Hi everyone, I've been reading through some of the past entries tonight, and it's making me really nervous about applying to grad school
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To be honest, I don't really know, I figured that I won't be able to get to the top ten schools with that kind of gpa, but I was hoping to get in to places like UofMichigan, Indiana Uni, University of Washington, etc.
I'll be honest, I don't think you are getting into either IU or UM business schools with those grades though your GMAT is damned good and they may make an exception for it. Do you have any undergrad research to tip the scales?
Undergraduate research isn't going to be a big boost at MBA programs. They're going to care more about demonstrated leadership ability through things like extracurriculars (both during and after college). And I agree, those schools are longshots.
What factors contributed to the overall low GPA - other than the study abroad? Or was the study abroad the only condition? Sometimes you can explain such things properly in a SOP. I know someone who got into Brown phd program with a 2.3 GPA (not for business, but for asuper competitive field) - so sometimes its not necessarily the Gpa (especially since your gre scores are so fantastic).
My advice, if you DO want to try and get in to top tier schools, is to select a couple from each level. If you decide to apply to 12 schools, you can do 3 top, 5 middle, 4 bottom - etc.
Basically it was a combination of things, the study abroad definitely dropped my grade a lot (it was a pretty bad year for me, depression and whatnot), and if you look on my transcripts, all the classes I took senior and junior year were 400 level classes in Econ and CS, I didn't take any of the easy A classes, which I'm kind of regretting right now.
How would you decide which school is top, medium, or bottom though? I've been looking at the ranking of business schools, and I'm thinking of applying to some schools between 10-35, would those be considered the medium tiered schools?
Tiers are kind of arbitrary lines. Unless there's a notable fall off between two schools, which in business hits around schools 25 and 100 (the 10% line), there aren't major differences between many of them beyond name recognition of the school. The top 10 in a field are usually great, but getting an advanced degree from any of the top 25 is generally solid and that includes both public and private universities.
Your GMAT is top 10/25 material. Your grades don't cut it for the top 10% (100) in a business schools. You're looking at conditional enrollment probably.
(BTW I forgot to mention but in most rankings UM is top 10-15, and IU is top 20-25).
MBA programs often prefer for students to have work experience before enrolling, I've heard. You might consider working for a year or two then applying if you want to get into top MBA programs.
I don't know what MS programs in Finance are specifically looking for.
People with sub 3.0 GPAs do get into grad school, sometimes at higher ranked schools than you might expect. Your test scores will probably help.
Also, it might be a good idea to take some grad-level classes now and ace them, so that you can show your commitment, etc.
In your SoP, when you get to it, I wouldn't use "They were high level courses" as an excuse for your low GPA, as they will expect that you can handle high level courses and stating that will probably work against you.
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My advice, if you DO want to try and get in to top tier schools, is to select a couple from each level. If you decide to apply to 12 schools, you can do 3 top, 5 middle, 4 bottom - etc.
Reply
How would you decide which school is top, medium, or bottom though? I've been looking at the ranking of business schools, and I'm thinking of applying to some schools between 10-35, would those be considered the medium tiered schools?
Reply
Your GMAT is top 10/25 material. Your grades don't cut it for the top 10% (100) in a business schools. You're looking at conditional enrollment probably.
(BTW I forgot to mention but in most rankings UM is top 10-15, and IU is top 20-25).
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I don't know what MS programs in Finance are specifically looking for.
People with sub 3.0 GPAs do get into grad school, sometimes at higher ranked schools than you might expect. Your test scores will probably help.
What was your major GPA?
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Also, it might be a good idea to take some grad-level classes now and ace them, so that you can show your commitment, etc.
In your SoP, when you get to it, I wouldn't use "They were high level courses" as an excuse for your low GPA, as they will expect that you can handle high level courses and stating that will probably work against you.
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