Hey guys. So I applied to 5 business schools for round 2 admissions and have so far gotten 2 rejections with 3 still left to go. I’m pretty devastated since those 2 were schools that I badly wanted to go to. I’m wondering if the career goals I discussed in my essays were unrealistic, which led to my rejections. I currently work for a small hedge fund, where i do research for a quant desk that trades equity pairs. In a nutshell, I said that my short-term goal was to do equity research at a major U.S. investment management firm and in the long-term, become a portfolio manager at a sovereign wealth fund in East Asia. Given that i don’t have previous experience in this field, and I don’t have a CFA, do you guys think the admissions officers saw my career goals as simply not viable, even with an MBA from a top program? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. If I don’t get in anywhere, I most likely won’t apply again, given my age. I just want to hear people’s thoughts on this. Thanks.
Too many factors play into process. Hard to gauge whether its your essay but if all else is lined up, it may very well be. Reapply with a more “realistic” goal and you can always do what you really want when accepted.
did you relate your career interests to their program’s characteristics?
What kind of top programs are we talking about? If you were rejected from HBS and Booth don’t beat yourself up.
yea there are far too many things at play here to determine if it was your essay. Someone told me that because of the recession and the horrible job finance job market, HBS saw their usual 9% acceptance go down to like 5-6%
Going from a hedge fund to a equity research is among the most modest career changes that an admissions team sees. Tons of applicants are admitted with aspirations along the lines of Peace Corps --> Consulting, or Military --> Investment banking. Far more likely, you were rejected based on the major characteristics that schools consider in the admissions process: * GMAT Score * Resume/Work Experience * Race/Gender/Age * Essays * Interviews * Recommendations * Undergraduate Major & Grades
iteracom Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > yea there are far too many things at play here to > determine if it was your essay. > > Someone told me that because of the recession and > the horrible job finance job market, HBS saw their > usual 9% acceptance go down to like 5-6% Not to be nitpicky, but HBS acceptance rate is around 11-12%. It’s definitely not gonna go down to 5-6%. My guess is this year will be around 10%.
ksc1940 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > iteracom Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- apps have doubled since the recession - acceptance has to get cut in half.
Chuckrox8 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If I was rejected by Booth, I would beat myself up. “badum tsh!”
I got rejected by HBS the other day. I felt bad for about 10 minutes and then I laughed at myself for ever beliveing I had a chance. I did however get interview invites to the three other schools I applied to (All top 10). Just stay optimistic and im sure something will work out.
I personally think essays are the least important part of admissions unless you put in something really wild that would simply make everybody’s jaw drop just from reading it.
It’s hard to know whether the essays were the culprit without seeing your actual essays, and without knowing what the rest of your candidate profile or recommendations looked like. If you think that people on this forum (or anywhere for that matter) can answer this question for you without knowing this information, then I might assume that you did not demonstrate enough depth in reasoning when writing your essays. Your essays should show a great deal of self-awareness and introspection, as well as how you feel like you’ve demonstrated the qualities that business school student bodies would appreciate including leadership, collaboration, creativity, and so forth. If you only talked about your desire to get into equity research without discussing your interpersonal skills and more “business-minded” attributes, then chances are you did not position yourself in the optimal way when writing business school applications. The one major disadvantage you have coming from finance is that people from finance are often regarded as being autonomous, independent, etc. and not great team members, and if you didn’t do much to really highlight these traits, then that could be a reason your applications were not successful. Other possible reasons would include general competition from other more compelling candidates, your resume, academic background, recommendations, test scores, etc…where should I start??? How does one know? Hope you understand now the vagueness of the question you’ve asked, but also appreciate my response as a “best attempt” given lack of information
Contrary to what MCalamari mentioned, I think essays are tremendously important especially if you are a “typical” candidate that the business schools see. If you’re a superstar (i.e. top undergrad, top banking job, then private equity at Blackstone/TPG/KKR, etc.) then you can probably write mediocre essays and still get into HBS. But if you’re just a more “standard” candidate at a top school – say, someone that did Big 3 consulting or worked in investment banking, equity research, and private equity at big banks, then essays do make a difference because they can help provide some color against the rest of your competition. I often find that people tend to give themselves a lot more credit for self-awareness than they really deserve – i.e. they overestimate their capabilities and underestimate their competition – and this lack of maturity and professional experience *does* show through in essays. Perhaps one might think it’s a big deal that some guy did two years of banking followed by two years of private equity, or that someone worked at McKinsey or Bain followed by two years of product management at Procter and Gamble or something like that…but seriously, there are way more people like that than business schools have spots. I’m not even joking. As someone that has never worked in strategy consulting before, there are times when I thought all these McKinsey guys in my cohort or whatever have some serious leg up on me – after all you hear so many McKinsey guys hailing from the ranks of HBS, Stanford, Kellogg, Wharton, etc. – but like everyone else, they have their strengths and weaknesses, are here to learn, their sh!t stinks like the rest of ours, and frankly everyone brings different strengths to the table so I feel like I’m on a level playing field with these guys at least in areas that matter most to me. But my whole point is that business schools can’t take every guy from Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or BCG, so it stands to reason that things like essays and recommendations and just pure luck really do make a difference at the margin. How do I know – because I’m at a top b-school now and went through a grueling application process last year, and also have provided coaching to 20+ business school applicants so I have seen a range of successful essays and others that were not as successful
Answering your questions - your goals are fine. You even don’t change industry. For admission committee finance is one industry. As long as you are specific enough, they think you know what you are talking about. An example of unrealistic goal is “investment banking”, too general. Don’t worry about CFA, the admission officers truly don’t care much about it. They heard something about it, that’s it. Unless there is someone in the admission office who has a CFA charter. How likely is that?