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Hi, I am considering to apply to Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, and Berkeley in Round 1 this year, and I appreciate your feedback on my chances at these school.

Profile:
30 y/o Chinese-Canadian male
- born in Hong Kong, grew up/studied/worked in Canada, and then worked in China for the past few years

Work Exp - around 8 years total
- Canadian Chartered Accountant (audit/tax) - 4 years
- Found a start-up in China that raised USD2MM and had an operational business, and left after 2 years
- Worked as a Sr Financial Analyst (Finance planning and analysis) for a large multi-national company's China office for 1.5 years
- Worked to start another venture, which did not materialize for another 1 year

Extracurriculars
- Community service for >5 years
- Started other side businesses e.g. games rooms

Education
Graduated at a leading Canadian university with a 3.4/4.33 GPA.
700 GMAT (verbal 37/ quant 48 / AWS 5.5 / IR 6)

Harvard and Stanford are my top choices and the other ones follow right behind, but I am not sure these are realistic reaches for me. If this is not entirely unrealistic and I have say a 10%-20% chance at these schools, I am considering if I should retake the GMAT to further boost these chances. I hope I may be able to reach 750 and improve AWA and IR with another month or two of studying as there are still a lot of study materials I haven't used, I only used the OG. However, if these schools are completely unrealistic for me, then I may not spend the extra month or two to study for a GMAT retake, and I will reconsider my selections.

Please advise on my situation and thank you so much for your help!!!

Sayuri

Thanks for sharing your profile. You have a very interesting background with some nice entrepreneurial experiences which both school will like. Your profile is not unrealistic but again remember who you are applying to, these are two of arguable the most reputed schools in the world so a lot factors into the decision process here. I would say you are on the lower end of some of the GMAT/GPA averages which not a red flag but just should let you know where you stand. I would recommend taking the GMAT again to optimize your chances of being competitive at these schools.

Hope this helps!

Hi Sayuri,

I think you have an interesting background in terms of your work experience (from multi-national to start-up founder). You're international but the Adcom will view you as Canadian rather than Chinese - and that's good because the Chinese applicant pool is slightly more competitive than the Canadian one. I'm wondering what rank you think you were at university - were you in the top 20% or 10%. Hopefully you're somewhere in that range - which would make you competitive at the schools you list in terms of GPA.

In terms of the GMAT, it would be great if you could bring it to a 720+. All the top 10 schools have an average GMAT of around 720 and it is worth your while to resit the exam. Age-wise you're getting old for both HBS and Stanford - and I would need to see your actual resume before giving you any further advice on those schools. MIT, Kellogg and Berkeley may all be good choices for you!

Best