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Alascool,
Thank you for your email. I think your email captures many of the myths that applicants frequently think about. For instance, myth 1: if I give you my profile, including my school, major, length of work experience, company worked at, and my G/T/other awards, you'll be able to give me a gauge of my chances. In fact, most people on CD have a chance at getting into any school they want. A lot of times, what decides success is not your profile, but in fact your ability to write good essays. At the big consulting firms, for instance, many of one's ex-colleagues and superiors are alumni of business schools, and are willing and able to put in the time to help you make your essay exactly what business schools are looking for. The point of this is, I can't tell you if you have a chance, because whether you do or not depends a lot more on your essays than on your profile.
Myth 2: Wharton is a finance school, HBS is a leadership school, Stanford is an entrepreneurship school: to apply to these schools, I need to show interest and strength in these areas. This is simply not true. At Wharton, for instance, I would say less than half of the students are interested in finance, or came from financial backgrounds. We also have the top real estate department in the country, and one of the top marketing departments. People come to Wharton for a variety of reasons. What truly differentiates (我们的强项） is not Finance, but many other factors- these are all listed on our website (which, you'll note, makes no mention of us being the top finance school).
Myth 3: If I didn't go to a brand-name company, I'm in trouble. I, for instance, interned at a company that, at most, 5-10 of my Wharton classmates had ever heard about (basically, just the Singaporeans). Coming also straight from undergraduate, the odds might seem stacked against me. How did I overcome all this? Simply by writing good essays that showed what I had learnt from my job, and revealing my thinking process, showing that I am a mature individual that Wharton would, in time to come, be happy to count as an alumni- regardless of where I choose to work. Contrary to what many think, Wharton is not looking to train the next CEO of Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. We are looking to train the next generation of impactful leaders- regardless of where (big company or small company, brand name or unknown, business or public) they choose to make their mark.
Myth 4: I need a recommendation from the head of my company (CEO, Chairman, etc). What is most important is not WHO is recommending, but what he has to say. For instance let's say you're buying something and need advice- would you rather consult someone who has a lot to say about the product, has used it extensively, and is able to tell you lots about it (but is perhaps not as high-ranked); or, would you rather consult the CEO of your company, who tells you simply ‘yeah I used it once and it was good.' Many recommendations from famous people are more like the second sort. For the same reason, if you can only get recommendations that are based on general impressions rather than having worked with you, it's like getting a recommendation for a product from someone who has never actually used it, and only has a 'general impression of it'- just like this recommend would not be useful to you, a 'general impression' would not really be useful to the admissions committee.
Myth 5: I need a high GPA to get in. I have classmates who have GPAs as low as 2.5 getting in. Again, what matters is your ability to think. Unlike in many Asian countries when the score matters a lot, in the US what really matters most is what your GPA says about you. If, for instance, you show an improvement every year from first to fourth, that is seen as something good. If you have a CFA, it shows that you can study hard, but not much else (because many others have CFAs too). The point is this: what matters is not what awards or grades you have, but what how you can use that to say something about yourself.
I hope this helps. I know I didn't directly answer your questions, but I hope that by explaining away some of the myths that seem to be in yours (and many others'!) thinking, I have been able to help you answer your questions yourself. Just in case you still can't, though:
1) Yes, put the minor. It's going to appear on your transcript anyway, and you shouldn't be dishonest. More importantly, perhaps you can tell a story of having been interested in business all along in college. That is more important than your GPA, since your CFA will show that you can study.
2) Doesn't matter. Just say my company is an 'xxyy bank', and people will understand.
3) You don't need to use this award to write a leadership essay. In fact, a lot of times leadership goes unrewarded. If I were reading the essay, I would be wary of someone using a reward as a way of 'proving' he has leadership. I would much prefer reading an interesting story of him displaying this leadership. As for Finance, this is not our sole distinctive point; it is simply wrong to think Wharton = finance.
4) Awards are useful, but more important are the questions: Why did you take them? Have you been thinking clearly about your career all the while, or are you just picking up degrees because you can? So cite them, but even better, if you can explain in your essays why you needed/wanted them.
5) I would spend the next year finding people who know you well in a professional capacity, and asking them to write recommendations for you. It is important to find people who are not your peers (colleagues) but people who are your supervisors (in fact Wharton specifically asks for your supervisors) because they will have a different view of you from your peers. But you don't need to find your CEO.
-Jason
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发表于 2009-4-20 12:37:00
