Request for profile evaluation --- from the Philippines

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Hi,

I am posting this to request for a quick profile evaluation from Critical Square. Hope anyone could help.

Age: 27
Country: Philippines
College: Ateneo de Manila University (top private school in the country, think Harvard of the Philippines)
Course: Bachelor of Science in Management Engineering (Honor's Course, requires that an applicant's entrance exam score be on the top 10% of all takers) with a Minor in Finance
GMAT: 670, but retaking again this month
GPA: 3.3 (kind of worried here, but took Advanced Finance courses towards end of my university life, got straight 4s in all 6 subjects, buoying up my overall GPA)

Work experience:
Internship at JP Morgan's IB division (2 months), only one slot for the entire country
2 years consulting at Big 4 firm (KPMG)
1 year at Daiwa Capital Markets (regional IB) -- Institutional Investor Magazine-rated analyst
1 year at UBS Investment Bank (bulge bracket IB) -- Institutional Investor Magazine- and Asia Money Magazine-rated analyst, number 2 most read analyst in the Asia Pacific region, number 1 analyst in a couple of big funds such as Fidelity

Extra-curricular activities:
University
(1) Associate Vice President of largest organisation in the univerisity
(2) Represented University in the Chartered Financial Analyst Investment Research Challenge
Work
(1) Active member of Akyat Aral (where we help communities in the mountains by bringing school supplies and building classrooms, not to mention our latest project, which is to provide solar panels, for the Mangyan Tribe in Mindoro).. also just finished building a classroom for the Dumagat Triube in Nueva Ecija --- I think this is where I will focus on my essays
(2) Ultramarathoner and ultra-tail runner (think 50-100KM races), was also featured by GoPro Philippines and The North Face Philippines.. also coached 6 people to finish their first half-marathon, including someone who was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and someone who was deemed overweight (through BMI)
(3) Holds records for mountaineering feats such as first Filipino to complete Magayon Trio in 3 consecutive days, also led teams to reach the summit of Mt. Pulag and of Mt. Apo

Schools: HBS/Wharton/MIT/Columbia/LBS/Stanford

Post-MBA goals: Work in Private Equity that focuses on retail (as I am a retail analyst to begin with and I believe getting an MBA will give me a general look, bird's eye view of things, rather than focusing on just the finance aspect of a business)

Hoping for your kind response,
D

GMAT/MBA Expert

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by CriticalSquareMBA » Thu Oct 08, 2015 1:58 pm
Hi there,

There are two things that concern us with your profile - which isn't as bad as it sounds because the rest of your profile we like.

What do we like? Your experience, progression, and involvement. So what concerns us?

Your GPA is a valid point for concern. Question for you - why did your GPA suffer in the first place? That will tell us much.

The other is your GMAT. For the schools you've listed, you'll absolutely have to do better to be competitive, especially in R2. So if you can bring it up, that'll help immensely.

Also - be careful with your goals. Private Equity will be incredibly difficult for you to break in even in the best of times, and it's harder when you're international.

Hope that helps!
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