Ask Admissionado

Hey Team,

Below is a brief description of my profile:

Hello. The details on my profile are as follows:

Work experience- 4.5 Yr (as of Sep 2014)
3Yrs:-
- Assistant Manager at a leading bank in Compliance and Internal Controls Department. It has international presence in Europe, Africa, Asia, although not on a very large scale.
Work Profile: principle responsibilities include review of documents to assess and ensure all banking activities remain within 'framework' established by laws, regulations, ethical standards. And development of Anti-Money Laundering measures. I can boast that I regularly participate in (bank wide) working groups, as well as, frequent interaction and opportunities to engage with senior management of the bank. Prior to that, I have served the bank in the role of Internal Controls Assessor: visiting bank's branches and concluding the review by preparing a report of observation on irregularities/weaknesses detected. A monthly summary irregularities from all the visit was presented to departmental management for establishing operational risk level position.
Previous 1.5Yrs:-
- Finance Associate Position, directly reporting to General Manager Finance & Operations* at a medium-size Food & Beverage Services Company. This company also runs/maintains the first class & business class lounges at leading airports. Couple of Internships at this company in summer 2008 & 2009.

GMAT.
Currently preparing.

College
I have majored in Applied Accounting, First Class Honours (UK grading system)** from Oxford Brooks University (OBU) and graduated in March 2010.

Extra-curricular activities
I have considerable extra curricular activities to describe including participation/leading teams in leadership, entrepreneurial, Model UN conferences at college level, and some community/voluntary experience with Rotary and Transparency International till 2011. Post 2011, I have been participating in rotary events, such as polio drive initiative, fund raisers etc

Target programs
MBA. Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Cornell, NYU, Rotman-Toronto.

Professional Certifications
I have ACCA Membership, and have also completed specialized Associate Banker Certification.

Post-MBA Objectives
Well, I expect the MBA to push me up the career ladder faster, and essentially provide a boost, I hope to have solid networking going as well. Otherwise, I particularly, like management consulting, financial associate/IB to serve as career switch.

I am planning to apply in R2/ January 2015, although I'd have liked to get done on GMAT by R1, however, work pressure has not allowed that. I would greatly appreciate as detailed response as possible on overall profile, what are the weak links, which schools should I add some more schools to the list that could match my profile? And also would really appreciate brief opinion/comments on Canada v US scenario of B-School considering my profile for an international student.

Thanks!

--------------------------
* who in turn reports to the CEO
** I suppose as per the grading system in UK, this should be an equivalent of 3.6-3.8+ on 4 point GPA system in US.

Jon@Admissionado wrote:Hey good sir,
I need a wee bit more info from you and then I'll get back to you:
1. Your college grades
2. Your employer
3. Information about any leadership you have (or not)
4. Your GMAT (I know, I know... but when you have it )

Best,
Jon

1. My degree is First Class Honours, As per UK grading system. I have described in detail on the in my earlier post.
2. MCB Bank (https://www.mcb.com.pk/)
3. Yes, In college...

Some details are as follow:
 Selected as one of High Potential Candidates in 2011 at MCB Bank.
 Selected in United Nation's Global Model United Nations.
 Lead the team in College Level Entrepreneur Summit, and presented the business idea on behalf of the team of our proposed venture, finished in top 10.
 Lead the team in Top Model United Nations Conference for three years after participating, and won the prestigious award. Subsequently, used my skills to calm nerves of junior members of the team, helping out with position papers, advising them on complicated discussions and overall country position in the conference.
 Acted as Coordinator/Member Transparency International, where I have organized anti-corruption seminars in my college, hosting couple of these seminars on behalf of the college.
 Chosen as all-expenses-paid candidate in prestigious Renowned Leaders Conference, after successfully booking CIMA as sponsors in the conference.

4. I have scored 650 in a recently attempted 'mock' CAT.

Jon@Admissionado wrote:Hey,
Okay, now I have a bit of a better picture of things.
So the short of it is that you have good experience in a good industry, but at a non-target employer.
Likewise, your grades are excellent but also from a non-target school.

Now a LOT will hang upon your GMAT, but for argument's sake, let's assume a 720.

With a score like that, H/S/W would still be long shots, so you might want to move one or two of them off your list to make space for other schools, and schools like Cornell/NYU would be about at the competitive level, for your profile, about.

Other than that you do have some cool and great college activities, which should help boost your profile. And what about after college? Have you been able to keep up with something interesting?

Best,
Jon

Hey Jon,

I would rather call myself "dormant" on the activities after college/effectively 2011, would that be a significant disadvantage?

Could you further elaborate on "non-target"... I mean for an employer you would call fortune 500 as non-target? right? or does it have to do with my career aspiration for consulting? Also, How would you rate my profile against MBA from Toronto/rotman if I could manage only 650?

Appreciate your comments, thanks...