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Need advice

by hujia » Fri May 17, 2013 2:42 am
Hi

I would like to have your expert advise on MBA application, my background below:

Education: The top research university in NZ with GPA 3.7 on average from undergraduate to master (Master in Finance)
CFA chart holder
GMAT: 730

Work experience (all in NZ): 7 years

First 1.8 years in a leading utility network company in NZ, had exposure to a wide range of work such as pricing/regulatory/forecasting etc
Next 2 years, Senior analyst for NZ government, establishing $2b health procurement pricing plan, also one of the founding member of the national ambulance service

Another 3 years in the largest listed power company in NZ, leading the financial modeling and valuation work for the company and obtained CFA chart.

Leadership: won the student election at uni and become the first international student executive for the student association in its 108 year history
Graduation ceremony guest speaker to 2500 people
won education award on behalf of a major community organization and gave the speech
won 2 finance award in the power company
nominated to be the staff of the year twice
leading the financial modeling work for the company
have been actively doing volunteering work for 6 years

Target school: harvard/Wharton/Chicago/Insead (Oxford/Cambridge optional)

Could any one advise if I get a chance to go for Harvard etc

Thanks for the help
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by Jim@StratusPrep » Fri May 17, 2013 5:36 am
Absolutely. Make sure you convey your leadership experience in the application.
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by CriticalSquareMBA » Sun May 19, 2013 4:02 am
Jim is spot on - you've got a great shot!

In addition to showcasing your leadership, make sure your story is clear, articulate, and single minded. By that I mean your experiences seem to be concentrated within telecom and utilities. Therefore, you can either wave that flag proudly as your "why an MBA" or utilize it as your desire to change paths.

Either way - best of luck!
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by Jon@Admissionado » Sun May 19, 2013 11:07 pm
Overall things look good. You have nice diverse work experience, and government work is esp. highly prized (and especially in HBS), so I would say you do have a shot. It depends a bit on the strength of your work experience and volunteer as well as the other aspects (and although I do get a hint of that here, it's not entirely clear yet).

For HBS be very clear (and ambitious) with your goals, and then 'just' write a superb application.
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by hujia » Wed May 22, 2013 1:15 am
Thanks for all your advice. To be a bit more explicit, my private sector experience is mainly in Power/Gas utility area where my public sector experience was in a world unique crown insurance scheme , which cover all the accident injury expense within the country no matter what. It is the only one in the world these days and used to be the symbol of welfare system in the western world. (btw, I came to NZ 10 years ago from China, so I am a bilingual)

In terms of the community work, I have been working for a community center , which provides people opportunity to contribute to the local community. (its a bit like a job recruitment agency but for the community work only, free of charge. very interesting work and I quite enjoyed it. if not the CFA study over the past 3 years, I would carry on doing this as I meet a number of different people)

I plan to get three reference letters (one from my GM in company, one from the community service place and one from a highly prominent political leader in NZ, not sure if I need more though

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by Jon@Admissionado » Tue May 28, 2013 12:12 am
Sounds pretty good.

Three recommendation letters will certainly be enough, and you seem to have three good choices from three diverse experiences. Now all you gotta do is getting started! Stanford already released its questions, and HBS should be coming up soon.
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https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Admis ... 700945.htm

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Hit us up on WhatsApp.
Ping our satellite: 0884#&@-2#101101
Contact us via web form you lazy git: https://admissionado.com/contact/
Mostly, email Claudia.