Round 3/4 or wait for Round 1 and class of 2016?

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Interested in feedback from others. I am debating to apply in r3 (or the equivalent for some schools). Here are some highlights that hopefully will give some of you an idea of where I stand.

Age: 31 (31 at marticulation)
Male, Caucasion
Married, 2 kids with one on the way
GMAT: 730
CFA Level 1 Candidate (taking test in June)

School: Associates degree transferred to BYU for BS-Business Management, emphasis in Finance; Overall GPA: 3.5
Graduation: 2006
Awards/Clubs: 2 Merit Scholarships, Presidential Leadership Scholarship, VP Finance Society, Member Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society

Languages: Fluent Italian, conversational Spanish

Work Experience
-Intern for Investment management firm 2003-2005
-Intern for Utah State Senate President-Chosen out of 300 applicants
-Corporate FX Sales and Trading-2005-Present
-6th employee in firm; now 60+ employees and 6 locations
-Part of team that opened and developed the LA and Dallas offices
-Opened Boston office and continue to manage the eastern United States territory; built book of business from $0 in FX volume to over $225 MM per year
-Member of the credit committee
-Created and implemented training on fundamental and technical analysis for company
-Developed and ran Intern program 2008-present
-Daily analysis of markets and recommendations have generated over $3 mm in revenue annually
-Co-Owner Wakeboard Manufacturer/distributor
-Implemented strategy that grew sales by 100% for 3 straight years (2010-present)
-Grew sponsorship team from 12 to 100 riders who help market the brand around the world
-Created relationships with manufacturing facilities that got the company better quality boards and for 50% less

Service
-Scoutmaster for local scout troop 2008-2010
-Leader of religious youth boys (12-18 years old) and developed program that took participation from 20% to 88% over the past 18 months
-Church Service in Northern Italy 2000-2002; became fluent in Italian while living there for just over 2 years.
-Lead over 150 fellow participants in training seminars

There is additional information, but I don't want to bore all of you out there. Thanks for taking a quick look and giving me some feedback on whether I have a shot in R3 or if I should wait till round 1 and the class of 2016.

Schools I am looking at are the following (in no particular order):
Wharton
Tuck
Stanford
Harvard
Haas
Fuqua
Booth
McCombs
Booth
and weighing either USC or UCLA

Goal: To get into asset management

THANKS!!

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by Heidi Granner » Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:07 pm
Hi lcannon13,

Thanks for the post.

In reading through the profile information you provided, I suggest you give Round 3 a shot as I think you have enough differentiating aspects to your candidacy and your age is getting into the range where it is starting to play against you (i.e., applying this year will be more advantageous than next year).

Your academics, work experience, and extracurriculars are solid enough to make you competitive at the schools that you mentioned. The dimensions that I believe will really help you stand out to the admissions officers are your operational and start-up experiences. Namely, having helped open two new offices (provided you had a critical enough role where you can point to your specific responsibilities and impact), growing a new book of business for your firm, and helping build and grow the wakeboard company.

Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] for a free detailed profile evaluation.

Best,
Heidi

Heidi Granner
Clear Admit, LLC
[email protected]
215.568.2590

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