Am I competitive enough for these schools?

humblescarabee

Good Morning.

I am a 31 years old black guy born and raised in Guadeloupe FWI.

So far, I have taken the GMAT twice and my best score was 650 (70% quantitative, 86% verbal, 80% overall). I scored 109 over 120 for the TOEFL.
I have 2 great letters of recommendation from my former and current bosses. I also have 6 years of professionnal experience in Telecom industry and, particularly, 2 years of experience as a manager.
I ranked 98 over 262 when I was student in Euromed Management School (top 15 business schools in France). I guess my GPA is not that good so.
Unfortunately, I was not really involved in many extracurricular activities apart from representing my university for the recruitment of prospective students, training of the basketball team during 1 year, teaching maths to primary schools students and learning Chinese and Spanish.
I'm a good writer, so I can write good essays. For example, I can explain why my GPA was low since I was fully employed when I was a student in order to pay for my studies. I can explain how I sttrugled to achieve my carreer so far.

Do you think I can be competitive for schools like these one?
- Berkeley (YES/NO)
- Columbia (YES/NO)
- Yale (YES/NO)
- Stern (YES/NO)
- UCLA (YES/NO)
- Emory (YES/NO)
- Marshall (YES/NO)
- HEC (YES/NO)
- INSEAD (YES/NO)

Graduation from a MBA in the US is like a dream for me. I would really appreciate your honest answer.

Best regards.

VP_MBA Expert · Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:05 pm Post subject:

The top 10 schools on your list (i.e. Berkeley and Columbia) will be a challenge. The business school admissions environment is pretty competitive lately. The other schools on your list are possibilities however a lot depends upon how well you write your essays and how strong (think specific and convincing) your LORs are. Additionally, you will need to show that you are well rounded and can handle the academic rigor of business school. So the short answer to your question is that you should definitely apply esp. to schools like Emory and Yale and aim for the earlier application rounds.

humblescarabee · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:22 pm Post subject:

Thanks for your answers. It really helps.

May you also tell me what you think about UCLA, USC Marshall and INSEAD?

Thank you