Columbia - 08-21-2024 | Clear Admit ApplyWire

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August 21, 2024 7:37pm ET

Applying: Columbia Business School, Dartmouth / Tuck, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Penn / Wharton, Yale SOM

Intake Year: 2026

Pre-MBA Career: Accounting (1 year Audit, 1 year Advisory, 1 year Corporate Finance)

Post MBA Career: Investment Banking, Private Equity Companies: Bank of America , Credit Suisse , Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley , Bain Capital , Other

GMAT: 720

GPA: 3.97

Years of Work Experience: 4

Location: Boston, Ma

Post MBA Location: Boston or New York

Notes:

Received an undergraduate degree in Accounting followed by a Masters in accounting (3.9 GPA). Worked for 1 year at Deloitte in Audit, 1 year for PwC in Advisory, and currently working as a financial controller at a start-up in the health and wellness industry. During my time at my current role we have scaled our brick and mortar locations from 2 to 4 and increased revenue ~150% from when I started. I have also been pursing a masters in Finance part time while in my current role. I am looking to apply for an MBA to transition out of my Accounting focused role into buy-side finance, but expect to pursue IB first out of MBA. Eventually my goal is to end up working with a buy-side firm focused in the wellness/hospitality space.

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Show Comments (7) Last: April 22, 2025

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1883 Are you planning to complete your masters in finance? With potentially two masters degrees already, you might need to explain why an MBA now makes sense?

Showing impact and growth at work is very important, backed up by strong recs. Are you also involved in activities outside of work? Any additional hobbies and interests? I assume you masters programs have taken up much of your extra time?

As a gateway to investment banking, Johnson and Stern should be explored, too.

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jbstanfield Likes Earned: 2 Yes, the masters will be complete in the Spring of 2025. For me, the goal of pursuing an MBA is centered around organizational leadership and decision making; pursuing a skill set to best utilize the technical skills from the previous masters. I agree strong recs will be crucial, especially since I have changed jobs twice. The masters program has certainly taken up a good amount of time outside of work, through it I have done some Volunteer consulting and will be working on international consulting project in the spring. Outside of that my current extracurriculars are minimal. Do you think focus on extra curricular activities should be the primary focus between now and the time of application? (1)

jbstanfield Likes Earned: 2 One other question - do you think it will be worthwhile to consider applying this cycle (probably round 2 due to the timing) or to wait until Round 1 for next year? (1)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1883 Yes, focusing on volunteer activities, in areas about which you’re passionate, probably has most impact.

If you can get a couple of apps prepared this season, why not? There’s really no downside, other than your effort and cost. Upside is you may start your MBA a year sooner. But if you’re not successful, you’ll learn some things that can improve your approach next season. Reapplicant admit rates are generally a little higher than first time applicants, for a variety of reasons.

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jbstanfield Likes Earned: 2 Hi Alex, Posting an update to the above. I recently took the GMAT FE and scored 665 roughly the same percentile as 720 from when I had previously taken the exam. Overall the score is more balanced than before (V: 84, Q:83, DI:82) compared to (V: 40, Q: 49, AWA: 6, IR: 8). With this in mind I may be looking to add Stanford GSB to my list of targets and I am curious your thoughts on sending scores. Is there value in sending both scores to Stanford for the purposes of showing high AWA score and consistency in scoring in the 720 range, or would school not consider multiple ~720's differently from one? (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1883 I don’t see there is any harm/downside in sending the multiple scores, and they do show consistency and commitment to the process. (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1883 More details on this candidacy in this episode of Wire Taps: https://www.clearadmit.com/2025/04/mba-wire-taps-420/ (0)