Hi Alex, I wonder if you could briefly evaluate my chances at the top US and European programs.

Education: a smaller Ivy League, double major in econ and philosophy, GPA of 3.9, first undergrad at this Ivy League from my post-Soviet country. Previously, won a full scholarship to a prestigious international boarding school in Europe where studied visual art, philosophy and math.

Standardized scores: have not taken the GMAT, but have GRE scores of Q800, V600.

Work exp: 2 years of M&A IB experience (mostly in oil and gas, with some outliers like telecoms and theme parks) in an emergent market country. Have a lot of experience building things from scratch and with minimal supervision (i.e., complex DCF models and pitch books in industries no senior had had any experience in, coordinating data rooms, drafting proposals, designing presentation flow, executing transaction with the client’s management, etc). Will have closed 3-4 deals, and been involved in 6-7 deals overall by the time of potential matriculation. One closed deal is going to be a US$2bn acquisition and another deal I will have participated will be US$5-6bn transaction.

I have very good relationships with my line-managers (alumni of LBS and INSEAD) as our team is very small and I am sure my recommendations will be very good.

Outside work: blogging on the issues of sociology, style, life-strategies; tutoring local school children in SAT; doing painting and sculpture; helping my young GF to get into a good university abroad.

Why need MBA: want to learn more about different decision-making strategies, better understand the business inside out (i.e. not from the perspective of a financial consultant), get overall exposure to the cutting edge business ideas and the means to their implementation. Short-term plans after MBA include working in the industry, while long-term plan is to run my own business. Basically, I need MBA to further develop intellectually and personally, and to help switch from finance to industry.

Thanks in advance!