wks822 08-06-2006, 12:10 AM I am starting on the road to B-school, and am looking for advice to plan out the next two years. I want to pursue an MBA at either NYU/Stern, Kellogg, Columbia, or Haas.
I graduated with a pretty low GPA (2.6) from UC Berkeley, because I took a lot of time off to work and travel in between semesters. I didn't join a sorority or any other student organization because I was always interning+working.
I majored in English, and found I loved marketing -I graduated in 2004 and currently, I'm an assoc. marketing manager at a media company, have maintained great relationships with all managers, and am confident I can get great recommendation letters.
To counter my low GPA, I'll focus a lot of effort and time into scoring well on my GMAT, but in addition to GMAT scores, what other steps should I take to become a stronger candidate for these top-tier programs? Should I volunteer, become active in the community, wait a couple more years to gain more work experience? Any help would be much appreciated -
Thanks so much!
slayterdown 08-07-2006, 01:37 PM wks,
You're already answering you own questions. Yes, volunteering does help and so does getting more work experience. With the entire work experience thing, you want to make sure you are ready for business school. Since you only graduated in 2004, you still have plenty of time if you choose. Most people who come to business school have around 4-5 years of experience. Also, the amount of work experience is no substitute for the quality of work experience.
One note about volunteering: Make sure you join some organization and do something that you will stick with and will actually enjoy. Don't just do it to spice up your resume; otherwise you will get frustrated with it and you will end up wasting the organization's time.
It may help to get a head start studying for the GMAT. You may even want to consider joining a kaplan type tutorial in order to boost your score in order to compensate for you lower GPA.
Finally, start thinking about your long term and short term goals. The sooner you start thinking about them and talking to as many people in your field of interest, the better. This will help you shape your application as well.
mbaguitar 09-02-2006, 01:40 PM My suggestion is to focus on explaining to adcom why you've had low GPA before and why you won't have low GPA at their school. Your GPA was 2.6 because you had to work - and you succeeded at that. You won't be working while in business school, so you'll be able to dedicate all of your energy to MBA curricullum. I think this approach may help your case more than any extra-curricular activities.
As a personal opinion, I think that it will go well with NYU because they seem to value work experience more than other schools you've mentioned.
Good luck!
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