Profile Evaluation - Where do I stand?

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Profile Evaluation - Where do I stand?

by ricecracker » Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:03 pm
Hi All, first and foremost I wanted to thank everyone here at BTG for all their insight and helpful advice. I've been asking several questions over the past couple of weeks here and have finally worked up the nerve to ask for a profile evaluation. I'm ready to receive my diagnosis (for better or worse) and am looking forward to hearing your opinions.

Education:
large state school undergrad (top 25-35 for business)
cumulative gpa: 3.19
major: finance; major gpa: 3.67

Work Experience:
(International experience in Asia, primarily in Japan)

1.5 years Business Development Associate for a small to medium sized foreign exchange brokerage (leveraged currency trading). Assigned as project leader to setup offshore sister company in other regions of Asia to act as a hub to expand Asian client-base. This included applying for and submitting volumes of information and business plans to relevant regulators to acquire appropriate financial licenses from respective jurisdictions.

1 year working as an equities trader at a large European Corporate and Investment Bank.
(Unfortunately mine and many other departments were eliminated in the wake of the Greek debt crisis after only a year there).

6 months co-founding a start-up foreign exchange brokerage, acting essentially as an in-house consultant. Large scope of responsibilities, including the implementation of operational infrastructure, negotiating fees & terms with our IT trading platform provider, and coordinating with clients to on-board them onto the trading system to enable live trading.

Lastly, not sure if this counts, but I interned as a search engine optimization analyst for 1 year while still in college. So at present, I have 3 to 4 years experience (depending on whether the internship can count), and will have 4 to 5 years experience at matriculation.

GMAT:
I am scheduled to take this at the beginning of December, but for the sake of the evaluation, let's assume I score around 700 - 720.

Target Schools:
Chicago Booth (reach)
Northwestern Kellogg (reach)
UCLA Anderson
Columbia
Michigan Ross

I realize Booth and Kellogg are a long shot, but what do you think of my chances with UCLA, Columbia or Michigan, or even Cornell Johnson?

Sorry for the long post, but if anybody could shed some light onto whether you think I have a chance at any of these schools, I would be extremely grateful to hear what you have to say.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Source: — The Application Process |

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by ivyctor2010 » Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:11 pm
Even with your profile experience and GMAT of 720 both Columbia and Ross will be tough nuts to crack. Anderson and Cornell are within reach. But this is just an initial estimate, a lot will depend upon how brilliantly you write your essays, how strongly you bring out your leadership points, your peer motivation skills, crises management if any? Situation where you took initiative and drove projects, examples where you showcases significant revenue, cost, people, process, or technology impact. Your essays will determine a lot on which B-school adcoms give you some airtime with them, so start thinking about your essays and recos.
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by ricecracker » Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:15 am
Thanks for the prompt reply ivyctor. I agree about the essays playing a significant role in how my overall application is perceived. Outside of that, do you see any obvious weaknesses based on the info I've provided? I know my undergrad gpa could haunt me (that's my primary concern, which I do have a reason for and intend to explain in my essays).

Work experience wise, I've worked at one major bank/corporation while the rest is more entrepreneurial in nature (I plan on expanding on these in my essays as well). It's hard for me to judge whether school's will look at this in a positive light or if they'd simply prefer somebody with more experience in big banks/corporations/consulting firms.

Otherwise, I'd love to hear as many opinions as I can from anybody else who has any input about my profile so I can begin a more concentrated approach once I start pinpointing exactly which schools I will apply for.

Many thanks again!

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by ivyctor2010 » Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:29 am
Entrepreneurship experience is almost always taken in a positive light and infact is a very good signalling of an applicant's leadership skills. But having been worked in 3 roles in last 3-4 years may look like an example of hazy focus and is a slight negative. Hence make sure to cover this slight weakness in your essays. Make sure your job transitions are well covered with your logical thought process behind each of them.

Also be clear how your long term and short term goals fit in with what you have been doing and also with why you wish to do an MBA. Like how you work as an equities trader or your brokerage startup fit in with your post MBA goals, was there a spark you go there, or a business idea, or you found a gap which an MBA needs to fill?
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by ricecracker » Sat Oct 20, 2012 9:24 am
Yeah, I know what you mean about the 3 roles in a 3-4 year time span. It was very unfortunate since I only planned to make one move (from my job at the brokerage to the European bank), which was a very logical move in terms of career advancement. If I could have had it my way I would have stayed in that role for several years. Oh well, at least it led to some entrepreneurial experience which was a huge learning experience.

Like you say, I just have to explain the natural progression of events. I'm just hoping I can tweak my essays to eloquently get this across in a limited amount of words without making the bulk of the writing seem like I'm just trying to defend myself, as there's a lot of ground I want to cover, not just about my professional accomplishments but also weaving in my personal story to make it a single cohesive narrative.

Oh well, I could always just resort to plan B by knocking the socks off the GMAT by scoring a 770, right? No big deal:) Ahh, if only things were that easy...

I'm actually glad you mentioned that UCLA might be within striking distance, as I've only recently begun seriously considering it as one of my top choices. I'm still doing research on the school, but if you or anyone else can provide any insight and share your thoughts as to whether my profile above is competitive enough, that would be tremendous.