I am looking to apply for an MBA at the end the end of this year/start of next year. I come from a background of providing technical consultancy services to the Construction industry and I am wishing to pursue a career change.
Background:
- 27 year old Australian
- 2.75 (US equivalent) undergrad GPA majoring in Construction Management - obviously not great, but I worked full-time during my studies and in my current industry no one could really care less what your GPA is, its all about work experience, so I wrongly neglected my studies.
- Post graduate diploma in fire engineering technology - this is a bit dodgy as I received credit for 4 classes as I took them in my undergrad. Nonetheless, the GPA was 3 for this course.
- Work experience:
1. I worked full-time throughout my undergrad degree (completed a 4 year degree in 5 years) and only had 1 day off to attend uni during the semester and did 2 night classes a week. This was spread over 2 large government organisations that were directly related to my studies.
2. After graduation I worked for 2 years at one of the same government organisations, with a promotion and had limited delegation responsibilities.
3. My current position I have held for 2.5 years as a building services/code consultant working on significant building developments (working on projects with development costs up to AU$500 million (probably approx. to US$300 million). Due to the project-based nature of the work this means meeting tough deadlines and being fully responsible for the projects that I worked on as the grunt portion of the work is solo.
I intend to target schools such as Boston College, Boston U, U Connecticut, Northeastern and Babson - essentially schools ranked around the top 50 mark and in the North-East. My reason for this is because I want to have the ability to do an internship in Boston with the goal of gaining employment after the MBA is Boston. My goal employment would be something to do with business analytic's, business consultancy and competitive service delivery.
The obvious: My GPA is low. Does my work experience offset this enough for it to not be a major hurdle? What kind of GMAT should I target to offset my low GPA?
Does being Australian (I am Caucasian) give me any kind of advantage in applying to a US business school? I only ask because I don't believe that many Australians go to US business schools.
Appreciate any advice that can be given.
Background:
- 27 year old Australian
- 2.75 (US equivalent) undergrad GPA majoring in Construction Management - obviously not great, but I worked full-time during my studies and in my current industry no one could really care less what your GPA is, its all about work experience, so I wrongly neglected my studies.
- Post graduate diploma in fire engineering technology - this is a bit dodgy as I received credit for 4 classes as I took them in my undergrad. Nonetheless, the GPA was 3 for this course.
- Work experience:
1. I worked full-time throughout my undergrad degree (completed a 4 year degree in 5 years) and only had 1 day off to attend uni during the semester and did 2 night classes a week. This was spread over 2 large government organisations that were directly related to my studies.
2. After graduation I worked for 2 years at one of the same government organisations, with a promotion and had limited delegation responsibilities.
3. My current position I have held for 2.5 years as a building services/code consultant working on significant building developments (working on projects with development costs up to AU$500 million (probably approx. to US$300 million). Due to the project-based nature of the work this means meeting tough deadlines and being fully responsible for the projects that I worked on as the grunt portion of the work is solo.
I intend to target schools such as Boston College, Boston U, U Connecticut, Northeastern and Babson - essentially schools ranked around the top 50 mark and in the North-East. My reason for this is because I want to have the ability to do an internship in Boston with the goal of gaining employment after the MBA is Boston. My goal employment would be something to do with business analytic's, business consultancy and competitive service delivery.
The obvious: My GPA is low. Does my work experience offset this enough for it to not be a major hurdle? What kind of GMAT should I target to offset my low GPA?
Does being Australian (I am Caucasian) give me any kind of advantage in applying to a US business school? I only ask because I don't believe that many Australians go to US business schools.
Appreciate any advice that can be given.
