Hi,
I recently took the GMAT and am looking at applying for business school this fall. I have been a software developer since graduation, working on products that I personally loved before employment. I moved from a narrower market and larger company to a small startup with a huge potential market to increase my impact and widen my skill set, but I am interested in business school to increase my impact further. My dream is to start a tech venture. My work experience and wide range of skills should show that I am technically capable enough, and my recommendations will hopefully show that I have the general vision/big picture mindset, understanding of the industry, and ability to execute necessary for success. If the right position presents itself, I would also be interested in taking a leadership role with an existing company.
Here are my stats:
27 year old Asian American male (will turn 28 right before matriculation)
GMAT: 750 (Q50 V41) AWA 5.5
Education: BS in EE/CS from UC Berkeley, 3.45 GPA - got straight As my first semester (including mutivariable calculus), then did pretty badly (~2.6, no passed a 1 unit elective) for 3 semesters due to fraternity duties and admittedly a lack of focus, but finished strong my last 2 years with a mixture of As and Bs, including solid/high As in statistics and some of the consensus most difficult CS undergrad courses at Berkeley. One of my senior year professors recently sent a recruiter to me for his seed-stage startup. Member of my major's honor society.
Work Experience (in order):
Summer internship in software development at a large international conglomerate.
Summer internship in software development at a federal government lab.
3 years developing AAA console video games, several of which sold 500k+. Sole ownership of many features with input in design. Brought my employer back with me to my alma mater to recruit (career fair, spoke at an infosession about the industry) a few times, connecting it through my honor society.
2.5+ years as key developer at a high profile Internet startup of ~20 employees with 50M+ active users. Design/implementation/maintenance/ownership of multiple products, more involved in overall company strategy (we didn't know what we were doing or how to make money for a while). Some direct communication with partners, customers, and large user community. Published an open standard for the open source community.
Extracurriculars:
Multiple leadership positions in fraternity, volunteered to tutor and mentor kids in the evenings a couple semesters, member of CS honor society, recruited top high school scholarship recipients to university. After college, both jobs did not leave much consistent time (at normal hours) for much organized outside my usual hobbies. I maintained my fraternity's website for a while and organized alumni pre-game tailgates, but nothing too spectacular. Not necessarily extracurricular, but I've also contributed to some other open source projects.
With my career goals, I'd like to attend a school strong in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship, preferably with a strong sister computer science program (so I can be close to the latest breakthroughs). I see my greatest weaknesses to be weak GPA early on (will address in supplemental essay, most of my poor grades were vindicated by later coursework or work experience), lack of official leadership in work (will address in essays/recommendations), and lack of extracurriculars (not really sure how to address this besides trying to spin what I do have as best as possible). That being said, my current list is MIT, Haas (reaches), Carnegie Mellon, UCLA (realistic), USC, Texas (safer). Do you think this is a fair assessment and a good list? Do you have any other programs you'd recommend?
I appreciate a brutally honest assessment regarding anything in my profile. Thank you for your help!
I recently took the GMAT and am looking at applying for business school this fall. I have been a software developer since graduation, working on products that I personally loved before employment. I moved from a narrower market and larger company to a small startup with a huge potential market to increase my impact and widen my skill set, but I am interested in business school to increase my impact further. My dream is to start a tech venture. My work experience and wide range of skills should show that I am technically capable enough, and my recommendations will hopefully show that I have the general vision/big picture mindset, understanding of the industry, and ability to execute necessary for success. If the right position presents itself, I would also be interested in taking a leadership role with an existing company.
Here are my stats:
27 year old Asian American male (will turn 28 right before matriculation)
GMAT: 750 (Q50 V41) AWA 5.5
Education: BS in EE/CS from UC Berkeley, 3.45 GPA - got straight As my first semester (including mutivariable calculus), then did pretty badly (~2.6, no passed a 1 unit elective) for 3 semesters due to fraternity duties and admittedly a lack of focus, but finished strong my last 2 years with a mixture of As and Bs, including solid/high As in statistics and some of the consensus most difficult CS undergrad courses at Berkeley. One of my senior year professors recently sent a recruiter to me for his seed-stage startup. Member of my major's honor society.
Work Experience (in order):
Summer internship in software development at a large international conglomerate.
Summer internship in software development at a federal government lab.
3 years developing AAA console video games, several of which sold 500k+. Sole ownership of many features with input in design. Brought my employer back with me to my alma mater to recruit (career fair, spoke at an infosession about the industry) a few times, connecting it through my honor society.
2.5+ years as key developer at a high profile Internet startup of ~20 employees with 50M+ active users. Design/implementation/maintenance/ownership of multiple products, more involved in overall company strategy (we didn't know what we were doing or how to make money for a while). Some direct communication with partners, customers, and large user community. Published an open standard for the open source community.
Extracurriculars:
Multiple leadership positions in fraternity, volunteered to tutor and mentor kids in the evenings a couple semesters, member of CS honor society, recruited top high school scholarship recipients to university. After college, both jobs did not leave much consistent time (at normal hours) for much organized outside my usual hobbies. I maintained my fraternity's website for a while and organized alumni pre-game tailgates, but nothing too spectacular. Not necessarily extracurricular, but I've also contributed to some other open source projects.
With my career goals, I'd like to attend a school strong in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship, preferably with a strong sister computer science program (so I can be close to the latest breakthroughs). I see my greatest weaknesses to be weak GPA early on (will address in supplemental essay, most of my poor grades were vindicated by later coursework or work experience), lack of official leadership in work (will address in essays/recommendations), and lack of extracurriculars (not really sure how to address this besides trying to spin what I do have as best as possible). That being said, my current list is MIT, Haas (reaches), Carnegie Mellon, UCLA (realistic), USC, Texas (safer). Do you think this is a fair assessment and a good list? Do you have any other programs you'd recommend?
I appreciate a brutally honest assessment regarding anything in my profile. Thank you for your help!
