<p>If one is looking to apply to an MBA program, how heavily are recommendation letters looked at? I ask because I have been out of college for three years and have started and been operating my own business (which is going pretty strong) for the last three years. Therefore, there are no superiors that I report to and that I can ask for letters from; I don't suppose a letter from an employee would do any good. I'm just wondering where one would seek such letters of recommendation, and are these less important in my case? Just curious...</p>
<p>Thats a good question.
I am guessing that you creating your own business will get you in regardless of anything else. It depends upon how well your GPA and GMAT are as to what calibur school you will get accepted. But I'd say those too can be below average for you to get accepted.</p>
<p>No, creating your own busines by itself does not guarantee you admission into anywhere. It all depends on the circumstances. Keep in mind that not that long ago, we just experienced arguably the greatest investment bubbles in at least the last half-century, and most likely something that we will never see again in our lifetimes. A lot of people started "companies" during that time, and some of them even managed to do fairly well, at least until the crash hit, and when it did, a lot of them got interested in B-school. The point is there is a significant glut of people who started their own companies who apply to B-schools, and hence, starting and running your own company by itself means little. What matters is how successful you have been and how good your leadership and management experience has been. But just starting and running your own company is nothing special. Just go to any reputable B-school and ask around and you will find lots of students who ran their own companies. If you are running an extremely successful business, then that counts for something, but then again, if you are running an extremely successful business, then why do you need B-school? </p>
<p>As far as the original question is concerned, the best bet is to get something from your best client. Find a referencable client and get them to write something for you.</p>
<p>If hes got people working under him, more than likely its successful.</p>
<p>And so what if it is successful? Look at all the little mom + pop stores that are around, and have employees. These are successful businesses - but does that mean that the guy who started it is necessarily B-school material? I was just talking to a Mexican guy who has very little formal education but started and runs his own taqueria, with people working for him (cooks, dishwashers, cashiers, etc.). I wouldn't say that he is necessarily B-school material. Nor is this experience specific only to him - I certainly don't want to stereotype, but it is a tremendously common path for poverty-stricken immigrants to start up and run their own small business - Asian immigrants running Asian-cuisine restaurants, convenience stores, gas-stations, motels, hair salons, etc. etc. It takes very little expertise to do this and be successful. It just takes a lot of hard work and dedication, which is commendable, but by itself, I rather doubt is enough qualification to get one into B-school.</p>
<p>sakky, why do you always have to be so negative about everything? yes, a lot of people have started their own businesses, but you don't know what company he started. therefore, stop jumping to conclusions and comparing him to asian americans starting restaurants. for all you know he could have started a multimillion dollar company. now, i realize chances for that are slim, but my point is, think before you speak. i hope you are not this way in person because you really come off rude. i think someone who starts their own business has a much better chance as the president and founder of a company than an employee at a large company... than a number. </p>
<p>anyways... you should get recs from a professor you still keep in contact with, your best clients, employees writing about your wonderful leadership, and/or maybe you can include your own "recommendation" writing about your company.</p>
<p>godot, i wish you all the luck in the world. keep us updated!</p>
<p>I would agree with sakky (for once). The chances of starting a very successful company between undergrad and business school are slim to none. There are generally considered to be 500 uber successful companies in the world (Fortune 500) -- then look at how many people are in the world: 6 billion. You can just go out and start a multinational company. If you're applying to a school such as Harvard, Wharton, or Kellogg, you obviously have the credentials to do so; that means if you're in an "employee at a large company" you have a good position in that company. Would you rather have your own business or be a top analyst at Goldman Sachs. Think about it.</p>
<p>Come on, patientlywaiting - I am making no such assumptions about anything, and I am jumping to no conclusions. Did I say that the OP necessarily fell into any of the categories that I mentioned? Please point to the quote where I specifically said that the OP must be in one of those categories. Can't do it, can you? That's because I never said it. I don't want to be blunt, but I think it is you who are the one who has actually jumped to a conclucion, in that I have somehow necessarily pigeonholed the OP. If you don't believe me, again, point to my quote where I specifically said that the OP must fall into one of my categories. Perhaps it is you who needs to think before you speak.</p>
<p>I am offering counterexamples to what esrajay has been saying. You cannot simply conclude that simply starting a business and having employees, by itself, guarantees anything when it comes to B-school admissions. That is not a correct statement to make, and my counterexamples illustrate that. </p>
<p>And again, as far as whether being president/cofounder of a company makes you better than just being an employee of some large company, again the answer is it depends. It depends on the details. As uc_benz says, being an employee at a large, but extremely prestigious company like Goldman Sachs is a very strong credentail to getting into a top B-school - far more so than founding your own company, unless that company is highly successful. This is why the top B-schools are filled with former bulge-bracket investment bankers, and former consultants from the big-leagues. The devil (as always) is in the details. A McKinsey consultant is far more likely to get into HBS than the typical small-business owner.</p>
<p>"And so what if it is successful? Look at all the little mom + pop stores that are around, and have employees."</p>
<p>if you are not comparing him to the little "mom + pop" stores, why bring the subject up? it is completely irrelevant if it doesn't have to do with him. :P</p>
<p>UC Benz, not all milliondollar companies are fortune 500's. there are many milliondollar companies out there. however, i don't know what business he started, therefore perhaps we should stop talking about it until he lets us know.</p>
<p>No, I brought up the example of mom+pop stores because esrajay chimed in with his quote of "If hes got people working under him, more than likely its successful.", and so I brought it up to demonstrate that just because you have people working for you doesn't mean that you're automatically prime B-school material. If I really wanted to compare the OP to a mom+pop store owner, I would have said it in my first post in this thread. Why would I have waited until my second post? </p>
<p>And besides, while I never said that the OP was not necessarily a mom+pop store owner, I also never said that he necessarily wasn't. In fact I never said anything categorical about the OP at all - I left open all the possibilities. And you said it yourself - we need to wait for the OP to chime in. Until he does, we have to respect all the possibilities.</p>
<p>Wow, look at all the fuss I started. Settle down, people, settle down... We don't want any bloodshed here. :)</p>
<p>To answer your question, I started a private tutoring business about three years ago. Originally, it was just a couple of students, but over the past year and a half, it's grown into a pretty respectable business. We offer private tutoring services for a huge variety of subjects and exams, including all high school subjects and exams (SAT I, SAT IIs, PSAT, ACT, Regents, APs, etc.), college academic subjects (not ALL of them, mind you, but the most popular ones such as virtually all the sciences, math, English, psychology, history, sociology, ESL, etc.) and many graduate and professional school exams (GRE, LSAT, GMAT, MCAT, etc.). I have taken every exam except the GMAT (how ironic, huh?) with a score in the 99th percentile (well, I scored in the 97th percentile on the MCAT, and I scored 790 on the Quantitative and 730 on the Verbal on the GRE -- I'll have to retake those). I just have not gotten around to taking the GMAT, but I am almost certain that I would score an 800 on it (it's what I tutor, after all). Currently, the operation is still limited to the Greater Buffalo area, but I have plans to expand nationally to various major cities (next might be Rochester, NYC, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta, etc.) within a year and a half. I'm still trying to fine-tune my business model, perfect my training (training other tutors, that is) and marketing/advertising skills, achieve dominance in the Buffalo market, and get more capital before I venture into the national market. My staff numbers fluctuate a little bit, but I have about 6 tutors for the SAT alone, about 4 MCAT tutors, and 8-15 academic subject tutors (they don't all work at the same time). In addition, I will be hiring about 3 marketing assistants in the next few weeks to help me really boost my marketing efforts. At the moment, I am offering a classroom SAT course (which is a rarity for me, as my focus is one-on-one private tutoring) for the top private high school in Buffalo for 69 students, and I am sure that other high schools will want similiar arrangements once they learn of my success with the school and students. My major competitors in the area are Kaplan and Princeton Review, but I understand their weaknesses, and I am certainly not intimidated by them (the Princeton Review is pretty lazy about marketing -- this will be their downfall; Kaplan simply does not have high-quality courses or instructors). Having been former instructors at both companies, they (especially Kaplan) really don't like me. The Buffalo Kaplan center has been particularly unscrupulous in competing against me, engaging in tactics such as taking down my flyers on college campuses and spreading lies about my personal and work history. (I have been in touch with their general counsel, and I hope that they will learn to play fair from now on.)</p>
<p>My revenues this year are expected to be about $130,000, and next year, my goal will be to hit at least $700,000 in revenues (it might sound lofty, but we are in the midst of exponential growth), with a lot more expected when I enter the national expansion phase.</p>
<p>We are certainly not talking about a Fortune 500 company here, but I do have very big ambitions and a passion for my business.</p>
<p>I guess I was thinking about business school simply to add a degree to my resume; this might be important in attracting future clients or employees. It was only a whim, however, and I'm not even sure how serious I am about it. Another reason for getting a degree from a prestigious school would be to somewhat "offset" my undergraduate degree from the University at Buffalo (I did not work very hard in high school, especially in my senior year, so my college choices were rather limited). Clients are simply not impressed when they ask me where I went to college. It's never prevented me from signing them up, but it would be nice to have a degree from a "brand-name" school as well, I reasoned. Additionally, I may actually learn a thing or two from business school (even though I think I already know much about starting and running a business), and I hear that the networking opportunities can be quite valuable. Therefore, spending two more years in school might be worth it, while I continue to grow the business in my spare time, with the help of many other employees.</p>
<p>Thoughts, questions, comments?</p>
<p>that's wonderful! you sound like you are doing great and i think you have a wonderful shot at business school, especially since you predict an 800 on the GMAT since you teach it! but you already knew what i thought, so lets see what negativity sakky has in store for us today...</p>
<p>Well it sounds like you have a very nice business going on there. But, I doubt it's a big enough operation to make you truly stand out. There are people at investment, consulting, Fortune 500 companies, and other large operations who would be directly or indirectly responsible for the management of several million dollars. This is not to say your business is a bad investment as it may turn out to be quite profitable in the future. However, right now I don't think it is big enough to warrant a lot of attention.</p>
<p>*To note one more thing, GMAT doesn't really count a whole lot in business admissions. As long as you're in the 700's they probably won't really even look at it again.</p>
<p>uc_benz,</p>
<p>Do you really think that I would be competing against such people? For a regular MBA program? Perhaps 2 out of 1000 applicants would have credentials such as the ones you listed, but do you think the number would be as high as 5 in 100 or even 1 in 100? I really don't know too much about the business school applicant pool, so you could be entirely right. Anyone know? If that's who I am competing against, then perhaps I should rethink business school admission. :) And how important is the GMAT score exactly? I always assumed that it was a close second after work experience.</p>
<p>I think it depends on what you mean by "regular MBA program". If you are just talking about a regular, run-of-the-mill, no-name MBA program, then obviously you are better than the average candidate. But if you are actually talking about a somewhat famous one, then I would have to say that, yes, you would indeed be competing against Wall Street sharks and other high-rollers.</p>
<p>Now, let me give you one caveat. Your particular business is not exactly looked upon kindly by B-school adcoms. A lot of adcoms see businesses like yours as a perversion of the admissions process. I know, I know, you are going to say that you are a legitimate business just like Kaplan and the others. I'm not saying that I agree with them. All I'm doing is telling you that that sentiment among adcoms is out there. So you may want to perhaps not talk about the details of what your business does when you are completing your application.</p>
<p>Would it be better to simply emphasize the academic subject tutoring aspects? I never thought about your warning before, and I find it rather ignorant that adcoms would actually hold something like this against me. Can you tell me the typical profile of the average accepted applicant to a top 5 business school? I'm finding business school increasingly less attractive now...</p>
<p>Yeah, even that whole academic subject tutoring idea might set off alarm bells. If possible, I would try to avoid the subject entirely (admittedly, that might not be easy). </p>
<p>As far as it being ignorant, well, look at it from their point of view. They're out there trying to make sure that they admit the best group of candidates that they can, and if some candidates look better (or think they can look better) just by signing up for a bunch of prep classes and thus get a better test score, that complicates the job of the adcom. I'm not saying that the adcoms are right, I'm just trying to explain their point of view. Adcoms often lump companies like yours with those other companies, who I'm sure you know about, who sell 'consulting services' to help applicants tailor their essays, their interview answers, and their recs specifically to win admission to certain schools. Again, I'm not saying that the adcoms are right, I'm just saying that that's how they feel. </p>
<p>As far as the typical profile of the average accepted applicant to one of the elite B-schools - simple. About 27-29 years of age, excellent work experience and recs, high chance of coming from a very very prestigious company (i.e. Goldman Sachs, McKinsey), shows very strong leadership and interpersonal skills, killer interview style, that sort of thing.</p>
<p>godot, i agree with sakky that it might not be the most favorable business among adcoms, but i don't think that would disqualify you as a good candidate. it also depends what school you are thinking about applying to, if it's harvard, yeah it's going to be tough to get in... it will tough for anyone unless you're donald trump or something. but if you're talking about a state school then you're a well above average candidate. so.. would you happen to have a list of the potential schools you are considering?</p>
<p>patientlywaiting,</p>
<p>I would only consider the top 5 or top 10 schools. Otherwise, it would not be worth it for me to attend. I suppose Harvard and Stanford would be some of the top choices for me.</p>
<p>What adcoms do not realize is that when a student learns how to increase his or her score on a standardized exam, he is often developing some real critical thinking skills that will help him at the school and in life. Taking a prep course is really not that different from getting a prep book and studying on your own; the only major difference is that one is done independently, the other is with the help of another individual. Even in the case of a book, however, there had to be an author to write the book in order for you to gain benefit from it. To me, it's stupid for anyone (except the best natural test-takers) to go into a test cold without ANY preparation. A test prep course is only a magnified form of such preparation. The same goes for admissions consulting services. Schools want applicants to present themselves in the best light and take pains with the applications, yet they discourage any outside services that can help applicants do that. Such silly people...</p>
<p>Well, you're putting me in the position of defending the adcoms, which I don't really want to do. But certainly, you might understand why adcoms don't like the idea that people are gaming the system, or even worse, effectively 'buying' an admissions slot by hiring people to write their essays for them, to coach them on exactly what they need to say on the interview (regardless of whether what they're saying is true or not), and to basically craft their entire app for them. Perhaps even more egregious are examples of having people take the GMAT for you, or outright bribing admissions officers. </p>
<p>Now I'm obviously not saying that you engage in any of those shenanigans, but the problem is where exactly do you draw the line? For example, what exactly is the difference between a consultant who just writes all your essays for you, and a consultant who heavily heavily consults you on what exactly you need to write, and then edits your writing so that it is exactly what the adcoms want to hear? Surely you can see that we are getting into a very gray area of both semantics and ethics.</p>
<p>But the point is this. Again, I'm not defending the adcoms, but you aren't going to change their outlook by arguing with them. And I would say that HBS and Stanford would indeed be reaches precisely because of what you do for a living. Right or wrong, adcoms, especially at the elite B-schools, just don't like the whole industry that caters to effectively helping people get into B-school.</p>