actually  being intense in terms of leadership, flexible skills, dealing with different people).

As to your chances at Chicago, Duke, and Northwestern? Phew again. How about considering as well Darden, UCLA and Michigan, too. Just to make sure this happens someplace. And try to have a real good (near 80%) quant GMAT score. Chicago may find this story not a fit for them and may wonder at your quant abilities. Duke and Kellogg take kids like you and ding them, largely a matter of application execution and luck.

You say your goal is to “help manage the way schools and districts are run so every child can get access to great education.” Try to flesh that out with a list of real people who do that and what their actual jobs are. My guess is, there is a list of hero school commissioners someplace, start with that. Check that list twice. Some of those folks, e.g. Michelle Rhee, are controversial (not to me!), but she is a good place to start, as this Wiki excerpt summarizes:

Michelle Rhee remains a highly controversial figure in the field of education due to her aggressive style . . . .  Rhee’s actions have earned her applause from school reformers, as well as the scorn of teacher unions and community activists.  

By the way, feel free to write back in six months and tell me what a dickhead I am because you got into HBS. I get called worse things every day — and as noted I am rooting for you.  If you told me you got into HBS, I’d give Dee Leopold a silent salute.