<p>I'm 26 and two semesters away from a Traditional English B.A. from a State college in Georgia but have recently had a bolt-out-of-the-blue, 'Road to Damascus' change of perspective & courage / noble values. Now I want to break into business & econ. I can play five instruments (piano virtuosity) and hail from a town with rich musical history; I once saw myself spending my life engaged in this storied community. I filmed and directed a documentary about it only to find that those in potential mentor positions viewed responsibility as an afterthought, time as some trivial asset. Turns out I'm more driven than I ever believed I could be. I wake up at 6 a.m. regularly with my whole day planned out in 15 minute increments, cold-calling I-Banks in between my humanities classes (I do try to take these classes seriously).</p>
<p>There are few or no opportunities in this region to acquire the hands-on skills I crave to kick it in this field - I know I have the potential - I do very well on GMAT math practice questions and I make absolutely zero grammatical errors. I need an excellent score on this test as I have yet to take it.</p>
<p>Now for the hard stats - I'll have a graduating GPA of 2.7 with explanation available (outside-of-college ventures I chanced around sophomore / junior year). I had a 1200 on the SAT by the old 1600 scale. I am vice-president of INK Capital (VP by choice - I can commit but I want hard evidence of sustainability); it's a local initiative that resembles a venture capital firm for aspiring writers. I helped found this board in the past year after the bolt-out-of-the-blue realization.</p>
<p>My amber-waves-of-grain dream is to get into one of these four -- Duke Fuqua ("Kudzu League"), HBS, Wharton UPenn (fellowship maybe) or Stanford Graduate School of Business.
I understand the turnaround salaries for graduates from these schools (Stanford - ~$110k average first year out) more than makes up for their cost. The pint of sweat on the ground I'd leave would be well worth the future output.</p>
<p>I can be resourceful.
I can write a killer essay, develop a great reference chain, and build a list of contacts in my off-season hours. I am hungry for it and am not limited to these options.
Do you have any suggestions?
I'm considering an internship in Atlanta, but I-Banks are boutique, bulge brack's don't exist. I understand this is outside of the topic range, but all help is welcome.</p>
<p>"Are Ivy Grad Schools out of range from State College? "</p>
<p>No. </p>
<p>But, you’ve inquired about four of the top MBA programs extant in the USA. I’ll be blunt – your GPA makes it seriously unlikely for each of them. What can you score on the GMAT? What about your work experience would make you attractive to ultra-selective programs like those? May I suggest some MBA program guidebooks at the library?</p>
<p>Your GPA or undergrad institution really isn’t the important thing for top business schools. If you are seriously successful in your business ventures your GPA and undergrad education will matter very little. All the top schools make the point that they are training the ‘future business leaders’ of the world. If you can demonstrate that you are likely to be one of these, you can get admission. </p>
<p>And there is no reason why you have to go the I-bank route. Those companies are full of analysts knocking themselves out for the limited slots at the top schools. You’d do better to follow your own professional interests for 5-7 years, and assuming an MBA still makes sense, apply then. My spouse and I attended top biz schools and, aside from the analyst horde, our class-mates included a museum curator, opera singer, pro baseball player, doctor, a former mayor, several ex-military, numerous engineers, a teacher, a union organizer…not obvious routes to an MBA, but all of them likely to change their worlds and all with invaluable perspectives. </p>
<p>If you are making an impact with INK, or with your documentaries, and you enjoy it, why stop now? Just take your organization to the next level. You can apply to business school with the business experience this work provides you.</p>
<p>@T26E4
I am doing everything in my power to practice with estimable software and score perfectly on the GMAT when I take it at Pearson in Atlanta. I’ll weigh my score before I pay for the apps. I’d wager to pull off a 700+ since it is priority one.
The short answer to your job exp. question is ‘No’. I am planning two years in advance here because I do not have five.
I have an MBA track map - the Internet. Do you know specific guidebooks or will research & phone calls be good enough?</p>
<p>@Mom
There’s no true substitute for the power of pedigree, but I find my own story compelling so perhaps so should they. I joined INK as a favor for a close friend and wound up in a position to be more executive. The ideas are good; problem is these writers do not quite yet have the vision of prestige, the drive to seek out the scholarly journals, to make the right decisions the first time and create that necessary attraction. This week’s meeting should be intensive.</p>
<p>I have gone through an idealogical shift and have respect & devotion for the free market. I-Banks are my own professional interest. I’ve made an impact? Negotiable point - I’ve made no $$$$.$! I choose not to be a musician / filmmaker and complain about the problems but to give my best effort to innovate solutions & tend the traditional order of the market to leverage myself into position . . . so I can actually make a difference.</p>
<p>@barrrk
I called Duke “Kudzu League”. Get it?
Stanford’s not Ivy, true, but highly selective. Napa league?</p>
<p>You might find your own story compelling, but to be blunt… it’s really not. You have a mediocre undergraduate GPA in a humanities field, no significant business experience and went through an ideological shift. That’s not really much to base a b-school application on, much less applications to some of the most competitive schools in the world.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course you have five years. You have your whole life ahead of you. Most MBA students, particularly at top schools, are not 22-year-olds fresh out of college.</p>
<p>I started graduate school when I was 28. There’s no age limit.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Trying to get into b-school by means of the I-Bank analyst path is so truly cliche and shopworn that even Analysts at the bulge bracket firms, working in New York, find it difficult to get accepted. Unless you do something unique in the markets, come up with some heretofore unfound “trade” or get pubilshed by the NYTimes, some non skill level job in a third tier IB in Atlanta is really not your ticket.</p></li>
<li><p>Since b-schools want leaders, you need really to develop leadership positions with measureable impact (change in community or profitability) where people who write your recs say that you are incomparable and marvelous. This is your best shot.</p></li>
<li><p>Your academics will hurt you, no doubt, and you will need to gin up some explanation.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Finally, all the agitation and chest thumping about cold calling, and planning life in 15 minutes increments etc is designed to show you off as some tremendously focused, high-powered individual who will let nothing stand in his way. Unfortunately for you, since all this effort has resulting in precisely nothing of substance, it looks like wasted effort. People get medals for winning,not for effort expended. Focus yourself on accomplishing real stuff, not on the munificense of your struggle.</p>
<p>@RacinReaver
That’s a matter of opinion, friend. Write an article, perhaps, with more punctuational breaks and back your reasoning. Change the readability standards of American English as they have formed outside of the world of academia. Personally, I like faster sentences.</p>
<p>@placido240
Thank you for providing this insight and a perspective of exclusivity. This is exactly why I came to College Confidential. Aren’t community organizers just as “cliche”? Better to serve in Heaven than reign in Hell (wait . . . I got that backward from Milton, didn’t I?) </p>
<p>I don’t want glory for glory’s sake – I want printable facts, achievements etc. – that prove I’ve taken a rock n’ roll underling documentarian lifestyle, flipped it, and recognized the path to take. You’re exactly right. I get that I should truly generate a tsunami and feed my interest back into the market. I’m on a two year plan to establish some semblance of that effort, to seek out awards, sure; but, also to digitally publish these writers and make them some cash.</p>
<p>Why are you so hell-bent on this 2 year plan? If you work for 5 years and go into an MBA program after that, you’ll be 32 when you start it and 34 when you graduate. That’s probably about average for an MBA, and then you have at least another 30 years of working experience. The MBA is a degree that’s designed for working professionals who want to enhance their credentials to move into management and executive positions. It’s not an academic degree. It draws on real-world working experience; the more you have of it, the more you will get out of the program.</p>
<p>Besides, the more time you put between you and that 2.7 GPA, the better. I agree that an undergrad GPA is somewhat less important to business schools, but that’s ONLY true if you’ve managed to distinguish yourself between undergrad and business school in some extraordinary way. There are plenty of movers and shakers in business who managed a 3.0+ in college, so you’ve got to set yourself apart in a way that makes admissions committees overlook your GPA.</p>
<p>Your GPA explanation (“outside-of-college ventures”) is not necessarily a good one, and I wouldn’t use it when applying. Business people are supposed to be able to juggle several things successfully. There are lots of other brilliant kids who spent time on start-ups and still managed to maintain a 3.0+ in college. </p>
<p>My suggestion is much like the others - go get some work experience. IT doesn’t have to be investment banking and it doesn’t have to be on Wall Street - there are financial firms and banks in cities other than New York. You can work right there in Atlanta in a number of firms that are headquartered or have branch offices there. Work for at least 3 years, but 5-7 will make you more competitive. The fact that you had an epiphany and are really excited about it is not going to impress anyone at the business schools in which you are interested; what will impress them is rising quickly at a well-known firm.</p>
<p>But to answer your original question - Ivy League and similar business students come from all kinds of schools, from Podunk State to Harvard and Yale. It’s because WHAT you did, in college and afterwards, is more important than where you did it at.</p>
<p>You can shoot for the stars - but at least make it so that your shot hits something realistic when it inevitably falls back to Earth. I mean Wharton with no previous experience and a sub 3.0 GPA?</p>
<p>As for the original thesis: Yes, state applicants get into prestigious and well ranked schools all the time.</p>
<p>Update - retaking one of the bad courses is required and will resolve my GPA to 3.0 or above, depending on how I do. @Juillet
Of course I’d find a way to condense the truth of those “ventures” into part of the application. I am seeking work experience in Atlanta, but the investment aspect of the industry interests me the most.</p>