I posted this over on the Peer Eval forum but I thought I would get your input as well. I've made some additional annotations at the bottom to describe the most current profile of my situation.
Demographics: 22, Male, Canadian
GMAT: 680, 45Q, 38V, 6.0 AWA, 8 IR
Education:
- BBA, General Management, 3.1 GPA from relatively obscure public US university, received minor student award
- Graduate Certificate in Applied Statistics, Penn State (starting Jan 2013, may upgrade to Masters post-MBA)
Work Experience:
Worked full-time during both high school and university
- 3 years in an administrative position for a professional sports team, finalist for an industry award for Best Administrative Services
- 2 years working for government contractor in Canada in public safety, promoted to supervise 25-40 employees after 1 year, elected union steward representing 450 union members
- 1 year of freelance work doing some consumer goods purchasing at Asian trade fairs for North American retail companies (honestly I felt like I was puttering around... but I obviously won't write that)
- Current (just started): Working in government HR department in a communications role
Extracurriculars: ~7 weeks of political volunteering in the past, ~2 years of involvement as a trade union advocate both inside and outside the workplace. Delivered speeches to over 300 people which were very well-received
Career goals: Social enterprise, because of my strong belief in public service and my personal background
Schools:
- "Dream schools": Yale, Tuck, Johnson
- Already applied to: Johnson, Stern
- Probably applying to: Yale, Kelley, Fuqua, Goizueta
- Also considering: Ross, Kenan-Flagler, Tepper, McDonough, McCombs, Carey (Johns Hopkins)
- Preferred Location: Prefer US NE, also happy with Midwest, California or Mid-Atlantic, prefer not SE or Texas (except Austin)
Uniqueness:
- Worked full time while studying full time, finished undergrad degree in 4 years
- First-generation immigrant (to Canada) and first-generation university graduate
- Holds commercial pilot licence, 300 hours in light aircraft
- Was a key figure in repairing the employer-union relationship as a union steward and subsequently negotiated the best collective agreement of its kind in Canada, averting a crippling strike
International Experience:
- Lived in Korea, Canada, US and Taiwan
- Native-level English, intermediate levels of proficiency in Chinese, Korean and French
- Travelled to over 15 different countries in last 2 years, particularly in the developing world
Recommenders ("pool" of people who agreed to write for me):
- Just started current job so cannot use current manager as a recommender
- Former college statistics instructor (taught me for one semester, got A+)
- Former manager and also actually former flight instructor (strange coincidence, he is a business guy who wanted to fly so he did that for a bit), knows me very well as a person and employee
- Former trade union executive who worked closely with me during negotiations and union meetings
- Former co-worker who worked in another department but knows me well
- Former co-worker who is currently a federal police officer
Other:
- Taking a maths and computer programming course p/t from local university to improve quantitative side of application (although I do have more quantitative aptitude than my GMAT would suggest)
- Also taking stats certificate from Penn State partly to show my commitment to proving my quantitative ability
Sorry for the unwieldy length but I tried to organise everything so it was easy to read. I would like to know peoples' thoughts mainly on my admissions chances and which schools I should target. I have been reassured in the past that I can think about many of those schools on my list but my non-traditional background makes me a little unsure of myself for things like this. I plan to apply to 6-8 schools, so I'd like to compile a list of maybe 1-2 "reach" schools, 3-4 target schools and 2-3 safety schools. Thanks for your help!
I'm taking supplemental exams on my most recent courses and I am confident that I will do well. I'm also nearing completion of a couple of courses I'm retaking and I'm confident I'll get at least an A- on them. My GPA should go up to around 3.5 after this. My practice GMATs were in the ~710 area so I am confident I can get 700+ next time I write. One concern I have is that I took an unusually high number of pass/fail courses. (60 semester hours, including 4 challenge exams) Do adcoms frown upon this? They're mainly in liberal arts/junior-level business courses.
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07 Dec 2012, 08:24
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