Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Thanks for taking the time to review my profile!

I'll really appreciate some feedback based on the stats below. Am I setting my goals to high, and should I be looking at other schools instead of the ones I am currently targeting? Thanks!


Some brief info on my background:
Nationality: West African (working in US through employment sponsorship)
Age: 23 (24 in September)
Graduation: May 2012
College: American University, Washington DC
Major: BSBA, Concentration in Entrepreneurship, Minor in Economics
GPA: 3.3 (Straight A's in all entrepreneurship courses)
MBA Intended Concentration: Entrepreneurship & Marketing

Work Experience Summary (over 1 year and a half as an intern, and 3 and a half years as a full time employee so far. I will have over 4 years of full time experience by the time i start b school)
In my Junior year in college I started to intern for a tech startup that had raised close to $20m in funding. I was a Product Marketing intern for the summer, and was promoted to Associate Manager of Product Marketing during the first semester of my senior year. I held this role through my senior year - working 3 days a week- and moved into it full time when I graduated the following Summer. 5 months into the role, I was promoted to Partnership & Reporting Manager, and I held this role for about a year, until the company ran out of funding and shut down.

While working at my previous job, I discovered that I wanted to go into Product Management, and started teaching myself to code as a way to get into the field. When the startup shutdown I took a temporary Front End Developer position with a Fortune 500 Pizza company, and about a month into that position I got offered a role in Product Management at a startup, mainly due to my understanding of web development. 3 months into my role as a Business Analyst for the startup, startup got acquired by a Fortune 200 company, so I have been working for the acquirer in the same role since then.

Apart from the work with both startups, the acquiring company, and another venture funded startup which I interned for while in college, I founded an incubator with 2 Nigeria based entrepreneurs in April 2014 and I have been working on it on the side ever since. We have so far helped 3 entrepreneurs in Nigeria launch their technology based businesses and raise about $100,000 in seed funding for these startups (combined, not each). We have struggled to pay the bills but we are still chugging along and have helped our entrepreneurs take significant steps towards achieving their dreams and learning how to manage their businesses. One of our ventures has sold over 3,000 units of it's product so far in 2015. My role in all of this is to play Product Manager for all of the companies and manage the process of getting each product from the concept phase into working prototypes, and then live products.

I have started 2 unsuccessful startups (my freshman and junior year in college), worked for an unsuccessful startup that raised almost $20m, interned for another startup that is now quite successful (raised $6m so far and has several strong partners), and also worked for a startup that did not raise any money but has now been acquired by a Fortune 200 company, which I now work for. I have also founded a startup incubator in Africa, and launched several startups out of this incubator, 1 of which is gaining some traction. I feel like despite my young age and weak GPA, these unique experiences could be turned into an interesting story. I however am conscious of the fact that the applicant pool is extremely competitive, with thousands of people with even stronger experience, so I'll really appreciate some feedback on schools I should be considering, which I am not now. Or ways to maximize my chances at my target schools.

Short term goals: Upon completing my MBA, I will like to return to my current company to work as a Product Manager, or work for a company like Google or Facebook in the role of Product Manager. I believe an MBA will equip me with the critical financial and management knowledge to complement by knowledge and experience in bringing products to life. Learning more about capitalizeable expenses for example and how that plays a role in product development, would be key knowledge that would translate well at large tech organizations and ultimately the tech businesses I build.

Long term goals: I want to build successful health care and education focused technology based businesses in Africa and also help African entrepreneurs build businesses that solve problems in the continent.

Target Schools: Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, Yale, Georgetown

Target GMAT: 750

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and for letting me know your thoughts. I truly appreciate it.

Hi Jen,

Thanks a lot for the candid review. I really appreciate it.

With regards to extracurriculars, i co-founded a Nigeria based non-profit called Project4 my Junior year in college .We focussed on giving career guidance and vocational training to high school students in Nigeria and I have been a mentor to 5 students from this program since we founded it in 2011. Overall, we worked with over 200 high school students in Nigeria over our 3 years of existence, and myself and my co-founders have been involved in the lives of most of the students since then. Some details about project 4 can be found in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeq9E4VIkiU

My GMAT is still a question mark. I am extremely dedicated to getting a 720 at absolute minimum, as anything below that would make my target schools a stretch.