Paul,

Thanks in advance for doing this. I know you probably swamped with work due to the deadlines coming up.

Here is a brief description of my background.

Backgroud:
Born and raised in Bogota, Colombia
28 Years Old

Education:
BS Manufacturing Engineering (Big Ten School)
Minor: Business
GPA: 2.5/4.00
GMAT: 730


Work Experience:

Worked for four years for a small Ops Improvement Consulting Firm in the US (8 employees). The company built a relationship with one of the big consulting companies in the US and I was assigned to work for them (although still under my original company's payroll) on the deployment of a big project in Latin America for ten months.

During the four years I took upon different roles depending on the project I was assigned. Responsibilities included:

Lead the implementation of ops improvement projects for more than twenty clients. Some projects included providing a comprehensive plan for the reallocation of a facility in the US to the Dominican Republic and implementing this plan along with client’s employees.
Leading the deployment of a ops improvement program for a client in the US
Facilitate training on Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and Project Identification Strategies (Trained more than 200 people) to CEOs, VPs, Managers, Supervisor and Shop Floor Workers

The characteristics (small and owned by one person) of this company allowed me obtain a leadership responsibility almost immediately, working for small, medium and large manufacturing companies (some of them Fortune 500). This job wasn’t your typical consulting job; I was interacting everyday with the client’s employees on the shop floor, reporting to plant managers and directors on the progress of our improvements on a weekly basis, and at the same time writing proposals for different projects that could be conducted at the different client’s plants I was working with.

After four yrs with the company I returned to Colombia to start up my own company with my brother (a brave move, trust me!). We have a packaging service company and now have plans to raise capital to open up our own factory. Starting up your own company, doing business in Latin America as you can imagine is not easy, add to that competing against a big oligopoly in the industry, has helped me realized that if I want to succeed I have to prepare myself in every aspect of business (note that my engineering background helped me tremendously with my job in the US and the beginnings of my own company), therefore my decision to seek an MBA at this moment.

Some of my Extra Curricular Activities include:

College: President of the Engineering Students Association, Rep. for the Hispanics Eng. with the Undergraduate Student Government, member of a fraternity, founded an student organization which main focused was to spread the word of democracy in developing countries and the US, I was able to bring former ambassadors, governors, etc of different countries to speak at the university as well as serving as an electoral observer in different elections in the US and Latin America (some of our members even went to Eastern Europe as electoral observers). Here in Colombia I serve as an advisor for an after school program for underprivileged children in the city.

Ok I know that my GPA really puts me at a big disadvantage for most schools. I have done some research on this matter and I guess the only thing that works to my advantage is that South American Students are underrepresented in the MBA programs.

Why the low GPA? Well not an excuse, but after HS I did not go to college right away (had to learn English before going to college in the US, etc) and I think that really hurt me during my freshman/sophomore year, plus the fact that for most of my college years I worked 10 to 15 hours per week.

Now, where do you think I could apply?

Top Choices
NYU
Columbia
Yale

Realistic Choices?
Boston University
Michigan State
University of Wisconsin

Do you think I have a chance at a top school? If so, what do you recommend?

Sorry for the long post!

Thanks again