Profile Evaluation Request

[Saevo]

Hi there!

If you could send some thoughts on my profile it would be much appreciated! Y'all are rockstars in advance, just wanted to remind you 8-)

Age: 25

Mixed race Korean/Scotch Irish... first to graduate college in my family

GMAT: 710 (2nd attempt... first was 670)

GPA: 3.69 B.S. Industrial & Systems Engineer at public university

WE: I'm a graduate from a very very large international engineering firm's two year leadership program in technical marketing. (four 6 month rotations in different business units, different roles, different geographic locations), was promoted "off program" into a marketing consultant role, where I got a unique opportunity to develop and execute strategies for an emerging vertical market. I have been promoted in this current role 1.5 years after being off program. Currently management would like me to apply the strategic framework I've developed against five other vertical markets. It's strategic marketing with a splash of business development and sales reporting. With my new promotion I now have a small marketing budget ($30k) to manage.

I also have a high chance at an international assignment for 3 years in Europe summer of 2014. I really want to do business school, but feel this may be a good back up if I can't get into any schools the first time around. I lucked out and got the ear of the U.S. CEO, and I'm being prepared for a "leadership experience" where I'll be given team resources to manage a project for BU management, to be executed hopefully by September/October.

EC: I founded an Asian Employee Resource Group where I work about 3 years ago, and grew it from 6 members to 430 across 5 locations in Georgia, California, Tennessee, and Texas. We now have a $30k budget and are sector-wide. I've also played trombone in my church's orchestra for a few years, and have done two mission trips to help Kenyan orphans... last year as a music ministry team lead (I brought my trombone ), and this year as a team co-lead. I'm an avid runner, weightlifter, and won a regional table topics contest at Toastmasters if that counts for anything.

Purpose: Although I've been blessed with a fast moving career, I want to continue to accelerate faster. Through my rotation program, experiences, and current role I've been fascinated by business strategy and it almost teases me to want to see and understand an even larger picture of how companies work. I love the strategy side and would like to get an MBA so I can pursue strategy consulting for a few years, with the long term goal of moving into management at a technology firm, so I can do my engineering degree some justice .

School list:

Harvard
Wharton
Kellogg
MIT
Duke

Thank you!

Saevo

[Bryant@VeritasPrep]

Saevo-

Thanks for you post and the shout outs

You have a strong profile, as I suspect you already know, so the real question is how will you stand out at this list of highly desirable top tier schools. One way for sure, is for you to know why you have selected each school. Presenting well supported reasons for how you see yourself fitting in at each school is very important, lest some of them think you just chose them because they have a good reputation or high rank and that's it. Make sure you do your research and visit each school before you arrive. Secondly, I would say it is generally very difficult to stand out as an Asian American applicant. It's a very competitve pool, but some of the things that will help differentiate you will be 1) your being a first generation college graduate (places like HBS like to see that, althouth they do have the tendency to take a close look at where you did your UG degree and really put it to the sniff test). 2) You seem to be very well appreciated at work, so your continued rise there will help. To this last point, it might make sense on one hand to try and get that international experience you mentioned before b-school, but on the other hand, time is of the essence with some schools (HBS is a good example), where your chances of getting in as an older applicant diminish with time. You may want to throw a true safety school in the mix if it is important for you to go this next year. If your priority is one of the schools on your list, and you would be willing to wait and reapply if you don't get in, better to stick with your top choices. 3) I would say a big strength is the Asian business group you founded. You have some real growth and success that you can quantify and I imagine your involveemnt there has made a tremendous impact. Impact is critical to places like HBS, and in fact they used to have an essay question asking exactly that. 4) the diversity of your experience through the managerial rotation would be attractive to schools, particularly to schools who utilize the case method, since you can offer a broad perspective on several different areas of business. Work on articulating your post MBA vision to a point of crystal clarity and purpose. Hopefully this will align well with your past experience and position you as someone they feel would add value to their programs. No reason why any of them would be out of reach with a well positioned application. Hope this helps.