djslobo wrote:
GMAT: 670/680 so far with huge flops on Quant and Verbal, paired score NEEDS to be 720+ (retaking in December)
2.6 GPA
Undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies from UC Berkeley (I know its horrible, took an upper division course at UCLA this summer – first A+ of my academic career)
Work History:
Started off with a 6 month unpaid internship in Eastern Europe which turned into 3 VERY successful years in commercial real-estate. Managed lease-up of the largest greenfield investment in the country and supported senior management with expansion to a new market.
Full of myself/overconfident partnered with a local law firm and opened a boutique RE shop which crumbled in a years time….
Hoped to come back stateside (3rd round with Merrill and Morgan Stanley in NYC… no call back). Victim of pending economic collapse, ran back to Eastern Europe…..
Took a senior analyst position with a top European I-Bank which entered the region at the time.
Now 4 years in with steady promotion and strong projects (government advisory and numerous multinational firm engagements)… MAJOR downside is the EU bank pulled out this year and we are now a small/no-name shop to the adcom (same colleagues and same reference list but no-brand).
Started CFA a couple years back and am now a level 3 candidate with the expectation of securing the charter prior to starting my MBA.
Extracurricular involvement includes vice-president and philanthropy chair for fraternity, de-cal course instructor 3 years while at Cal. At present only business associations, AmCham, young managers association, Internations etc. no roles of note.
American, now dual citizen (born and raised in US)
Goal: “I am pursuing an MBA to move into a business development/strategy role for a multinational organization that can benefit from my sales and finance background as well as emerging market experience. Later in my career I plan to establish an investment fund focusing on real estate investments in developing markets.”
Target Schools:
NYU
Kellogg
LBS
Texas
Yale
Cornell
maybe Columbia but guessing its throwing money out the window
I really appreciate the feedback and any suggestions. I could be getting too old but I also got stuck in the region given the whole economic situation, luckily remained employed and advancing although a switch of sectors from RE to finance does put me in the "older" student range.... main goal is to take a step out of the region that provided this opportunity and keep building upon my global profile with some time in a more developed market before pursuing the next emerging market adventure……………
The GPA and GMAT are not strong, I agree, and your age - you'd be matriculating at 30 I believe - does also push you out of the class of these programs. Obviously, some guys who are 30 do get accepted though: they are the ones with exciting and different experience that is hard to find otherwise. Make sure that the essays you write share examples and experiences that very few others have enjoyed. And do consider applying to some more European programs and lower-ranked American programs, where your profile has the potential to stand out more. You may also want to look into the one-year MBA programs like MIT Sloan Fellows and Stanford Sloan Masters, which are aimed at professionals with 8 or more years of experience.
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