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Hi there,
I'm 26 years old, and these are my credentials:

- Bachelor's Degree in History, top15 university in Italy, GPA 4/4
- Master's Degree in Anthropology, top 5 university in Italy, GPA 3.5/4
- GMAT: 680 (Q 43, V40)
- TOEFL iBT: 109
- At time of supposed enrollment around 3 years of work experience in a cleaning service and facility management service company as Quality Management assistant manager (being promoted once);
- Started my own business (online) selling media, run for 2 years;
- Funder of the first regional Alumni group of my province (and now president);
- Trying to improve other extracurricuars.

I will apply for business school next year (for 2010 intake). I will try to improve my GMAT score, especially the math part, but assuming I won't be able to do that, which schools should I target? My goals are working in Finance or consulting with an international focus, I totally exclude working in marketing or operations or accounting. I was thinking about Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis (Olin), Texas A&M, Brigham Young and Texas-Austin. Do you think those school are appropriate and feasible for me?

Thanks a lot for your help!

Rob,

You clearly have a unique background from an academic standpoint - as there aren't too many history/anthro majors in the applicant pool and your grades are superb! Of course, on the GMAT side of things, you haven't quite hit the mark to be truly competitive at top schools. While a 680 is certainly within striking distance (the average GMAT at top schools is around 700-715 these days), I worry that your quant. results around the 70th percentile could raise some concerns (particularly since you have a non-quantitative ugrad background). Given that you aren't applying until next fall, I strongly recommend taking the exam a second time - after rigorous preparation on the quant. section.

In terms of your work experience, I am wondering how you ended up in this post - since it's clearly unrelated to your studies. Is this a family business? In all cases, it's rather unorthodox and will require that you position it as effectively as possible in your application materials. I like the idea that you also have an entrepreneurial venture on the side, as this could add some interesting color to your candidacy.

As to your goals, you should ideally develop them further, since jobs in consulting and finance are actually quite different and schools will not look favorably on a candidate who seems less-focused (particularly a non-traditional candidate).

Your XCs with your alumni club are off to a good start, but I agree that you should spend some time developing this area of your profile over the next year.

In terms of other factors, I should add that applying from Italy gives you a nice advantage as well - since Italians are under-represented in admissions to top MBA programs.

Finally, when it comes to school selection, I am somewhat puzzled by your list. You've mentioned some solid programs (where you would certainly be competitive), but if you are aiming to build an international career with a top consulting firm or financial services organization, you may want to look a bit more closely at the top tier.

Best of luck,

Graham

Hi Graham,
and thank you for your valuable insight. let me expand my self-description.
I have a MA in Anthropology, true, but the fact is: it's very hard to find jobs in the sector (at least in Italy) today. I found this job opportunity and - also given the scarcity of jobs in Italy lately - I couldn't miss it. My current company is a 400 people company, dealing with cleaning services and facility management services. I'm in charge of statistical data collection regarding injuries and sickness among workers, and I also help the Quality Management System Manager in developing and implementing a new integrated system that will eventually lead to get certification for our quality, safety and environment management systems according to international standards/norms. I'm also internal quality and safety auditor and I coordinate with clients when it comes to safety measures in the workplace.
They were looking for somebody with a humanities/social sciences background to fill the post, also because we have many foreigners working for us. So they took me.

About my goals: consulting would be great. I relish the opportunity of being part of great projects and coming out with ideas to better implement them. I relish travelling a lot too, and as I can fluently speak italian, spanish and english plus decent finnish and a bit of french and chinese I think I have some valuable assets on my side! But I'm very concerned about my gmat score, that's all! I will really do my best to improve it, but having a full time job doesn't help!

I'm italian, married to an American woman. I'll be applying for my green card next year, so I hope that won't be a disadvantage! You're right, not many italians and western europeans in general are applying to mbas in the US, so maybe I'm in luck!

What else? Oh yeah, my entrepreneurial adventure: it lasted a couple of year, I haven't any official proof of it (because it was an informal business run on the internet and through local magazines/advertisment strategies) but it provided me with some nice cash inflow for two years, thanks to which I was able to pay my year as exchange student in Finland and travel a bit around the world, not counting my two months as ESL student in the USA. So it was a nice experience I'd say!

Well, I must admit it's nice to know that I would be competitive for the schools I listed. I think those are great programs: I know they are not top15 programs, but they still guarantee nice jobs with high salaries.

May I ask you - given my goals - which school would you also consider? And which school could be a good stretch school to apply to? I was thinking about Duke, what do you think?

Well, thanks again for your help, I value it a lot!

Graham,
this is my list of wanted schools (assuming my gmat stays the same):

Stretch: Duke, USC (Marshall)
Good shoots: Vanderbilt, Purdue, UTexas-Austin
Safety: can you suggest?

thanks!