Columbia - 03-21-2020 | Clear Admit ApplyWire

March 21, 2020 2:24pm ET

Applying: Columbia, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Northwestern / Kellogg, Stanford GSB, U. Chicago Booth, UPenn / Wharton

Intake Year: 2023

Pre-MBA Career: Entrepreneurship, impact investing

Post-MBA Target Industry: Non Profit/SI

GMAT: 740

GPA: 4

Location: Arkansas

Notes:

Undergraduate at state school, getting a degree in engineering. Working in finance at major retailer to gain business strategy experience before B-school. Want to use MBA to transition into social impact space to rethink consumer package goods. Applying to HBS 2+2 and other deferred admin programs.

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Show Comments (8) Last: March 31, 2020

kheavnieny Likes Earned: 14 **Correction - Pre-MBA Career: Retail (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1576 So you are a current undergrad, your retail experience is through internships? Numbers are great, well done. Are you a leader, on campus. What activities are you involved with? What do you plan to do, prior to enrolling in your MBA? How does that tie with your post MBA goals? (1)

kheavnieny Likes Earned: 14 Hey Alex! Thanks for the reply! Yes! My internship experience is in corporate finance at a major retailer. I serve in several leadership roles on campus including president of engineering honors society and VP of a major volunteer organization (think 1500+ volunteers, $100,000+ budget, etc). I am going into a corporate finance rotational program at the same retailer after undergrad. There I am hoping to learn how to use business to do good on a global scale for four years. Next, the ideas is to marry this experience with a social impact major at a M7 b-school. After that, I would hope to be a social entrepreneur. Do you think this is cohesive? Do you have any advice for how I should frame my story? Do you think I have a shot at HBS, SGSB, or Wharton? (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1576 Nice. It sounds like you've had good impact during your undergrad, while maintaining a high GPA, two very important criteria. State school versus Ivy type school could go either way, shows some diversity, in the least, I should think. Assume you've done well in your internships, hopefully backed up by your supervisor. Your plans sound reasonable, reasonably cohesive, I assume there are reasons for your interest in being a social entrepreneur. If you have specific ideas in that regard, all the better. (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1576 More details on this candidacy in this episode of Wire Taps: https://www.clearadmit.com/2020/03/episode-93-wire-taps-targeting-deferred-admissions-programs/ (1)

anon13691 Likes Earned: 14 Alex, thank you so much for your insightful feedback on the podcast! You mentioned something I have been thinking about a lot... As I write applications, I am struggling to know how detailed my career plan needs to be. You mentioned on the podcast that I would be critical to tell a cohesive story and tie together engineering, retail, finance, and social enterprise. On one hand, I've found successful personal statements online that were fairly vague about the applicant's intended career plans. On the other hand, deferred admissions committee, having far fewer data points, might be looking for applicants who can outline a very specific career path. I was hoping I could run my story by you and see if you thought it was at a good level or if I should be more specific. First, I detail childhood stories for why the natural world is meaningful to me. I then talk about how two influences in my life taught me about the power of business to do good and the power of leadership to make a big impact. Next, I tie my campus involvement, degree choice, and finance rotational program to learning how to use business and leadership to make an impact in the natural world. Lastly, I specifically mention consumer packaged goods being the threat to the natural world that I want to address. I don't say specifically how I want to do this other than to use what I have learned from my experiences + MBA education to launch a social enterprise addressing CPGs. Do you think that is specific enough, or should I dive in deeper? Is there another approach you would recommend? (0)

kheavnieny Likes Earned: 14 ^^^This question was from the original poster btw (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1576 Do you have a strong rationale re CPG being the threat? If that aspect is well thought through, then I could see this being a well thought out plan. (0)