Intern
Joined: 29 Jul 2011
Posts: 11
Location: United States
Concentration: Finance, International Business
GPA: 3.43
WE:Accounting (Entertainment and Sports)
Profile Evaluation - Early Slacker with CPA & CFA
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31 Jul 2011, 10:11
Hi Paul,
Please take a look at my lackluster profile and comment if I have a decent chance for my target schools. I am a naive slacker in college and believed a BA from a top-25 university is enough to get any job I want. I only realized after graduation that it takes a lot of effort and dedication to do work on wall street. I have been trying to make up lost ground by getting my CPA and CFA simultaneously. I am 25 years old.
I am targeting Yale, NYU, Columbia, Berkeley,UCLA, and Cornell. I live in Los Angeles so I am also pondering part-time for UCLA/USC. I want to focus on switching my career from accounting to finance or corporate strategy (my dream is to become CFO of a major corp based in Taiwan, or a renowned equity financial analyst)and would only consider schools with strong name recognition in Asia.
UCLA economics (2008), GPA was 3.43 (combination of 3.7 in econ and finance classes, and 3.0 in accounting classes)
I am aiming at a 720+ GMAT, I am a beast of a test-taker.
I will be finishing my CPA certification and CFA charter by end of 2011.
I am a first generation immigrant from Taiwan, came to the US when I was 15. I speak,read and write fluent Chinese. Beginner Japanese (took 2 classes). My English also has no Chinese accent and I am proud of it.
The only EC is I run a local basketball league. Aside from studying for CFA/CPA, I also spend a lot of personal time analyzing the financial statements of public companies and have over 100% of my net worth invested in the markets. I initially borrowed 30k from my dad and now I have 73k in 3 years.
Now here's the weakest part of my profile, job:
I am currently a staff accountant at a local theatre chain with 13 locations. The work is harder than most people with the same job title elsewhere, but it is not reflected in my job title.
Before this, I was an analyst/accountant for a private business management firm for Hollywood celebrities. We basically manage their personal finance and compile personal financial statements.
Do I have a decent shot to get into the schools I want? Ideally I want to apply for fall 2012, but I could wait 2 more years if there are things I can build on in 2 years to improve my profile. For example, taking advance classes at UCLA extension to raise my gpa?
Thank you for taking the time to respond.