-
hancy
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:08 pm
- Location: St. Louis, MO
- GMAT Score:740
I have been thinking about an MBA for a while now, and thanks to the help of this forum and many other resources i managed to focus on studying and scored a 740 (V40 / Q50 / AWA5.5) on GMAT earlier this month. So I definitely have to thank beatthegmat.com and all the experts here. Now I'm moving on to preparing for admission packages, this is also the first place I come to for questions - the most important of which is, despite my confidence, how strong is my profile actually and what I can potentially focus on to be more competitive.
My background: I am an architectural designer with 4.5 years of full-time working experience (will be 5 by next fall) with strong design and project management experiences. Both my recommendations will speak to that as they are both from my supervisors. I have a lot of international travel experiences, for my previous graduate degree in urban design as well as my current job, in which I fly to Hong Kong/Shanghai and lead projects there for 3-6 months out of a year in the past 2 years. I work for a large international design firm and have contributed to aspects beyond my job descriptions (i.e. standards, best practices, new technologies, training and mentoring, etc.) - these are all solid contributions that will be in my essay and can be verified my recommender as well). Besides work, I also have some academic experiences such as lecturing at conferences, part-time lecturing in college and being a guest critic for some undergraduate classes. I have an undergraduate degree (3.5 GPA) and a master's in architecture, both from top universities.
What I consider as my most serious weakness is that my background has nothing to do with finance or advanced mathematics. I can possibly explain that some of the architecture education has to do with structures/civil engineering, which I was good at, and demonstrate that in high school I already took college level calculus, etc., but am not sure if this will be problematic. I also don't have a lot of non-profit charity or volunteering experiences. Besides, I constantly doubt my decision to not go for any school is round 1, but I was traveling heavily early in year and needed to prepare for GMAT.
Therefore I am not targeting UPenn, Harvard, Chicago Booth or Northwester (finance-focues), but will aim for technology, innovation, entrepreneurial and sustainability-focused programs such as MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Duke and NYU. Would my profile stand out or would I be facing competitions from lots of others like me? What can I focus more on in my essays to boost my visibilities? I am traveling a lot (with somewhat unpredictable schedule) so visiting the schools will be difficult, but would it help a lot and should I plan for it? (I can, however, potentially state that I lived in most of these cities, except for Durham, and am familiar with the campuses.)
I'd really appreciate any advice on whether my profile is strong enough to consider 3-4 top-10 schools and 2 mid-range (top 25) schools? Also, if there are possibilities for scholarships, which schools would be better matches for my background?
Thanks in advance for the advice!
My background: I am an architectural designer with 4.5 years of full-time working experience (will be 5 by next fall) with strong design and project management experiences. Both my recommendations will speak to that as they are both from my supervisors. I have a lot of international travel experiences, for my previous graduate degree in urban design as well as my current job, in which I fly to Hong Kong/Shanghai and lead projects there for 3-6 months out of a year in the past 2 years. I work for a large international design firm and have contributed to aspects beyond my job descriptions (i.e. standards, best practices, new technologies, training and mentoring, etc.) - these are all solid contributions that will be in my essay and can be verified my recommender as well). Besides work, I also have some academic experiences such as lecturing at conferences, part-time lecturing in college and being a guest critic for some undergraduate classes. I have an undergraduate degree (3.5 GPA) and a master's in architecture, both from top universities.
What I consider as my most serious weakness is that my background has nothing to do with finance or advanced mathematics. I can possibly explain that some of the architecture education has to do with structures/civil engineering, which I was good at, and demonstrate that in high school I already took college level calculus, etc., but am not sure if this will be problematic. I also don't have a lot of non-profit charity or volunteering experiences. Besides, I constantly doubt my decision to not go for any school is round 1, but I was traveling heavily early in year and needed to prepare for GMAT.
Therefore I am not targeting UPenn, Harvard, Chicago Booth or Northwester (finance-focues), but will aim for technology, innovation, entrepreneurial and sustainability-focused programs such as MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Duke and NYU. Would my profile stand out or would I be facing competitions from lots of others like me? What can I focus more on in my essays to boost my visibilities? I am traveling a lot (with somewhat unpredictable schedule) so visiting the schools will be difficult, but would it help a lot and should I plan for it? (I can, however, potentially state that I lived in most of these cities, except for Durham, and am familiar with the campuses.)
I'd really appreciate any advice on whether my profile is strong enough to consider 3-4 top-10 schools and 2 mid-range (top 25) schools? Also, if there are possibilities for scholarships, which schools would be better matches for my background?
Thanks in advance for the advice!
