Hello,

Asking for evaluation regarding my GPA/profile. I first entered college not knowing what to do and where to go. I slacked off and received a 1.98 GPA through my first 65 credits of college in an art degree. I then transferred to a tech school for two semesters received a 4.0 there both semesters to get my overall GPA up to 2.55 to get into the university I graduated from. I then got a 3.53 Institutional GPA there where I graduated Cum Laude in Finance but my overall is 3.12 because of my initial poor performance. The other factor is the grades I had from my previous experience did not even count towards my degree at all just towards my overall college GPA. The only grades counted towards my degree are from tech school (4.0) to graduation at Georgia State University which is actually a 3.63 from start to finish. So my question is how do MBA schools evaluate this? Will they look at my 3.12 overall or focus more on the 3.53 Cum Laude finance GPA I graduated with? Also should I use the optional essay to explain this? Any input would be very helpful! Additionally, I noticed the Avg. GMAT at my target schools is around 680-690 would you suggest getting higher than this or would coming close to the average suffice with my lower than average GPA? I am taking the GMAT on Saturday and am fairly confident I can get a 680 or 690. My target schools are USC, Georgetown, BU, and University of Washington going for Management Consulting as I am a Business Analyst for CGI a global IT consulting firm and competitor of Accenture and IBM with 4 years exp at matriculation. If I have a shot I would also look at UCLA and Berkeley but I feel my GMAT would need to be in the middle 700's to even compete. So I digress, would a 680-690 be sufficient for these four target schools or what should I aim for to stay competitive?

Thanks for any advice!