Please evaluate my profile and school selection

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Hi Stacy-

I'd like to request a profile evaluation to determine if I am on/off the mark with the candidate schools I hope to apply to. Thanks in advance.


Age: 39
Lived and worked in Boston, MA and State College, PA


Work experience:
11.5 years total work experience in electrical engineering. I have no experience in business or finance. I come from a staff engineer role and do not have any experience leading teams except for a brief quality improvement team effort at a prior company. The QIT was a success in meeting our objectives of reduction in test process time.

Current position: Senior Electrical Engineer with a startup company in wireless sensors (5 years)

Previous position: Test Development Engineer with a midsize public semiconductor test company (6.5 years)


Undergraduate:
May 1992 �" ASEET GPA 4.0, Norwalk State Technical College
May 1997 �" BSEE GPA 2.27, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Alternative transcript (2008/2009):
Financial and Managerial Accounting; Grade: A
Intro to Microeconomic Analysis and Policy; Grade: A
Intro to Statistics for Business; Grade: A


GMAT:
1st take: 670 (V38/Q44), AWA 5
2nd take: 640 (V34/Q44), AWA 5


Extra-curricular activities:
Married with a 23 month old son. I like skiing, hiking and camping. I also like playing guitar and restoring vintage guitar amplifiers.


Goals:
I desire to make a career change into corporate finance. I want to solve problems using quantitative approaches and affect positive improvement across multiple functions of a firm. I'm looking for a broad approach to management education as well as a specialization in finance. While I feel that I have the capacity to excel in the hard skill areas, I know that I need help in the soft skill areas. I believe that a full time MBA program would best furnish me with the skills necessary to accomplish these goals.


Concerns:
In light of my staff engineer only positions held without any team lead experience, is my age considered a weakness? One positive aspect is that I can remark on many teamwork situations and relating to upper management. There is a lot to write and talk about here for the essays and interviews. Also, my undergraduate GPA is pretty low. During my undergraduate program I was very troubled and immature and did not strike a good balance between the social and the academic aspects of college life. This is very apparent due to the simple CAD course that I failed! I also failed some of the more difficult courses multiple times but still I persevered. I did manage to pull myself together and finish the last semester with a 3.0 for the term. Just recently I achieved A's in 3 quantitative courses to help offset any concerns with academic ability.


Do I have a reasonable chance at the following schools for a full time MBA program?
Duke University
University of Virginia
University of North Carolina
University of Maryland
Pennsylvania State University
Boston University

Thanks,
Damon
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by Lisa Anderson » Wed Sep 16, 2009 10:13 am
Dear Damon,

Your school list has a good mix of reach and reasonable options for you. If you wanted to make any changes to it, I would suggest adding 1-2 safety options and maybe removing 1-2 of the reach schools (Duke, UVA, UNC). Depending on how strong your overall application is and your compelling case for admission, I think you have a shot at any of these schools--some are just farther than others. The main thing you want to convey is why you want a full-time program and your understanding that you are on the high end of the experience range. It will be important to show that you have given the choice of a full-time program considerable thought and the reasons you feel it is the best option. Likewise, you might want to address your career path to date as sometimes titles do not change despite progression in terms of responsibility.

Your 670 and recent coursework will help to mitigate your undergraduate academic performance. I would suggest you also use the optional essay to address your GPA.

Best of luck,
Lisa
Lisa Anderson
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by damondf » Wed Sep 16, 2009 3:39 pm
Thanks so much!

-Damon