Posted by - icefrog - on 7 September 2015 - 9:16pm

• Posted by - icefrog - on 9 September 2015 - 11:04am

  Hi!
  Thank you for the very detailed reply. It is very helpful. I think you make a very valid point that nobody can give you better advise than people from the target school themselves. I will get in contact with all the schools and do the required research before starting the application process.

  All the schools I am applying to require the GMAT. And while my score is decent, I really think that I can improve on my score. I can get it to 750+. And I am also trying to land an internship in E&Y. Would these additions to my profile make it significantly stronger?

  Reply

  • Posted by - Thomas Graf - on 9 September 2015 - 4:01pm

    Hi there,

    I cannot tell you that this would make your profile "significantly" stronger. But it would make it stronger, for sure.

    Best wishes
    Thomas

    By Thomas Graf
    Director MIM Compass
    Author of the MIM eBook

    Reply

• Posted by - Thomas Graf - on 8 September 2015 - 1:13pm

  Hi there,

  thank you for your message. I glad that my MIM eBook helped you.

  If you have worked through Chapter 1 "MOTIVATION", you should have a clear understanding now of why you plan to do a postgraduate degree in business. With "worked" through I mean that you should have read the chapter and thought about it and your career goals for at least one day.

  If you have worked through Chapter 2 "SPECIFICATION", you should have created a target profile of what your ideal Master should look like.

  Chapter 3 "INVESTIGATE" finally provides you with the tools how you can identify programs that fulfill your requirements.

  I am not sure how you came to the specific list of schols that you mention - but I assume (hope) that it is the result of a thorough reflection of your goals and analysis of the programs. This is not something that can be done in a day or two but requires deep and intense research work.

  Consequently, many of your questions must be researched and answered by yourself. A key recommendation of my MIM eBook is to get in contact with the schools (after working through their websites and the content presented there). If you carefully read Chapter 3 INVESTIGATE / ANALYZE PROGRAMS you see several helpful ideas who to contact (admissions people, but also students and alumni). These are important sources how you get specific info on the respective program. I cannot do this for you (I mean I could but it's not my job). You have to do it yourself. It's tedious but worth it, given that you increase the chances of being satisfied later on.

  What are my chances at these schools?
  Which programs are easier to get into?

  There is no general answer here. As mentioned in the chapter RESOURCES, grades are very important at some selective schools. such as LBS or HEC. In fact, the more selective schols are the more you compete with people with great grades. So, if your grade is not good as you say you clearly have a disadvantage. As for the US schools, with Kellogg, Yale, and Harvard you target the most renowned schools in the world. To find out if you still have a chance to get in (given your strong records of business activity in your CV) you must (1) read carefully the entzry requirements pages of the respective programs and (2) contact the schools (following my eBook recommendation and talk to different sort of people (as mentioned in my Sub-Chapter "TALK TO" ).

  Next, try to find out how many people form your country are in the respective program and try to get in contact with them (e.g., via email or Skype) so that you can interview them.

  My eBook also dedicates a full chapter to the GMAT. 720 should be fine to fulfill the requirements at these schools mentioned above. But you also see the graphic in my eBook about school that require the GMAT, schools that do not require the GMAt and schools that require the GMAT and offer alternatives at the same time. Have you read this?

  Finally, I will publish a new eBook on Entry Requirements for the MIM where I interviewed 54 schools worldwide (including HEC and LBS). You may want to read it carefully.

  You mentioned Master in Marketing, Master in innovation management and Master in entrepreneurship in the book. I am interested in these but I don't see any top college offering these courses to a recent graduate. Please let me know if there are any colleges that offer these courses to recent graduates.

  Well, that depends on what you mean with "top colleges". Have you checked the Masters of Europe's number 3 business school IE in Madrid already? The school was number 1 in the Financial Times Ranking of best European Business Schools last year.

  Read my Master in Marketing article already?

  Basically, you can go through the Financial Times MIM Ranking top down and check for each school whether they offer Masters in Marketing, Innovation or Entrepreneurship - and you will find a lot.

  In your book, you mentioned that if somebody is not sure as to what he wants to do specifically, he should take a general management degree. But several people tell me that I need to be very specific about my career goals when I apply even for general management.

  One thing is the career goals, another thing is the program content. Ideally, you are clear about your career goal - e.g., you want to go into consulting or you want to become a marketing expert. The question then is what sort of Master helps you more to achieve this goal. In the case of consulting, a general management master may be better suited than a specific one. Also, you may simply lack a specific interest and instead prefer a global approach. In these cases, a general management masters may be a good option. Conversely, if you know that you want to be a finance expert then a general master does not make sense.

  I am interested in Marketing and entrepreneurship but when I see employment reports, they have specific categories for consulting and banking but no category for marketing. Like in the screenshot I have attached from your book, when they say consumer and luxury goods, what do they mean? What exactly are they doing there? What are different marketing roles? I need to know this because all B schools expect me to be very specific in my essays and I don't really know what different jobs are present and what the expectations from those jobs are.

  It is true that in our Global MIM Survey - that's what the grafic refers to - we did not ask for "Marketing" since this is very broad and general. The survey does not provide you with deeper info than the one mentioned. But here again my MIM eBook comes into play - and your effort to investigate the required information. You need to find out for each of your target programs where the graduates end up - and my Chapter INVESTIGATION (and specifically SOURCES OF INFORMATION and ANALYZE) provides you with the tools for that.

  Best wishes
  Thomas

  By Thomas Graf
  Director MIM Compass
  Author of the MIM eBook

  Reply