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Hi accepted.com staff,

my name is Enrico, I'm italian and I plan to apply to a MBA in the US next year.

I hold a Bachelor's degree from a top 20% italian university with a gpa equivalent to 4.0 and a final mark of 110/100 cum laude in history.
I also have a MA in Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at the University of Turin (top 5% in italy) with a gpa of 3.49/3.58 (according to WES) and a final mark of 108/110.
I've spent 1 year as exchange student in Helsinki (Finland) and I've studied at U. Missouri - Kansas City for a summer semester, where I took an advanced english class.
I didn't take many quantitative classes as you can imagine: microeconomics and development econ. were the only ones.

I've been working for 1,5 years as Quality, Safety and Environment Management Assistant Manager at a service company (logistics, facility management, cleaning service) here in Italy (COSEVA, 350 employees). I've been promoted once, and I report to the vice-president of the company (my boss).
Prior to that, when still in high school, I worked for 4-5 months for a book editor as associate data miner.

Extra-cv:

I've volunteered in Romania and the Gambia (two weeks each).
I've founded and I'm the president of the first alumni chapter of my university in my province.
I've acted as consultant for the NGO I volunteered with in the Gambia (helping them to find ways to get equipment they needed) and I'm looking for similar involvement at my local church.
I speak italian, english and spanish fluently. I speak a decent finnish (I hold a national certificate from Finalnd stating that I passed level 3 out of 6, intermediate level) and I've studied chiense for a couple of years.

I've travelled a lot and visited 31 countries so far.

My TOEFL is 109 iBT. My GMAT is 680 (Q43, 70%, V40, 89%).
I plan to take the gmat again this march.

I also plan to take calculus before applying next fall (I plan to apply for the class of 2012).

Career goals: working in strategy consulting, possibly in a big firm (accenture, deloitte, mckinsey, Pricewaterhouse, Capgemini, Bain, BCG, etc).

Assuming that I score at least 700 on the gmat, are these schools ok to consider (in order of my preference)?

1. Northwestern
2. Duke
3. Cornell
4. Virginia
5. UCLA
6. CMU
7. UNC
8. Texas-Austin

Are these school a good mix of stretch (Kellogg), Reach (UCLA), feasible schools (Duke, Cornell, Virginia, CMU) and good shots (UNC, Texas)?
I consider as safety schools Emory and Vanderbilt.

What do you think?

P.S.
- The list is set as I'm going to visit these schools soon. I would like to know whether, in your opinion, I've chosen wisely or not (for my stats and my career goals).

- Also, should I not improve my GMAT, I'd plan to apply to Virginia, Duke, UNC, Texas, Cornell. Make sense?

Thanks!!

One more thing!
At time of matriculation I would have 2y 8m of work exp!

Do you think that being italian, from an usually under-represented group (western europe) is an advantage to some extent?

Another thing: I've got a small entrepreneurial activity while doing my MA.
Nothing big, just buying and reselling dvds through local ads, magazines, internet etc, grossing around 50000 usd in 2 years. I didn't and won't list it under work experience as it was informal, but I'll list it as activities/extra-cv.

But I guess that entrepreneurial experience will be a plus on my resume!

Hello,

Overall your plans make excellent sense. You have a lot going for you. The schools you mention are an appropriate range assuming (a) your GMAT turns out as you expect and (b) you make a very strong case in your applications, which must be top-notch.

One caution: sometimes when someone has a lot of interesting "positives" the inclination is to try to "get everything in" the application, with the result that there appears to be a lack of focus and lack of clear message. I suggest that before you start to apply, you think through your case and develop a focused approach -- of course adapting it as warranted.

Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
www.Accepted.com