My background is as follows :

* Undergrad from India in Hotel Management(Excellent school and apalling grades).


* 4 years experience (2yr manegerial experience) at a world class hotel in India.

followed by

* 3 years experience (middle and top management exp) with a small group of restaurants

followed by


* 2 years of entrepreneurial experience which wasnt pretty at all. Crashed and burned. Only managed to save bankruptcy by a whisker.
During the 2nd year of the experience,to decrease withdrawls from the business, started working for the biggest superstore of the UK as a general assistant and was elected to be the union representative for the store. Later became the divisional rep and then was a part of the national union forum(12 reps representing 280,000) negotiating the pay rise for the year with the Company besides attending national union forms and working on various campaigns.


* For the last 2 years working as executive chef for a group with 5 restaurants.


* GMAT score of 690 (47Q, 38V)

I only plan to apply to tier 1 schools in the us/uk/europe for the class starting 2010.

Here are my questions :
1) I did not prepare much for the gmat and beleive that I can achieve a score of around 750+ and given my apalling grad school grades and the number of years since my last education, I am inclined to take the GMAT again. IS IT WORTH IT?

2)How badly would the failed business reflect on my entrepreneurial abilities. What can I do to mitigate the effects of this episode.

3)Should I include the Union rep experience(as extracurricular activity or job experience?) in the application? It was very rich in terms of international exposure but totally noncoherent with my main experience???

4)By the time I start my MBA in 2010, I shall be 32 years old. Shall I be a bit too old for a regular MBA???

Any advice shall be much appriciated.