Is B School for Me..says the "Poet"

Graduate School Business School - MBA
1

<p>I have come to a crossroads in my life where I know I want to go to graduate school. I am not going for prestige or lack of options, but to get the mentorship and education I need to take my career to the next level.</p>

<p>I have been out of college since 2004 and my professional experience is in Marketing, Sales, Nonprofits, and Entrepreneurship. I am 25 and I have founded my own LLC (Sapna</a> Magazine Online - HOME) and have been managing it successfully for the last 4 years, along with working full time in the nonprofit field. </p>

<p>I was reading an interview with the Admissions Director of Carnegie Mellon's business school...and she said the following:</p>

<hr>

<p>Question: What are the specific characteristics that you target in the applications to help you identify the "best fit" candidates?</p>

<p>Admissions: There are four areas we think about when we evaluate all the components of the application. The first is the potential for success academically in our MBA program. We look at their past academic experiences and test scores. One thing that underlies our review is potential for the quantitative or analytical education we offer. </p>

<hr>

<p>The part that sticks out to me the most is...</p>

<p>"potential for the quantitative or analytical education"</p>

<p>My leadership skills, my ability to organize teams and projects, in businesses that I enjoy such as PR, Entertainment, Publishing, Self Help/Lifestyle, Nonprofit is immense. But I am very aware that business school seems to be very Finance, Management, and Manufacturing driven. </p>

<p>If I am surrounded my number crunchers, will I gain anything from them? Will they gain anything from me? Are business skills only looking for quantitative people that they can groom into leaders? Or are they looking for leaders that they can groom into quantitative people?</p>

<p>Am I the right fit for Business school?</p>

2

<p>That's only 1/4 of the criteria. Business is not going to be all about studying(deductive reasoning). There's probably myriads of similar thinking people enrolled. Plus, as you climb the ladder of advancement, you're going to encounter difficult problems that need to be studied under quantitative analysis and that cannot be guesstimatedly solved.</p>

3

<p>
[quote]
If I am surrounded my number crunchers, will I gain anything from them? Will they gain anything from me?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Absolutely. Hopefully, you will use your time at business school to become more well rounded. Given all of your other skills, if you could gain the quantitative skills, that would make you a very attractive job candidate (even for non-quantitative jobs).</p>

<p>Given your experience, I'm sure you could bring a lot to the table both in class room discussions (which are most interactive in the less quantitative classes...ie Marketing, Strategy), the case assignments, and case competitions ( your leadership skills could serve you well for these latter two).</p>

<p>
[quote]
Are business skills only looking for quantitative people that they can groom into leaders? Or are they looking for leaders that they can groom into quantitative people?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Both. Just because you don't come from a quantitative background doesn't mean that you can't become quantitative (and an attractive candidate for quant jobs like IB). </p>

<p>However, that's not to say that you will enjoy the quant or be particularly good at it. If either of those are the case, you can go into a less quantitative area, but the quantitative skills you have gained will still be invaluable (even if you aren't a "numbers guy").</p>

<p>BTW, some employers (even top employers) put less weight on quant skills than others. For instance, top consulting companies like McKinsey will put much more emphasis on the way the candidate carries him/herself and how they deal with pressure than how well they crunch numbers. (of course, to get an interview you will generally need top grades, which will mean that you have gained quant skills, but there will be far better quant guys who can't even land an interview with them).</p>

<p>BTW, very few interviews for summer internships will ask you technical quant questions...even in the area of finance.</p>

4

<p>
[quote]
top consulting companies like McKinsey will put much more emphasis on the way the candidate carries him/herself and how they deal with pressure than how well they crunch numbers

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Vector, from my understanding the invterview process in consulting is VERY tough. They throw practice cases at you to work out, ask random, difficult math problems and whatnot. Don't you need to be able to crunch numbers in these situations just to make it out of the interview alive?</p>

5

<p>The interviewing process is very tough. However, case interviews are primarily used to judge a candidate's analytical skills, strategic thought process, organizational/structural skills, interpersonal/communication skills, and working style. </p>

<p>They are generally not used to judge a candidates quant skills. Students with top grades (or students at top schools that don't release grades) will have already gained the quant skills necessary in business school. There is some fairly simple math involved in case interviews (and the need to know population stats etc to determine things like market sizes) but I don't believe anyone is going to ask you to create a DCF or compare financial statements or anything like that.</p>

6

<p>Okay. That makes sense.</p>