Profile Review/Unconventional Experience/29yr old in Africa

Figure out where you wish to apply
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Background: 29 year old Chinese American currently living in Africa

Work experience: 2 years in family friend's early stage VC fund in China specializing in outbound investments(small, 50M USD fund)...
moved to African country and joined one of the largest tech companies in the region as CFO/CSO, worked for over one year, oversaw Series B financing...
now working for a top politician in the country as an advisor on Chinese investments in Africa

Extra curricular: moved to America from China in middle school

currently working on two or three reports which will probably be published by the government, one of which I am in the process of expanding and looking for publishers to publish as a book. (fingers crossed I can do this before I submit my app)

CFA I
Shitty programmer, knows some python and java

Fluent in English, Mandarin, and French, intermediate fusa'a Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic)

Given workshops and run camps for African youth on entrepreneurship

Undergrad school/major: Non-Berkeley Top Public School, studied history/political science, graduated summa cum laude (4.1 major GPA, 3.7 overall GPA)...was actually top student of the history department to graduate in my year

One year study abroad at top French school (no grades)

Rhodes scholarship finalist

GMAT: Male

GMAT Score: Haven't taken yet, but CAT so far in the 700 range, aiming for 750+

Goal of MBA: Work for a Emerging Markets Private Equity Firm specializing in Africa/Middle East, maybe raise money from China one day to focus on tech companies in Africa?

Target schools: HBS, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, LBS, INSEAD

I realize that I'm a bit older and don't really have the pedigree, but with schools like Harvard/Stanford, would I be able to compensate for these with a sufficiently interesting story/diversity?

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by Michelle@ARINGO » Mon Jul 11, 2016 11:34 am
I want to start by saying that of course to some extent your chances will be affected by the actual GMAT score, but that being said, I do think that you do have a lot of interesting material to work with. However, you do need to work a lot on your story telling. I realize you would not be as factual in an application as here, but I am missing things like: what led from one step to another in your career so far? Any leadership experience? Any accomplishments (numbers and stats are great!) in your career so far? Why do you need an MBA? And why from the school you end up applying to?
Just to mention a few...

If you are not that into storytelling (it's definitely one of the trickier parts of the entire application process, I know!), experienced admissions consultants can really help with that part (I work for ARINGO and we work with a lot of applicants with highly unusual backgrounds, so I know first hand how much talking to someone who has "seen it all" can help), so would suggest at least looking into that option.

And I feel finding out more about the schools (a must in order to be able to tell them why you chose them specifically) would be good for you anyway, as you do not seem to have a clear front runner on the school front yet, so any research you do on that would probably be beneficial for you as an applicant on top of all that.

So to summarize: work on your storytelling abilities (or get help), get a bit better at selling yourself and do your homework on the schools. But as I see it, you definitely have a chance!