Carnegie Mellon / Tepper - 08-08-2025

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August 8, 2025 11:01am ET

Applying: Carnegie Mellon / Tepper, Duke / Fuqua, Emory / Goizueta, Georgetown / McDonough, Michigan / Ross, Rice / Jones, Temple / Fox, UT Austin / McCombs, UT Dallas, UVA / Darden, Vanderbilt / Owen, Wisconsin

Intake Year: 2026

Pre-MBA Career: Merchant Mariner, Engineering Manager

Post-MBA Target Industry: Investment Banking, Asset Management, inc. HF Companies: JP Morgan Chase , Wells Fargo Securities , Capital One , Fidelity , JP Morgan Asset Management , Vanguard

GRE: 318

GPA: 2.7

Years of Work Experience: 8

Location: Northeast

Post MBA Location: Texas, New York, Washington, Georgia

Notes:

I graduated with a super low undergraduate GPA in Engineering, and I know I’ll need to address this directly in my applications.

Before becoming a merchant mariner, I worked as a Data Analyst for two years.

I also founded a SaaS app and bootstrapped it to $3K/month in MRR as a solo founder. Building and running this business exposed me to fields I had no prior experience in and helped me discover what I truly enjoy doing. Through an MBA, I want to sharpen my ability to identify operational inefficiencies and help businesses unlock their full potential.

My top schools are UVA Darden and Duke—Duke is a stretch, but my test scores are only slightly below their average. I’ve also added Wisconsin and SMU Cox for their strong potential to offer substantial merit aid.

Like (1)

Show Comments (8) Last: August 11, 2025

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1831 Do you think there’s any scope to improve the GRE score? If so, it might help. Also, have you completed any additional coursework, or MBA Math, or similar? It will be important to do what you can to mitigate the low GPA.

Was your startup a part-time opportunity, while you were an engineering manager? Just trying to understand your career pathway. Showing impact and growth, through work, will be very important, supported by strong recommendations.

Any other hobbies, and activities?

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jerseyike Likes Earned: 10 My work history has been kind of all over the place. I started as an Engineering Manager in 2017 right out of college, left that role to move back to my home state, and then was an Engineer for a Telecom company. COVID came, facility shut down. Moved on to become a DA starting as Junior, moved to Senior then company was acquired, again laid off. Then became a Merchant Mariner which I moved from an OS to AB which I currently do. I am also a male POC. I started the business while working as a Senior DA at the media company part-time. My GRE score was my 3rd attempt. 1 GMAT, 2 GRE. I think it's the highest score I can reasonably get right now. (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1831 If you think your GRE is maxed out, it may make sense to complete some additional coursework, to help mitigate the low GPA. You will also need to make good sense of your career to date, to connect to “why mba” and your post MBA goals. (0)

aasante63 Likes Earned: 16 Hi Alex, any recommendations on the additional coursework one may want to complete to make up in such cases? Does Clear Admit have any article on it as well? (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1831 Yes, here you go: https://www.clearadmit.com/mba-admissions-tips/additional-coursework-before-applying-for-an-mba/ (1)

aasante63 Likes Earned: 16 Thank you very much (0)

jerseyike Likes Earned: 10 I've gone ahead and registered for MBA Math and will complete before the end of August. Thank you for the guidance. I also have the captain of my ship writing my letter of recommendation. (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1831 Best of luck! (0)