The Leading Independent
Resource for Top-tier MBA
Candidates
<< Back to ApplyWire
13
March 6, 2026 6:09am ET
Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Carnegie Mellon / Tepper, Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, Dartmouth / Tuck, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Northwestern / Kellogg, NYU Stern, Penn / Wharton, Stanford GSB, UVA / Darden, Yale SOM
Intake Year: 2027
Pre-MBA Career: Cybersecurity
Post MBA Career: Management Consulting
GPA: 3.6
Years of Work Experience: 5
Notes:

I’ve been in the cybersecurity space for about 5 years starting at a global Fortune 100 insurance firm before moving to my current org in the critical infrastructure sector. Currently a senior in incident response, I started as an intern. While the role is technical, my focus is on the strategic orchestration of response. Think stakeholder engagement, legal/PR/C-suite coordination, regulatory reporting, compliance, risk.

Outside of work I’m on the board of a non profit(not cybersecurity based), serving as the director of strategy and program development. I also volunteer to do pro-bono cyber consulting for NGOs, focusing more on the governance, planning, and strategic posture but also on other aspects of cybersecurity.

My academic path was non trad: BS cybersecurity from competency based program (pass/fail) then MS cybersecurity from NYU (3.6) working full time through both. Have a number of cyber related certifications, technical and non technical. Became more interested in an MBA last year.

Post-MBA, I’d like to transition into digital strategy consulting(MBB) and eventually move into private equity portfolio operations (focusing on tech strategy and value creation rather than the investment side). Given my professional and academic background which programs should I look into? Selected a few but don’t want to get ahead of myself. I’m in test prep right now for the GRE, targeting 325+.