M7 Profile Review. Story help

Launched April 26, 2006
This topic has expert replies
User avatar
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2017 7:25 am

M7 Profile Review. Story help

by KhaleisGood » Sun Jan 15, 2017 12:43 pm
I've spent the last few years (currently 25 yo) working in various industries and am not sure how to frame my story in a cohesive way for adcoms. Info/stats below:

Academics:
- Top 20 University, 3.34 GPA, Economics, minor Finance. I was very immature in college only reason for my grades, though senior year I got almost all A's
- GMAT 760, 8 IR, 6 AWA
- Taking 2 upper level quant classes now to show my maturity with coursework has improved. Will likely take more classes before I apply.

Extracurricular:
- One of 2 people to start a social fraternity at my school. Were able to gain our charter in my first year. Worked as a new member educator and rush chair. Grew fraternity to the largest on campus by my graduation. (would adcoms even care about this?)
- Started a real estate company. We rent properties to incoming refugee families through a partnership with a local non-profit. 12 units under ownership, ~500k in assets. 40% returns each year
- Spent time working with refugees setting up homes for their move. Have more recently started mentoring/tutoring families.

Work Experience
- Worked 1 year as a business analyst for a healthcare IT company. Promoted and spent 1.5 years as a strategist taking ownership of pricing and positioning of new offerings across several product lines. One of the best firms in their market.
- Started new job in management development for an industrial distributor/ecommerce company. Work currently as an internal consultant improving processes. Will be promoted in a couple months to supervise a team. Private company, but prestigious program. Pay and recruiting on par with i banking. Not sure how to convey that.

As you can see my experience is all over the place. I like working in different industries and I think my skills have translated well. I like the challenge of learning new business models and markets. Obviously, I'd like to go into consulting. I'm also wondering if it'd even be worth applying to Harvard/Wharton any advice is welcomed.

GMAT/MBA Expert

User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 351
Joined: Fri May 01, 2015 9:10 am
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Thanked: 44 times
Followed by:9 members

by MargaretStrother » Wed Jan 18, 2017 7:18 am
Very interesting challenges here! Top business schools will love your GMAT and your proactive career engagements. Now, how to make this coherent in an application? Just briefly, two things might hold your candidacy together: First, a continuous theme that runs through all of your pursuits (HBS and Stanford both have essays where you can develop this theme), and second, your post-MBA goals. Developing strong, clear, well-researched goals, both short and long term, can give you an opportunity to pull all of your experiences together into a vision for the future.

I wouldn't rule out HBS/Wharton, despite your overall GPA, if you have strong leadership in the present and during undergrad. Great that you're working with refugees -- if there is an organizational framework that you are involved with, that will make your volunteer work easier for the schools to understand.

Given the strengths and weaknesses you've presented here, I sense that you'd benefit from professional admissions consulting, and on a personal level, you'd be an interesting client to work with. Many companies, including ours, offer a free consultation, so that you can see if this seems like the right path for you. To speak with our representatives, you can sign up here: https://www.stacyblackman.com/contact/

Good luck!
Margaret Strother
Margaret Strother
Senior Consultant
Stacy Blackman Consulting

Learn more about me