Crossroad

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Crossroad

by Pexaobh » Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:29 am
Hello there, how are you?

I am a 27, male, from Brazil

GMAT: I was consistently scoring around 700 and 710 in my preparation, but because of silly bad time management on the test date my official score was 670(83%) 44M(58%)/38V(85%) with 5.5(81%) AW and 5(52%)IR. I am considering retaking it as I think It won't be very hard to get a better score.
Toefl: I scored 103 with no study
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Undergraduate Degree:
Bachelor of business in one of Brazil's top 3 private B-school with 84% GPA
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Work Experience:
4+ years in EY, left as a senior auditor. Usually graded above the average.
4 internships during college, including:
- 1 year as a project manager in the college's junior consultancy company (bassically doing business plans);
- 2 years in different positions within Aiesec's local office. Left as a selection and development coordinator;
- 6 months in the marketing department of a local entertainment company in Chennai, India. Got this through AIESEC as well;
- 9 months in the finance department of a start up.

Today I work in company within the sugar/alcohol industry. I have been hired as a internal consultant 5 months ago and was basically structuring some areas. Now I became a financial specialist and will work under the CFO with more strategic things.
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Extracurricular:
- I have done many social works, I had a sports scholarship in high school and I have travelled to US to work during college summer breaks. I have also traveled on leisure to Europe and South America.
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I am in the middle of a crossroad here. My main objective with the MBA is to move into consulting and start living abroad. My girlfriend will join me, she has European passport so as a spouse I am able to work within EU, where she wants to live.

I applied only to Rotman and recently I was notified I was approved with a 20% scholarship, but my girlfriend and I want to settle down in Europe so clearly an European MBA would help me the most to find work there. Because of that I am thinking about trying to get my Gmat around 700 and apply for the january intake(2016) of HEC and Insead. The thing is, I have been working in my new job for 5 months only and because the company is going through a lot of changes my former area went through 2 directors changes during that time. That means the area was basically drifting in the companý's corporate structure and although the team did reestructure some processes, we had no big impact yet. In my new attribution I will help the CFO with some analysis but I will do it by myself. No colleagues and I report sollelly to him. I am planning on applying in June but I am not sure If the CFO will want to recommend me or if there will be significant subject for a good recommendation after only 4 months working with him (eventhough I will have 8 months of work in the company). Would it be a problem to apply to HEC and Insead by the end of june/16 with the two recommendations coming from managers from my old job at EY? I left EY in the end of october/2015. I dont want to ditch the opportunity I have now If i won't be able to apply for the january intake in Europe. We also don't want to wait one more year.

Important note: the 2 recommendors also left EY. One is now a controller in a middle market company and the other is a accounting coordinator in a big mining company.

Thank you in advance :)

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by Dozie@VeritasPrep » Wed Feb 25, 2015 8:00 pm
Thanks for sharing your profile. Many applicants fall into a similar situation as you where their desired recommenders are not their current or most recent recommender. This is not as big of an issue as you may imagine. It is ok to utilize your recommenders from your previous firm, you just need to make sure in your optional essay you explain why you are doing this and I would particularly frame it based on these recommenders being best equipped to evaluate your performance given the time spent together. But don't be afraid use these recommenders just make sure to explain.

Hope this helps!
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