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 or Duke
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……………
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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" Darwin
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