Hi Stacy,

I gave my GMAT recently and scored 690 (48 Q and 37 V). I need some advice about the direction I need to take from here on. I am confused with this score.

Quick brief -

I am an IT consultant from India ( I know:(). I had 3.6 GPA in undergrad and did my MS from Wayne State University with GPA of 3.3.

I have been working for over 5 years now and I enjoy my job. I like to lead from the front and I am ready to solve any problem thrown at me. I have strong recos from my current and previous bosses who themselves went to MIT and Univ of Wisconsin @ Madison respectively, if that helps at all.

But in last 3-4 years I have developed a new passion and I want to make it my profession. I have almost been working 14-16 hours a day (actual job and parallely pursuing my passion) since last few years. I am very passionate about investment management/equity research.

I want to make a career switch to investment/asset management. For this reason going to university below top 15 is not an option for me. I read books after books on investments and I enjoy going through company reports. I have my own little software to calculate the fair value of a company and I worked on programs to generate buy and sell signals based on some 70 odd technical and fundamental rules . Last year I came across some IB interview questions from UT Austin and was able to answer more than 60% of questions by the bank. I have never ever felt such clarity of goal and direction in life as in last few years. I have started envisioning myself as a portfolio manager in 10 years time.

I single handedly launched a website for mutual funds that is and will be shortly doing so for stocks. This is non profit website for people who cant afford professional service.
http://www.mutualfundsforfuture.com/


I have been maintaining few portfolios since three years. In fact I plan on opening a company down the line that will provide a similar service but will be far more detailed.
http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/PortfolioSharing/SharedPortfolioSnapshot.aspx?q=BC40CC613C939B0C

Sometimes I feel that I am born to this.

On personal front I enjoying running marathons (I have couple of half marathons under my belt and am planning on a full next year) and I play a bit of guitar.

But the bottom line - Is 690 enough for career switch? Should I take my GMAT again?

I really need you advice.

Thanks
Sumeet
_________________

Thanks
Sumeet
www.midasreturns.wordpress.com

Thanks for reply. I definitiely plan on a GMAT retake.

But I have one last question - What are the chances or getting in schools such as Duke, Carnegie and UT AUstin with this profile and score?

Apart from this mutual fund website I mentioned above, I am also going to open stock based investing site soon. The ultimate goal is to make them a full fledged equity portfolio management service. But honestly will this initaitive make any impact on my application? I am asking this questuion because I am at crossroads -I dont know if I should restart my GMAT prep or work on the website/company?

Once again I appreciate your reply.

Thanks
Sumeet
_________________

Thanks
Sumeet
www.midasreturns.wordpress.com