Berkeley / Haas - 12-08-2022 | Clear Admit ApplyWire

December 8, 2022 6:59pm ET

Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Cornell / Johnson, Dartmouth / Tuck, Duke / Fuqua, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Stanford GSB, UCLA Anderson, UPenn / Wharton, UVA / Darden, Yale SOM

Intake Year: 2023

Pre-MBA Career: United States Army Officer

Post-MBA Target Industry: Consulting, Technology, Entrepreneurship Companies: BCG , McKinsey , Facebook , Google , Microsoft , Tesla , Uber

GRE: 312

GPA: 2.7

Years of Work Experience: 5

Location: United States

Post MBA Location: California

Notes:

I wanted to get some assistance an overview of my profile because my circumstances have been unfortunate yet I do have a story to tell that shocks many. Maybe it assists in the application:

Born: third world country and survived and escaped a genocide and come to America.

Hardships: genocide and getting blown by Al Qaeda before even joining the US military

Undergrad: Service Academy
GPA: 2.7 took a hit when my sister passed away (she was the only one with me during the genocide, dad was killed, mom was taken hostage)

Underrepresented minority.
Currently 5 different jobs in the military for 5-6 years. Rated #1 across 4 and #2 for one of them. LORs will be exceptional.

GRE: Terrible score and then a better but still terrible. Family member in the hospital in and out for 2 months cut off my studying prior to taking the test. Result: 157Q/155V

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Show Comments (8) Last: February 3, 2023

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1580 Your military experience should help elevate your candidacy. Make sure you reach out to the veterans’ clubs of the programs you apply. Your life experience sounds awful, but it shows you have come far, and had to overcome a lot. That will also play out positively in admissions. However the combo of 2.7/312 is going to be very challenging. I’d at least look at completing MBA Math or HBS CORe, and plan another retake of the GRE, if you can. Even if the latter is after the round 2 deadlines. Are you targeting round 2? (0)

kiriyamaa Likes Earned: 47 Yes I’m targeting round 2. I may have some time to squeeze in another GRE but it’ll be borderline. I’ve reached out to all the veterans clubs for several months now so that’s working for me at least. The 2.7 definitely sucks I don’t know if they look at major specific/STEM classes because that’s where majority of my Bs and only As come from. It’s those history, English, humanities, writing (despite my 5 on the GRE AW) that brought me down. (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1580 They will look at the transcript, but the overall GPA will still matter. If you can nudge up the GRE, that will have impact. I’d still look at doing MBA Math, too. (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1580 More details on this candidacy in this episode of Wire Taps: https://www.clearadmit.com/2022/12/mba-wire-taps-266/ (0)

kiriyamaa Likes Earned: 47 Update: Completed MBA Math to supplement application. Wrote solid essays. Dinged: Harvard Interview Invites: Cornell Johnson, Dartmouth Tuck Waiting on the rest of the results. Hopefully more! (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1580 Best of luck with your Johnson interview! (1)

kiriyamaa Likes Earned: 47 Thank you! Completed Tuck interview this week. Doing Johnson next week Invited to Duke and waiting for their follow-on email. Thanks for all the past advice ! (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1580 Nice to see Duke invite, too! (1)