See, I graduated from a decent engineering school in MA (not MIT). I worked and played in the varsity sport through all my college years, and got 3.3 GPA when graduated. Towards the graduation, I made to the 3rd round of interview at American Express for an analyst position. Because I didn’t have a work permit in the US (I had been on a student visa), I was told by the regional vice president that though I was the best candidate, they could not hire me. At the time, American Express did not sponsor work visas. It was the time when Dot-Com bubble burst, and everyone was having a hard time finding a job. Devasated and uable to land a job I wanted, I went on to get an MBA at a small virtually unknown school. After getting my MBA, I went on to get a JD at a small, but respectable school in NC. It had all along been my plan to get a joint MBA/JD degree at some point. But I wanted to work at a financial firm for at least 2 or 3 years first you know. When the American Express job went out the window, I sort of reluctantly chose to go to that rather mediocre business school to “earn some time.”

Upon getting my law degree and an offer from a boutique law firm in Atlanta, I had to swallow yet another huge setback in my career: I had to come back to South Korea to get conscripted into the army.

I am scheduled to be discharged from the army in Sep of this year. I’ve been using all my free time (there is very little) reading Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and listening to podcasts from McKinsey, Harvard Business School, Wharton, etc. I started reading them not because I was going to apply for consulting jobs, but because that was the stuff I’d had always been interested in ever since college; I was a voracious reader of the WSJ and the New York Times. Then a couple of months ago, it dawned on me that I should get into management consultanting. So, I looked up all the major consulting firms with their offices in Seoul online. I bought your Bible a few days ago, and have been preparing for interviews these days.

Sorry about the rather lengthy background. Here is my question. I noticed that many of the consultants from the Top Three Seoul Offices were Top US MBA school graduates (Harvard, Wharton, Standford, etc). Though I think I have a lot to offer (my work experience at a law firm, clerkship at Court of Appeals, publication, retail, leadership experience in the army, proficiency in both English and Korean, etc), I know that getting an MBA from that school will look appear a bit…..fishy. And I know that this issue will come up during an interview. In your Bible you said we shouldn’t say “Because I didn’t know what else to do.” (on page 14). But to be completely honest, I went to that school because I wasn’t prepared for GMAT, didn’t have the money and enough work experience to apply to better schools, and didn’t get the job at American Express. In other words, I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to go back to Korea at that time. How would you go about explaining my situation to the interviewer with a cautious honesty and giving an answer devoid of a telltale sugar-coat?

Eagerly waiting for your brotherly advice,

Calvin