Profile Evaluation

[lluispons]

Hi!

Find herewith my profile:
Age: 30 years old (I expect to enter to a business school having 31)
Nationality: Spanish
GMAT: 730 (Q 51 V 38 AWA 5.5)
TOEFL: 107
I studied Industrial Engineering in Barcelona, Spain. I got a 6,13 (weakness). My disertation was awarded as the best in transports field. I assume my grade is not good. During my university I worked as a teacher in an academy preparing students for first year subjects. I began with 5 students and 1 year later I had 3 groups of 30 students each. Then I began to teach in other subjects. During the forth year of university I began to study Business too. In the last year I made a 1 year internship in a consulting firm (at that time I was studying 2 degrees and working in 2 places).
When I finished Engineering I entered in the family business (more than 5.000.000 Euros turnover). In the company we import and export sheet metal working machinery. Machines are bought from China, Turkey, Italy and Sweden and sold to Spain and Latin America. I began as the sales manager dealing with customers and suppliers and actually I am the general manager and shareholder (to say the true the key decisions are taken by the founder who is retired). Now I am living for the past 6 months in Chile managing the subsidiary there (a small company of 2 employee).
My goal post MBA is to create my own company.
I will really appreciate your advice of my possibilities of getting in top MBA programs in the US. My dreamed business schools are Harvard and Booth. Any suggestion?
Thanks,
Lluís

[paulsbodine]

lluispons,

Your profile is both strong and distinctive. Your age is a minor negative, offset by your leadership and international experience. You should be competitive at Booth, but whether HBS is realistic for you may depend on other issues, such as leadership outside your profession, etc. Please feel free to send your resume to me at [email protected] and I can give you more focused feedback.

--Paul

[PrepMBA.AlexLeventhal]

Lluis,

Coming from a family business background can have both its advantages and challenges in terms of MBA admission. Your age combined with your GPA might make HBS a stretch, but with a 730 GMAT and some great experience as a general manager, you should be competitive at some top 15 schools. Be careful with your recs as they should not come from family members.

By the way I lived in Madrid for 4 years before going to HBS, working for Johnson & Johnson in Madrid. I hope the futbol side wins another Euro championship!

Suerte!

Alex

[Jon@Admissionado]

Alex and Paul both gave great advice. I'll just add that I have seen family business candidates do awesomely well. The important thing to do is to a) emphasize the company's size (essentially the bigger the better... and by bigger we don't necessarily mean "turnover" which can be misleading based on what you actually sell, but rather, number of employees and market size b) have concrete crystalline clear ideas about what your specific goals for the company are c) show them how you will make VISIONARY changes in the company.

All these things together will make you feel like a "sure bet"...
Best of luck to ya!