Candidate Profile:
  • Undergraduate degree in Music from USC
  • GMAT: 780/800
  • Work experience in startups and education
  • Target schools: Primary: Univ. of Texas, Reach: Penn, NYU and USC/UCLA, Safety: Rice, University of Houston, Tulane
  • Demographic profile: American, male, 25-30
  • Post-MBA career: Entrepreneuship
Would also like to emphasize: "I've traveled a lot of the world, and would like to emphasize a global perspective if possible".

Looking for: A well-rounded business school, with an international presence, and ideally with opportunities to study or work abroad.

Why MBA:
1. Gain analytical and leadership skills to make myself generally valuable
2. Have the opportunity/option to go through a strong recruiting process
3. Have the ability to start, or help to start, a business

Evaluation:

Background:
Your background is definitely unusual, which makes it more interesting to bring out the relevant experiences that showcase the attributes that MBA programs traditionally look for. Since you have a non-traditional background, this might be more challenging than for those who have worked in a more conventional work structure.

One way My MBA Admit does this with clients is to discuss and choose the experiences that best explain a client's work history and the learnings he obtained from it. We then cross-reference these with the attributes that your top MBA program looks for. By the end of the first discussion, we have a rough draft of the experiences that a client will include in his application essays, as well as the angle that he will use to discuss them. There is no such thing as weak background, there are only weak ways to write about them in your essays.

Why MBA reasons:

Although your bullet points demonstrate that you have certainly thought about why you are getting a MBA, in my experience, the more specific my clients are on their life goals, the greater scope there is to set themselves apart from competing candidates.

There is no harm in being specific, rather than general. For example, what would you like to go through a recruiting process for? The recruiting process for investment banking is very different than investment management. Also, if your eventual dream is to be an entrepreneur, how will you use the business school experience and first job post-MBA to achieve that dream?

List of Schools:

I always advise my clients to apply to 6 schools - 3 top (reach), 2 sure shot (target) and 1 safety. Your list of schools is good in its diversity. If you haven't spoken to alumni/made personal visits, etc. now would be a great time to do it. Again, the more specific you can get on your reasons for wanting to attend a particular school, the higher your chances of standing out from the crowd.

International Experience:
Your international experience can be leveraged in different ways - one, to show your fit for a program that is specifically looking for candidates with an international perspective, or two, to display your diversity to a program that may not have as many people with a similar profile applying. Smaller schools are a better fit for the latter than schools with a large class/international population. If one of the reasons that you are applying to the school is its Study Abroad options, make sure to mention that in your application.

Summary:
Strengths: Diverse profile, high GMAT, good undergraduate program
Opportunities: Greater focus on reasons Why an MBA, and more emphasis on repositioning past work experience for greater relevant to a business school AdCom