silverpig 1 - GMAT 0

[silverpig]

I did the GMAT today. I got 760 with a quantitative score of 49 and a verbal of 44. I took a bit too much time on one of the quantitative questions and ran out of time at the end, having to guess on the second to last question and not even answering the last one. Oh well.

I've got a B average in astrophysics/condensed matter physics, and have spent the last 3 years working in physics research, which is not typical of business school applicants. I've also done some volunteer work in the community as well. I'm pretty sure I can get decent references and will be able to write a couple of good essays but I'm really at a bit of a loss as to where I should apply.

I want to work in finance, but mainly to use my knowledge of condensed matter physics (read: alternative energy, solar power, etc) to invest in startups in the green energy sector.

As soon as I get accepted to an MBA program, I'd like to use the few months before I start to start on a CFA as well, just to make myself as attractive as possible to potential employers. Should I start contacting possible employers now to see what they want?

I guess I should talk to someone about this stuff. Can anyone offer advice?

edit: I'm Canadian, and most of the Canadian business schools take applications until April 30th. There are still several US schools which have applications open for another few weeks too.

edit 2: Thanks for all the responses guys! The feedback is great so far!

 

[Legendary]

Good luck going into finance right now, but I would say you're on the right track.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Legendary
Good luck going into finance right now, but I would say you're on the right track.

Well that's the thing. I'm not going into it now. It'll be at least 2 more years.

I also have an interest in entrepreneurship as I have a few business ideas to get off the ground. I have some fairly solid goals but a few ways of reaching them I think.

 

[Mo0o]

This post sounds like a resume

 

[LegendKiller]

I didn't know many guys in my MBA program that were able to also pass the CFA exams at the same time. While there may be some cross-over, it isn't that much and it takes a shit-ton of time to study for the exams. As far as actually getting your charter, unless you have 3 years (IIRC) of work experience in the investment process, you won't get your charter.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
I didn't know many guys in my MBA program that were able to also pass the CFA exams at the same time. While there may be some cross-over, it isn't that much and it takes a shit-ton of time to study for the exams. As far as actually getting your charter, unless you have 3 years (IIRC) of work experience in the investment process, you won't get your charter.

I believe they changed that recently, unless you're working in finance you won't get chartered. IIRC your firm has to sponsor you.

Also your timing is absolutely terrible, everyone and their mom (including virtually all Bear Stearns and Lehman ex-employees)... getting in will be tough.

 

[2Xtreme21]

Damn, nice job. I took a practice GMAT last weekend and walked out with a straight 500. In all fairness, I was sick, and never looked at a GMAT question in my life (hence why I took a free practice test), but I'm really scared come time I have to actually take it.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Mo0o
This post sounds like a resume

It kind of is... except I'm trying to get into business school and am looking for advice from any ATers who have been through the process and can tell me what to expect and what my best bets are.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
I didn't know many guys in my MBA program that were able to also pass the CFA exams at the same time. While there may be some cross-over, it isn't that much and it takes a shit-ton of time to study for the exams. As far as actually getting your charter, unless you have 3 years (IIRC) of work experience in the investment process, you won't get your charter.

Ah, that's good to know. Well there are 3 levels correct? I can always just do the first one while studying over the summer and first term, then leave the last two levels until later right?

 

[panipoori]

very nice. How long did you study for, and what practice materials did you use?

 

[mcmilljb]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
I didn't know many guys in my MBA program that were able to also pass the CFA exams at the same time. While there may be some cross-over, it isn't that much and it takes a shit-ton of time to study for the exams. As far as actually getting your charter, unless you have 3 years (IIRC) of work experience in the investment process, you won't get your charter.

Ah, that's good to know. Well there are 3 levels correct? I can always just do the first one while studying over the summer and first term, then leave the last two levels until later right?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cfa

You need 48 months (4 years) of experience.
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/charterholder/membership/work_experience.html">https://www.cfainstitute.or......rk_experience.html</a>
https://www.cfainstitute.org/c...ship/member_types.html

If you really want to do this, I would assume you should find a CFA charter member, and ask him/her about the best way to get this done. You do need a regular member to sponsor you after all.

 

[preslove]

Go to school somewhere in DC and do some interning on the Hill, in a think tank, or a lobbying firm. Network well enough, and you will be able to work in green finance, I betcha.

 

[2Xtreme21]

I'm not sure what your current situation is, but a lot of top-tier business schools are looking for people with 5+ years work experience. People will go back for their MBA's in order to move up in the company or to better specialize in an area they're most interested in. If you're going in with no concrete work experience (not just research or whatever... employed by a firm in your career focus), you better have a lot more to show them-- though with your GMAT score, I think any school would be stupid not to take you at any point, honestly. Even so, you'd probably be one of the youngest, if not THE youngest in your classes, if that's your situation.

That's where a lot of people get confused with graduate business programs. Not saying people don't go straight from undergrad, but I think more of the idea of graduate business school is to give you that boost to climb the corporate ladder in your current career, rather than enable you to be qualified for a higher-paying entry level job as most graduate degrees do.

 

[gotsmack]

I assume you're applying for next year since almost all of the programs that are worth going to already have closed the admission deadlines.

You got a kick ass GMAT score, what percentile are you?

From what you have said, it sounds like you want to do Venture Capital. Stanford has the best program for that and Cali is most likely the best place to be for green energy stuff.

http://grad-schools.usnews.ran...ws.com/grad/mba/search

When you pick schools, don't just look at the ranking, also take into consideration the class size. Harvard and Wharton are ranked very highly even #1 and #2 depending on which rankings you are looking at, but they are mass producing MBAs. They have something like 1.8k & 1.6k MBA students enrolled so about 800 a graduating class. Do you really want to be 1 of 800? I would want to go to a smaller program where I will know ALL of my classmates. However if all you care about is the network, then going to one of these MBA mills will have more to offer.

Also take into consideration living conditions since you will be there for 2 years, like do you really want to go to school in the middle of nowhere at Cornell or do you really want to live in LA where you have to drive everywhere?

Do you care about learning/teacher interaction or do you just want the paper? If you don't, then go to Harvard where they are notorious for making students pump out massive amounts of case studies.

With a 760, just apply to top 15 schools, don't bother with anything lower (unless you want to pick a safety school from #16-#20).

If you don't have atleast 3 years of work experience, then don't bother applying.

 

[Schfifty Five]

wow 760? That is insanely good.

I only scored a 650. Not enough time for math and too much trickiness with verbal. =(

 

[olds]

Wait, wait, wait. Who is silverpig?

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: mcmilljb

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
I didn't know many guys in my MBA program that were able to also pass the CFA exams at the same time. While there may be some cross-over, it isn't that much and it takes a shit-ton of time to study for the exams. As far as actually getting your charter, unless you have 3 years (IIRC) of work experience in the investment process, you won't get your charter.

Ah, that's good to know. Well there are 3 levels correct? I can always just do the first one while studying over the summer and first term, then leave the last two levels until later right?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cfa

You need 48 months (4 years) of experience.
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.cfainstitute.org/c...p/work_experience.html"><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/charterholder/membership/work_experience.html">https://www.cfainstitute.........xperience.html</a></a>
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.cfainstitute.org/cfaprog/charterholder/membership/member_types.html">https://www.cfainstitute.or....../member_types.html</a>

If you really want to do this, I would assume you should find a CFA charter member, and ask him/her about the best way to get this done. You do need a regular member to sponsor you after all.

I am a charterholder (passed all 3 levels first try, 2003-2006). From what I remember, they changed it to 4 years just as I received mine (2006). The requirement used to be direct involvement in the "investment process", they've refined that a bit over the years.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: LegendKiller
I didn't know many guys in my MBA program that were able to also pass the CFA exams at the same time. While there may be some cross-over, it isn't that much and it takes a shit-ton of time to study for the exams. As far as actually getting your charter, unless you have 3 years (IIRC) of work experience in the investment process, you won't get your charter.

Ah, that's good to know. Well there are 3 levels correct? I can always just do the first one while studying over the summer and first term, then leave the last two levels until later right?

Yeah, you can do that. I don't think there is a time limit for when you can take the exams, although it is better to take them really close to each other to keep the info fresh.

Level 1 is nothing more than a mass of information, nothing too deep but very broad.

Level 2 focuses much more on derivatives, statistical methodologies, and accounting.

Level 3 focuses more on quant/derivatives, almost no accounting, and investment management.

Ethics is very important in all of them.

Personally, the last thing I wanted to do was fail. You fail and you wait a year to retake. Thus, I studied my ass off to understand as much as I could very well (it's impossible to "get" 100%). I studied 4hrs every weekday and 8 hours every weekend day for 6 months before the exam.

The #1 reason why people fail is that they do not take the exam seriously and do not study enough.The exam itself is 6 hours of sweating hell while you try and remember everything you've studied. By the time you are done you are wasted. Then you spend at least 1 month obsessing over what you might have gotten wrong. You wait 3 months for the results, all of the while knowing you failed and prepping mentally to retake.

You go through that 3 times. However, that last result day is glorious. It legitimizes all of your work.

 

[dbk]

I took the GMATs for my masters... just walked in and got a 610 or 620 which was good enough.

It was like the SATs

 

[Mani]

Originally posted by: silverpig
I guess I should talk to someone about this stuff. Can anyone offer advice?

Depends on what kind of program you want to try for. For top 5-10, your GMAT won't differentiate you, and your undergrad major won't matter as much as the prestige of the institution. If you're comfortable with a top 25 type school your GMAT will be a definite asset to you - just know that the the test is the easiest part of the admissions process overall.

 

[Koing]

You will have to study a lot for your CFA! It has a 66% fail rate!

The first level can be taken every 6 months starting in December. If you fail tue 2nd set of exams you will have to wait a year as you can only take it in June!

Koing

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: panipoori
very nice. How long did you study for, and what practice materials did you use?

I actually didn't study very much. I did get 2 books from Chapters though - Princeton Review Cracking the GMAT 2008 and Kaplan 800. I found the Princeton Review book to be very helpful as it gave you information on what the test writers are looking for. The Kaplan 800 book was just a practice book with hard questions in it. I didn't find it very useful because I didn't learn how to do anything I didn't already know how to do.

I guess I started studying back in January sometime with these books. I went through the Princeton Review book fully once, then glanced over it quickly a second time, and went through the verbal problems in the Kaplan book.

The practice exams included with the PR book were helpful to get a sense of timing and what not as well. The first practice test I took (not from the PR one... it was a Manhattan GMAT test online) I blew threw quite quickly, not finishing a lot of the problems because I figured I could see the answer in my head. I didn't do well. After that I took the next test and did much better, but I didn't finish as I was too overly careful checking my answers before submitting. Really, timing on the questions is quite important.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: mcmilljb
If you really want to do this, I would assume you should find a CFA charter member, and ask him/her about the best way to get this done. You do need a regular member to sponsor you after all.

Thanks. Yeah, it's not something I need to do immediately. I suppose I can always wait until after I've been working for a few years.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: preslove
Go to school somewhere in DC and do some interning on the Hill, in a think tank, or a lobbying firm. Network well enough, and you will be able to work in green finance, I betcha.

Nice idea. I'm Canadian so I might have better luck in Ottawa or one of the provincial capitals, but that's a good avenue to look down. I'm definitely not opposed to working in the US, or Europe for that matter.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
I'm not sure what your current situation is, but a lot of top-tier business schools are looking for people with 5+ years work experience. People will go back for their MBA's in order to move up in the company or to better specialize in an area they're most interested in. If you're going in with no concrete work experience (not just research or whatever... employed by a firm in your career focus), you better have a lot more to show them-- though with your GMAT score, I think any school would be stupid not to take you at any point, honestly. Even so, you'd probably be one of the youngest, if not THE youngest in your classes, if that's your situation.

That's where a lot of people get confused with graduate business programs. Not saying people don't go straight from undergrad, but I think more of the idea of graduate business school is to give you that boost to climb the corporate ladder in your current career, rather than enable you to be qualified for a higher-paying entry level job as most graduate degrees do.

Yeah, I've noticed that. Places like Harvard etc generally have people with more experience and that experience is in more of a business field than I have, true. I HAVE seen stories of people going to those schools straight out of undergrad though, but they have a much better GPA than I do. I also have heard stories of people getting in with a 600 GMAT too. I'm guessing you need to be strong in 2 areas and can be weak in a third. It looks like I'm strong in 1 and weak in 2.

I know a few people in MBA programs right now and they say a lot of people are there to re-train. There are a lot of ex-finance people who want to get into non-profit stuff and vice versa. It's probably not a very common thing at other times, but apparently now it's not unheard of.