background: 25 year old male
education: '05 grad of top 5 elite liberal arts school (3.2 gpa - trended upwards each year)
work experience:
1.5 years bulge bracket investment banking in NYC
2 years at middle market junior capital/private equity fund in NYC
solid activities during undergrad, however, given typical ibanking/private equity schedule, things have slowed down. been on young leadership board of the new york branch of a nationally recognized medical charity/research organization.
720 GMAT (46 math / 44 verbal)
applying to: ucla, berkeley, usc, stanford
am concerned about having a gpa on the lower end of most of the ranges of the above schools. wondering how much this will be mitigated by my decent gmat score. also concerned that, given general market/economic conditions, there will likely be a significant number of people with very similar backgrounds applying this year.
thoughts? chances at schools mentioned?
GMAT Forum
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- MBAApply
Don't worry about your GPA. It's not great, but it's not bad enough for it to be a major red flag (i.e. if it's below 3.0, then it's a real issue). And yes, a high GMAT can help to balance it out somewhat.
What it'll come down to for you is the quality of your application and luck - you're right there's lots of people like you who will be applying (not just because of the downturn, but in any year there's more than enough ex-banker/PE types applying). You've chosen a good range of schools (obviously seems like you want to stay on the west coast) and even with this year's market conditions unless you royally screw up your essays or run into extremely bad luck, you should get into at least some of them on your list -- Stanford is obviously a reach but it's a reach for everyone; the other three you should be definitely competitive for.
Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com
What it'll come down to for you is the quality of your application and luck - you're right there's lots of people like you who will be applying (not just because of the downturn, but in any year there's more than enough ex-banker/PE types applying). You've chosen a good range of schools (obviously seems like you want to stay on the west coast) and even with this year's market conditions unless you royally screw up your essays or run into extremely bad luck, you should get into at least some of them on your list -- Stanford is obviously a reach but it's a reach for everyone; the other three you should be definitely competitive for.
Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com
2 posts Page 1 of 1