Ask Stacy Blackman

Please review my profile, do I have a chance at all?



Age: 28
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Chinese American (born and raised in Hong Kong, immigrated to the US 15 years ago)
Undergrad Major - Double majored in Economics & communication
Undergrad GPA - 3.41 overall from Rutgers (My econ GPA was rather low, though, around 2.9x)
GMAT: 700 (Q48/V38) (This is the score I got after taking the GMAT for the second time)
Work experience: 4.5 years, will be almost 5 by the time I submit my applications.
Industry - Manufacturing
Extra-Curricular Activities - Practically none, other than recreational sports that I have been playing for two years, in which I am very passionate about. I am now looking for some volunteering opportunities, but would it be too late? Worst of all, would the adcom see that I am just trying to fill my resume and hence, leave a negative impression?

Here is another problem:

From the first day I started at this company, I have always been wearing different hats. Initially, I was hired as a department assistant for my company's relatively new division. I was doing lots of admin work. After about half a year, I started picking up a bit more in the sourcing area and took trips to Asia to attend trade shows and to participate in the negotiation process with our vendors. My duties in this area remained minimal. Then, in efforts to take on additional duties, I volunteered to share the workload of a different department and self-taught myself AutoCAD, in order to assist them. I also saw room for improvement in that team's daily operation, so I again, volunteered to develop a new project management platform using SharePoint. This new protocol was very helpful and acted as a perfect solution at the time, and was able to save the team's time and workload. I did all this while still maintaining my regular duties. Eventually, after another 1.5 years, I stepped down and reduced my workload within this department to focus more back on the division I actually belong to. I have since then been involved more on the supply chain management and operation side of the business.

Not competitive, but I suppose the above information doesn't make me the worst candidate? My biggest dilemma is that, my job title has remained the same (department assistant) and I feel that it doesn't reflect what I really do. Would this affect my chances of getting into schools like Stern, Columbia, Wharton?

I would like to pursue an MBA in attempt to gain more business knowledge, particularly in areas like Supply Chain Management and International business.

I feel that I currently stand no chance of being accepted and wondered if I should retake the GMAT to increase my chances?

Any advice you could share would be greatly appreciated.