Senior Manager
Joined: 05 May 2011
Posts: 351
Location: United States (WI)
WE:Research (Other)
High GMAT, mediocre GPA
[#permalink]
16 Nov 2011, 18:10
Good afternoon, I am a caucasian male, planning to apply to schools next year to start in 2013. I would like to hear your input on how competitive I might be for the schools I am interested in:
Harvard - Not sure if it is realistic considering my undergrad
Wharton - Also probably a stretch, but maybe less so than Harvard?
Chicago
Northwestern
Columbia
UCLA
Texas
GMAT - 780 (49Q 50V). Just got this score on saturday, it was my second attempt. I took it one month ago, but was feeling unwell and performed poorly the math. Original score was 730 (45q, 45v).
Undergrad - Lowish gpa, 3.25 from BYU in a science field. Worked throughout undergrad to pay for school, including the last year and half as an intern with Nestle at manufacturing plant. Planning to take a few classes to build an alternate transcript.
Work Experience - I now work for a large food and beverage company doing ingredient and flavor product development. All of our projects are b2b, so I've managed projects from start through to production for companies such as Nestle, Tyson, McDonalds, Arby's etc. It is technical and based on chemistry, but there is also quite a bit of client interaction. I have traveled out for ideation sessions (as we call them) as well as production runs and scales ups, I also maintain constant phone and e-mail interaction. Some projects are team based, others I do on my own - depends on size and deadline.
I don't have any direct reports (work is quite technical so most managers at my company typically have ~10 years experience when promoted), but I have been given continuously greater responsibility in terms of the scope of projects I manage and the importance of the customers to our business.
Service - Eagle scout (order of the arrow), 2 year LDS mission to Guatemala city, fluent in Spanish.
During undergrad involved in various clubs, and intramural sports as well as volunteer work for church, teaching weekly classes to youth and coordinating activities.
Currently at church I am in the presidency that oversees the men of the congregation. Responsible for teaching sunday school lessons, coordinating monthly visits to members, planning and coordinating monthly activities, and liaison to the local missionary efforts. Also participated in various other service projects here and there as opportunities have arisen such as habitat for humanity, and some local municipal projects.
Goals/reason for MBA: As I mentioned before, the lab and bench work that I do is fairly technical, chemistry based, so a masters degree or phd in an analytical science is sort of an expectation of managers and those in high positions. That is just a generalization but still, its fairly standard across the research and product development side of this industry.
But I'm not really interested in locking myself into the technical side of things, because I really enjoy the other aspects of my job more - those dealing with client relationships etc. And it seems like as employees here become more valuable in a technical specialty, they tend to have less opportunities to travel out and visit clients etc. So anyway, my goal is to move into a more business development role or something along those lines, and move away from the R&D. I am also interested in consulting. I need to refine my goals a bit more but I think you probably see where I am coming from.
Thank you in advance for your input.