Achieving a BS in Business or Finance, ASAP

Good job man!

So much for the negativity that you first heard when you came up with this crazy idea, eh?

 

Just knocked out two DANTES: Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior.

Just used the Official DSST Study Guide for the exams. While the study guide will not get you a perfect score on the exam it will give you a sufficient base of knowledge to likely (cross my fingers) pass it.

Probably a bit of instantcert.com would've helped me brush up on some terminology and score a strong score. We'll see in a few weeks when scores come in.

 

Nice work, finguy. You are raising the bar for everyone here.

 

So I went to take the Marketing CLEP on Friday but wasn't able to because the testing center was having technical difficulties.

Took the test today after studying only the REA CLEP Marketing book and scored a 75. Would highly recommend that you read this book, know it well and go take the test immediately.

Tomorrow I'm planning on taking the Principles of Finance and possible Money and Banking DANTES exams. I'll start with Finance and see how I do with time and then possibly take Money and Banking.

 

Congratulations!

 

You`re killing me; what`s the update?

 

Finguy,

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I was in a similar boat to yours earlier this year. I finished up my degree via DL at the University of Wyoming (started there before finding this site and hearing about the big 3, and decided to go ahead and finish there, since I was well down the road), and wanted to pursue an MBA after graduating.

Initially, I wanted to do a full-time program, and I applied to half a dozen different programs with my 3.94 GPA at UW and a 750 GMAT. (I ended up deciding to do an executive program instead, because I was able to convince my boss to pay for it.) Here's my advice, based on my experience applying to business school.

1. The absolute top-tier schools are going to be really difficult to get into, even if you have a 99th percentile GMAT. The problem is that everyone applying there has great stats. I applied to three top-ten schools, HBS, Chicago, and Wharton, and out of the three, I only landed one interview (with Wharton), and no admission offers. You have a great story, high school dropout to hedge fund trader, but you will absolutely have to nail your essays to get into a top-10 program. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is incredibly hard. Of course, it's incredibly hard whether your degree is from a DL program or not.

2. While somewhat easier to get into, schools ranked 11-50 are nothing to sneeze at, and they are very eager to recruit students who show potential. Once you take the GMAT, you will recieve a lot of info from many schools, including offers of application fee waivers if your score is really good. If a school offers to waive the application fee for you, there is a good chance that not only will you get in, but you'll land a substantial aid award. I applied to three schools that waived the application fee for me: Notre Dame, Penn State, and the University of Florida. I was offered a half tuition ride at ND, and full rides from PSU and UF.

3. You mentioned that you are specifically interested in an "Ivy League" MBA degree. Yale's School of Management falls into the second tier of schools I mentioned above. If you do bang out an excellent GMAT, and you're bound and determined to do the Ivy League thing, definitely drop an application at Yale. Yale SOM has a reputation as a "GMAT whore", meaning that they specifically look for people with high GMAT scores as a way to improve their performance in the different business school rankings.

4. From your message, however, I'm not sure that a full-time b-school is right for you. With your experience, you might get more out of an executive program. The downside to executive programs is that there are almost no scholarships available, and most of the aid you'll be offered will be in the form of loans. However, you can study at a top-flight school without giving up your current job. I ended up enrolling in Duke University's Cross Continent MBA program, and am currently in the middle of my first term. My classmates are some of the most accomplished and interesting people I've ever met, and I can honestly say that the fact that my undergraduate degree is from a DL program has not made one bit of difference to them. If you can get your employer to pay for it, doing an executive program is a no-brainer.

Anyway, I hope this helps you as you finish up your program at one of the Big 3 and get ready to start preparing your MBA application(s)!

--Fortunato

 

I apologize for not replying in a timely manner. I picked up and took a 4 week vacation overseas. I decided not to check back in to reality until today.

Bottom line, I got lots of test scores back; CLEP English Comp, DANTES Intro to Bus, Human Resource Management, Org Behavior, MIS. I can happily say I did very well on all of them with the lowest score in the mid 60s.

I'll write more about some of my experiences and plans in a few days.

I hope everyone else is doing well with testing and if anyone needs any advice just reply here and I'll get back with some help as soon a I can.

As of now I've acquired something like 64 credits through testing in about 8 weeks of study and work.

I've also put most of my testing aside and am focusing on my CFA exam which is on December 3rd.

Best of luck to everyone.

 

You're an inspiration to us all, finguy!

 

Good job! Keep up the good work.

See, 8 weeks and now you`re a veteran helping others!

 

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Absolutely! You are an encouragement for others on this board. I'm so proud of you for working so hard.