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Hi,

Can you help evaluate my chances at my target schools and my chances at scholarships? I already have significant grad school debt from my law degree so I'm trying to maximize my chances at scholarships. Thanks so much! I appreciate any input you can give me.

GMAT: 710 (44Q/44V) (First attempt. Would it be worth retaking for scholarship funds?)
IR: 7
GPA: 3.6 from a top 50 US undergrad
Law degree from a top US 14-law school
Work Experience: 3 years as an attorney at a large law firm doing sophisticated development/finance-related transactions (will be 4 years when starting my MBA)
Extracurriculars: active volunteer teacher/tutor at education non-profits, on a city government advisory committee
Goal: Work in strategy/management, preferably in the education technology space
Age/Ethnicity: 28/female/Asian
Target schools: Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, NYU, Columbia

Jon@Admissionado - I've brought in my own clients (which is rare for an attorney at my level in at my firm), worked on numerous deals in the range of $50 million -$1 billion, including some very high profile deals and deals in which I was figuratively the second-in-command (these deals were deals in the $50-80 million range). Although these are somewhat big stepping stones in law, I wasn't sure how it would play out to admissions since it probably doesn't seem that spectacular to someone not in the field of law. Because this is pretty much my one shot at switching career fields and I really do need scholarship money, should I focus more of my time on (1) writing essays or (2) studying and retaking the GMAT in hopes of boosting my score by 20 or so points?