[求助]申请哪家, Duke, Cornell, Michigan or NYU, 求大家帮忙给意见

刚跟Application consultant聊完, 感觉很frustrated. 他觉得我申请Wharton, Columbia很难, 建议我申请十名左右的B-school. The list he recommended is : Duke, Cornell, Michigan, NYU. In order to have better chances to get in Wharton and Columbia, he ask me to retake GMAT, find a better job and apply for 2006 to catch the first round. I don't want to waste another year so i really want to give a shoot at one of the school this year by the second deadline. I'm running out of time and i really need to focus on just one or two. 如果我要从他的List 中选一个, 请问大家觉得哪个好? Duke, Cornell, Michigan Or NYU. My goal is to be an I-Banker, M&A analyst then a venture capitalist.

我的情况: GMAT: 710, Age:32, 3 years project manger, team lead in a US IT firm in china. 5 years programmer in europe and canada. CFA Level III candidate.

希望大家给我一个意见, 万分感激

这个,你自己来定吧.大家说了都不算.都要读MBA,这些事情该搞的定了.

问问你自己喜欢什么,再问问你对各个学校的了解程度,哪个对你将来

的发展更有利. 然后你就有答案了.不要以为学校问的why MBA, why our

school 是白问的. 在你自己思考的过程中,就有了答案了.

你那个application consultant是bullshit!

1. your GMAT is already good. just find the case of a columbia admit here, also just 710 GMAT, 2.7 GPA, his listening in Toefl is just 55!

2.to find a good new job?--suppose you can spend efforts to find one, maybe that will be several months later.  if you apply for entering class 2006, you will have just 5-6 months experience in ur new job. do u think you would have good examples to convince the adcom at your new job? in fact, in our common sense, if you start in a new job, it will be very busy. how can u spend efforts on ur application then?

3.also the recommended list is misleading. in fact, the higher ranking a school is, the less attention it will pay to ur GMAT. GMAT just has two uses to b-school:1)prove your ability not to fail in ur first year.--but do you think a person with 710 would have more chance to fail than another guy with 730 or 740? adcom is not fool, they know that more clearly than u and me. 2)to raise the average score of GMAT of the entering class so as to lift their ranking in bw or usnews.--do u think Wharton, HBS, or Stanford need to do this way to lift their ranking? these schools even don't provide sufficient data to bw although this action may result in a bad ranking. actually, Duke, Cornell may put more focus on ur GMAT. in term of this, Michigan would not care about ur GMAT. it is good on ur list. but not sure about NYU. so at least, their recommended list is partly wrong.

4.the biggest problem of the recommended list is the agency doesn't care about u, and they just care about their success rate. from ur background, CFA and the schools u want to apply--wharton, columbia, i bet u want to do finance job in the wallstreet after MBA. because ur past experience is not in this field although u have passed CFA, u need a strong finance program to increase ur chance. then duke and cornell are not good choice. even michigan can't help u too much. NYU is good.

so what u need to do is fire this agency if u can and try ur luck at any school u wish to attend. but i still advise u to delay to next yr because it is really hard for u to complete ur package before r2, but it is even harder to get accepted in r3 for Chinese.

You are almost late for every school on the list. If you want to get into Michigan, you need to finish your interveiw before the deadline, while there are no interview slots left for 2nd round. You may want to try your luck in 3rd round, but it's always difficult.

I agree on the analysis above except one thing. I know Wharton does care about GMAT.

right, the famous(or infamous ) 80/80

I'm very clear about what i'll do in the future. That's why i said i want to work in IB, M&A then finally VC field. Personal perference is wharton, chicago, columbia and NYU. The consultant gave me the other schools. I haven't taken Toefl yet. I just had my GMAT and got back from a trip to prepare Toefl exam which is 3 days away. That's why i call up a consultanting firm seeing what they can help me. As you all said, i doubted what this guy said, but believe that part of his opinion is right. That's why i changed my plan and just want to focus on just one school.

Something need to explain is that i quite my job already partly because i was sick of what i was doing and partly because i got immigration visa to states(i got canadian passport as well) and will relocate to NY the end of this month. NYU interview is not a problem for me. But the consultant is quite concerned about my jobless status which is a serious problem i need to address in my essay.

Chicago is definitely too late for the second round. I'm not sure about wharton, but i don't have much confidence about my age and my past 5 years programming experience.Should i still give it a try? Columbia has only two rounds, how you guys know about the difficulties of the second round, should i wait for next year to catch the early bird? Seems i need to focus on NYU, right?

Many many thanks for your guys warm reply, specially thanks tuzq, i'm quite interested to know more about the case you mentioned, is that guy with finance or investment background?

I'm very clear about what i'll do in the future.

That is very important, especially for us older career switcher. Do convey your deep thought in the essay.

Seems i need to focus on NYU, right?

U r right. R2 deadline of chaicago and wharton is too close for u to catch.

u have good chance. good luck, buddy