How I Got Into Stanford GSB | Deferred MBA Admit

pretty much what motivated me to um go to Stanford was I want to be a business leader someday and I want to do it in an empathetic way I want to lead my my

people in a very empathetic [Music] way hi my name is Amelia and this is Leland we've helped more than 10,000 people get into the best MBA programs in

the world and accomplish their other ambitious goals today we will hear from a recent deferred admit to Stanford GSB about his journey application and narrative make sure to like And subscribe for more Insider NBA tips and

tricks hi DJ really excited to chat about your journey to St for GSB today I'd love for you first to to introduce yourself for sure happy to be here uh my name is DJ Fernandez I was born and

raised in the Bay Area um I'm kind of a non-traditional student both my parents um didn't finish college um first generation um I went through the

Community College route so I began my my entire academic Journey at um shabbo Community College out here in Hayward before transferring to UC Berkeley H

School of Business on a full ride um from there um I was really intimidated you know there's that huge sense of impostor syndrome um that like came over

me and I realized that you know I wasn't alone in this journey and there was a lot of transfer students first gen students um who had a similar um experience were feeling the same way uh

it was really hard to network with other people because um a lot of these freshman sophomore juniors already have their their um their quote unquote

clicks their networks um and they already knew a lot about the um the application processes for for um jobs like Investment Banking um Consulting

Tech Etc so I started my own organization um core Consulting Group uh which helped a lot of these non-traditional students uh Matt Berkeley um develop

um via a lot of like professional workshops having guest speakers come in and we started doing consulting projects

so clients include um Adobe Tesla Apple Etc um from there um we grew the organization to about 120 members um throughout the country um through

Berkeley uh University of Southern California Columbia Cornell and the California community college system you know ccg was my baby and um it'll always

my baby um and I was really happy to see how it's grown and and um the PE the impact that we've made um so that was kind of really my first official start

to entrepreneurship um my second Venture was I got a really really bad bike accident my junior year almost lost my life um almost lost my hand so I had to

give up um playing the saxophone um powerlifting I wrote about this in my application which I could talk about a little bit later later um for for context um I was originally a music

Major and like saxophone was my whole life um for powerlifting I held um four State records um so feeling like I was never going to be able to do it again um

it was really disheartening so the doctors urged me to get into Physical Therapy ASAP um and it took about eight weeks before I could see my first appointment and I realized there was something flawed within the system and

through one of my startup classes at Berkeley I um we analyzed the PT market and found that um bunch of physical therapists spent about um three to four

hours or two to four hours each day just doing administrative work so um I developed um uh electronic medical record system with my co-founders that

reduced the um the administrative process Time by 66% um so that was my second um Venture uh we got Angel backed

um yeah that was it was a really cool experience for me um being able to start my own company um and yeah um other internships I've had throughout my time

at Berkeley um was an advisory intern at KPMG I was also um a rotational supply chain intern at Apple so yeah that's a little bit about me happy to answer

awesome that that D yeah that dovetails really well into my next question which is you you you've done so much and you're still in school uh at this point uh what motivated you to apply to to

business school and why did you choose Stanford GSB yeah um so for context Stanford was the only school I applied to um really

happy um you know I think I think what motivated me to go into business school um originally it was for the clout I'm not going to sugarcoat it um that was

that was my original um intention um but over time I realized that that number one everyone at hos or everyone who I

met at hos um they were really smart um and then the people who you know we had a lot of professors that um that came from the GSB a lot of um guest speakers

that came from the GSB um they were super smart but they were also very empathetic you know and not to say that the hot people weren't empathetic by no

means but um I really admired their their IQ as well as their EQ um and pretty much what motivated me to um go to Stanford was I want to be a business

leader someday and I want to do it in an empathetic way I want to lead my my people in a very empathetic way um additionally I want to continue working

in the startups stee um and we're there's no really better place to do it than than Stanford um staying here in the bay and my third reason for applying to Stanford more personally um I want to

stay in the Bay Area you know I'm I'm living with a single mother raising four kids I'm the eldest eldest child and I want to um you know be able to come home on the weekends just like I did in at

Berkeley and um you know be a present figure for my family I love that it's a really good mix of of strategy for your future personal reasons clout like that it's so relatable and I think it's a lot of it's

a lot what other people are are thinking to when they're considering business school at a at a high level can you can you walk me through your application process yeah so as I said earlier um I

think I think business school I didn't really know I wanted to do it until until really late in the school year um

particularly the Deferred admissions but you know my friends were like why not so why not just shoot your shot so um that's what I did um I started my

application three and a half weeks before the deadline um oh my gosh really you can imagine it was really stressful really really stressful there was more

than a few all nighters um throughout that time period um so that includes getting my recommenders that includes getting um my test scores includes

writing all these essays um so I think with with that I spent about you know the first week and a half getting my test scores I took both the GMAT and the

GRE so I have a little bit of um um Insight on that but fair warning my test scores kind of reflected the amount of time that I spent on them uh there they

were really low um so I knew that I really needed to shine in my actual essays so I I really took the time with each of the essays um I was already kind

of familiar with the prompts um I read them I think back in January so I had about like six months to or four months to really kind of articulate what I

wanted to do yeah so since I was on the fence of applying I kind of already knew what I was I would be writing about um but it was all really scattered so I think it was about two weeks before my

actual um the actual deadline I hit up um Leland and um they matched me with Dion um God bless Dion love her uh she was super helpful with my application

especially with the parts that I struggled with um and she she um helped me organize my app helped me prepare for my interview helped me get my recommenders um yeah so she was she was

really great yeah she's amazing um I'd love to hear your perspective having taken both the GMAT and the what's the difference what would you recommend any any level any level of

thoughts on on those two for sure um yeah um I kind of hesitate answering because again I didn't get the best test scores um I for context again I spent

about two days studying for the GRE and then three days for the GMAT so not a lot of time um so the we do not recommend this timeline so the reason I took both of

them was I was I was going to take both of them see whatever score um whichever I scor the highest and just submit that to Stanford so um with the

GMAT I found it a lot more difficult quantitatively than the GRE and the GRE I found it more um difficult um qualitative or verbally right because

you have to write an essay um the questions are a lot more difficult um additionally with the GRE I I found I found that I was using geometry whereas

the GM is more business school focused um you don't really need to know that um a lot of the questions um are more business oriented I remember when I was

taking it um there was there were questions on both on on the practice tests um there were a lot of questions about um like profits um costs analyzing

that a lot of like more Data Insights question yeah so so if someone is considering taking which test what would you what would you what's your recommendation yeah so if you have the

time I actually would recommend taking a practice test for both of them and seeing where you um where you score the highest so you have like a baseline um and then from there um just spending

your time kind of um working working and getting that score up um but I would say if you come from more of a um quantitative background definitely take

the GMAT um if you come from more of like a a poet quote unquote poet background like myself um I would take the GRE um the GRE is the sore that I ended up submitting I scored higher um

verbally on the GRE than on the GMAT I scored higher on the math section on the GMAT than the G that's great I love that advice um you've talked briefly about this but

sford GSB is known for very challenging essay prompts I mean what matters most to and why tell us in x amount of characters that's that's no easy feat how did you tackle these essays and what did you focus on to make your story

stand out yeah for sure so I mixed it between um the past the future and where I was at that point in time and how that um

the the education at the Stanford GSB would help me um again for for more context the the two questions are what matters most to me and why as you said and why Stanford you got to fit that all

into 150 characters um so you got to really balance how much you write on one of the first prompts versus the second prompt I found that um for the what matters most to me and why I was really

talking a lot about my my past what I'm doing in the present whereas the why Stanford was more the present and the future so for for the what matters most to me and why um I I really had to like

sit down and think about it you know there were there were times where I just um would would sit on my balcony just thinking about the question just meditating on what I would um respond

with I think where I stuck out to was was my self-awareness um so I began by talking about um my past you know I talked about my my father talked about

my grandfather and my great-grandfather how they um they uh they expressed resilience in in their lifetime and how

um that kind of came to me um how I've Express resilience throughout my past um whether that was you know selling Pop-Tarts and starting a little business

in high school um to to fund my um music education um to losing 100 pounds powerlifting um to you know starting ccg

um trying to overcome the Imposter syndrome to you know building my startup and you know I had to really be economical very efficient with the words

um that that I use because I still have to save space for the Y Stanford essay and um you know I kind of tied that back in as to as to Y Stanford um so like going into my y Stanford essay there was

um some hints of um resilience in the beginning um talking about how um I wanted to help make the Philippine economy more resilient um by by

investing in startups and and entrepreneurs in the Philippines um to help build the digital infrastructure so I I talked about um what I wanted to do

um with that I I think what shined the most as well was I named dropped a lot of alumni and at the very end I I think I wrote something like like yeah I could

I could um succeed at um any school but really where where the GSB shines is like you already have like these these proven alumni who've done this thing that I want to do and the demand for

this this thing that I want to do is only going to go up and I want to continue following in their footsteps and Paving A New Path for um Filipino entrepreneurs and and startups so yeah I

think that's that's where I I think my application shine that's that's a great approach I think I think that's great how did you choose your recommenders especially as a deferred applicant and what advice do you have for other

applicants on securing strong letters of recommendation girl I would say start early I would say start early um you know I only had like three weeks to

really choose these recommenders and help prepare them for the application again Dion helped me out on creating a recommender package that I did in like in like two days you know it was it was

really um I would say that was that was also that was also a big hurdle that to overcome was um spending time to really analyze the the the instances that I

wanted them to write about so um so the recommenders I chose was my manager at KPMG as well as my um sports management

Professor I ta for him and I was also um a student in his class um so for for my advice I would say um there's this

there's this list on Stanford's uh recommend um letters of recommendation um website um it's like a PDF um you have to like kind of dig for

it but um it's called um forgot what it's called but it was it was essentially like a rubric that they have to fill out and I I wanted them to to um

delve deeper into into um those specific instances so in the in the rubric there was things such as problem solving um strategic orientation ation

self-awareness um you know approachability stuff like that and I wanted them to write about it from the lens of a third person you know if I were to write about my own

approachability in my own essays that's kind of it might come off kind of weird I asked them to write about how specifically the sports management Professor how I helped um the students

in the class um particular names etc etc how I how I did that and for my my KPMG manager um one of the things I

highlighted was how I um you know bonded a group of interns together and and then we we um we'd go out for tacos you know

and and how um how like I I helped you know unify the team on our project Etc so yeah I love that I think a lot of applicants get really stressed about the

letters of recommendation because it's the one part that they cannot directly control but I love what you mentioned in that you can actually control more than you think and preparing your recommenders in highlighting stories and

attributes that they could highlight if if if if they so choose to uh that's really great advice no 100% And just to kind of add on to it um at that time I already kind of finished like what my

application was going to look like and the the instances that I chose were kind of the instances that I didn't really get to talk more about in my application for example um problem solving if I

wanted them to talk more about that I talked about a specific instance or um I forget respect for others have them talk about that um commitment to diversity

talk about that so yeah that's great and you you do point out too that you do not have that much space in your essays and you have probably done a lot more than what you can say in a thousand characters or a thousand words in your

essay so use these different parts of your recom of your application the letters of recommendation your resume these other parts to kind of fill in the gaps and present this whole person and you can do that in a really strategic way 100% um

last piece of of the application I want to touch on really fast which is the interview can you share your experience with the interview process for the Deferred ex explicitly um and what questions were you what questions were

you asked and how did you prepare yeah so I love my interviewer um she was she was great um she um her name was Carrie um she also came from Berkeley I think

Stanford do a really good job matching you up with someone who who um you have a similar background with she also grew up in the bay um we kind of bonded over

that um how I prepared you know I used um Dion again and we spent about two hours just kind of um ironing out um possible questions that they were going

to ask and my um potential responses for them um I think in that week preparing for my interview um I really got to sit down and think about um my story and how

I could articulate it in one to two minutes you know you only have I believe it was only like 30 minutes with them so you want to be concise so that you could hit all those questions it was it was a crazy interview I had a I had a bloody

nose in the middle of it oh no um yeah but it's it's all good I followed up in my email I was all like at least you know that I bed cardinal red

um that's a great TI yeah yeah yeah so I um I I I would say like um being personable you know they're not they're

not trying to find dings in your appc a where they're trying to knock you down they're more so trying to find um um things where you shine you know uh

trying to find trying to add more color into your responses so that they could say like hey we believe that so and so is a great fit for the gspb you know um

so with my application or with my interview the questions they asked was a lot more scenario based so after I gave that um spiel about myself talking about

um building ccg um uh uh Carrie followed up with with um can you tell me about um those specific challenges I told her about it and then um she kind of just

like I wouldn't say interrogated but she kind of like dug into those those um scenarios even more by asking a lot of follow-ups um so be prepared um with the

the uh potential questions that they may ask based on your answers you know um and then another question they asked I believe um since I don't I don't think

they have my my application right so um but they asked a um about entrepreneurship and how I identified a problem and um how I

approached it so I I think that was a really great setup because I got to talk about my startup um and how uh we raised funding how we we built it out how I led

my team and um you know she was I remember um I kind of gave like a like a light answer she was like how did you raise funding you know I said I walked into a room full of angels and then I

pitched my startup and she was all like oh there has to be more than that you know again they want to see you succeed so um be prepared to um have a um a

strong answer for each of those and then the last part of the interview was the questions that I asked and I feel like um I really bonded with Carrie um during

this segment because it was the first time where like you know I'm asking her about her exper experience uh let me think about the questions that I asked

oh I um she was she was um really big in a stake I got the offer LinkedIn um so I asked her um would she prep prefer like pans seared versus like grilling on like

charcoal or whatever um just kind of to break the ice a little further um and then we kind of had a little debate about that um and she was she gave me a lot of her Insight um and from there I

asked her about like whether or not um because I think people fall into either um um work to live or live to work into either of those two camps and we we

bonded over um each other's responses to that and then um we just talked about um the Stanford um experience and how it differs from Berkeley so yeah I think um trying to build that connection with

your interviewer um I think that's that's um that was a really good um that's that was a place where I shined in my application I want to highlight two things that you said at the end which I think are really

important questions that you ask your interviewer shouldn't be something that you can find the answer to online first of all and second they should be highly personal to the interviewer and and a lot of times including with Stanford you know who your interviewer is ahead of

time and I love that you did the research because then she knows oh he really wants to go to this school because he spent time looking at my profile thinking about thoughtful questions that he could ask I think that's really really really good insight

into how to prepare for for these interviews and the the question asking portion specifically 100% And often I don't think they might necessarily know some of the questions that um are like

found online for example if you ask them about like the acceptance rates or whatever you know it could have changed within however many years they've they've come in to the business school

so um true talking about something personable 100% recommend um the application process the business school application is one of the toughest graduate school

applications there is by far there's so many different application components and it really requires you to to dig deep and and self-reflect as as we've heard what were some of the biggest challenges that you personally faced in

the application process and how did you overcome them one of them I I I can wager was probably the amount of time that you had to apply but outside of that what were some of the challenging

Parts yeah for sure um yeah definitely time um I think I was there was a lot of points where I was disheartened um I I lost a lot of motivation when I got those test scores I was like bro I'm

never getting into Stanford um I have no chance you know my my test score on my GMAT fell outside of the range for the actual um incoming class of 2024 so I

was I was really um I was really distraught so um I think you know just focus on the things that you can control um that was that was uh something that

one of my mentors told me you know like your your test scores you know they're they're kind of done already you can't I can't I couldn't retake them um so Focus I I I just spent time focusing on my

essays preparing for my interviews and making sure that those were Stellar um to really outshine my my um my test scores another thing that was um

difficult for me was I wouldn't really say it was difficult but it was it took a lot of time it was um really self-reflecting and wanting to address all of the points in my life that I

wanted to address on my application you know I I would say like I had a fairly interesting life and a lot of twists and turns you know going from a music Major to business and you know losing my

almost losing my hand and all of that stuff you know um so I I wanted to create a cohesive narrative um and I had to like spend a lot of time you know self-reflecting I think what really

helped me was I took a class on self-reflection it was it was based off the um the um Stanford class touchy feely which I wrote about um and it was called leadership and personal

development so it was it was um essentially touy feely for hos undergrads or or Berkeley undergrads and so um during the um Journal exercises

and and the lab work I I got to really reflect on who I was as a person not just what I wanted to do in business but but really what matters most to me and

why and all of that stuff so definitely um that self-awareness aspect was really difficult um well it was very it took a it took a bit of time so I would advise

um future applicants spend the time you know really analyzing yourself um it should it's a really introspective exercise particularly for the GSB that's something that they value um and you

know it it's it's it's I found it very therapeutic doing the exercise of of self-awareness and reflecting so yeah I think I think that was the two biggest

hurdles that had to face I think that's so important and it should also set you up for success in some ways of knowing your story knowing what you want to do and why why have you made the decisions that you wanted to do there are there are a lot of things that

will that it will bring to you personally as a benefit um to wrap up one one last question what do you think were some of the more unique aspects of the application that made you stand out to

the admissions committee yeah um I could think of a few um I would say I would say I think uh an advice piece of advice I got from I

forget if it was a podcast or YouTube video um talking about the um GSB application process but it was that you weren't necessarily competing with

everybody in your um NBA class you know there's different archetypes of people people who um come from a more technical background people who come from a finance background Tech background Etc

um and I I really fell in the entrepreneur camp and I wanted to highlight um a lot in my essays the things that they could that that would

help benefit um um not not not only my essays those weak points but how I could help benefit the class and contribute so I I talked about a lot about uh my entrepreneural spirit how it began you

know kind of in high school you know selling Pop-Tarts I hired like 12 freshmen to sell Pop-Tarts for me rented out seven lockers and had like this whole system going to help pay for my

music education um I talked about how I you know um built um ccg Built My Own startup my physical therapy startup

and um how all of those contributed to the communities that I was a part of whether that was um my my um um my

transfer class those the students of non-traditional backgrounds or to um people who suffered from major injuries or even life-threatening injuries and um

how I wanted to give back um the other thing what in my application that was kind of a weakness that I wanted to address was for these def programs you're often going to be the youngest

person in your cohort and I wanted to show how I could contribute in a team um with often a lot of older people um a

lot a lot of people who are more experienced and and have um done all the stuff that I I've already wanted to do so I talked about um how I participated

in uh I was one of 12 undergrads that participated in um the social sector Solutions class at Berkeley which which is um this this non um profit Consulting

class um for MBA students so it was a room full of mbas um 12 teams 12 undergrads and then um one to two Mackenzie coaches per project so I

talked about how I was the youngest person in my group um working for a nonprofit client and I talked about how I led my own work stream and how I how I

um chose or volunteered to to speak in front of the class as probably the youngest person in the entire class um full of what like 60 70 mbas um multiple

McKenzie partners and I wanted to um highlight that even though I was the youngest I wanted to I I could still contribute in a group full of mbas I love that it was so strategic and it really highlighted what made you you

and I think a lot of times people try to paint this picture of what they think the Adcom wants to see instead of just being themselves and I and I love that you did that to to the to the N degree um thank you so much for talking with me

to DJ I'm really excited to share your story with everyone else applying to stf for GSB [Music]