PepsiPepsi wrote:
Hey Alex! Was hoping to pick your brain a bit..
Civil Engineering Major - Top 25 Engineering University 2.8 GPA, upward trend. I also have a Business Minor.
White Male, 26 @ Matriculation
GMAT: 570 -> 640 -> 690 (45Q/40V)
WE: 2.5 years in the civil engineering/construction industry. 1 Promotion from Field Engineer to Project Engineer. Smallish company (Not Bechtel/URS/etc). Have great hands on experience with managing ..lets call them interesting people. By the end of my time there I was managing 25+ employees on a 75 million dollar dam rehabilitation for the Army Corps of engineers. I left to take a job at an investment management firm- it is a 18 month pre-MBA job working in fixed income as well as performance attribution. I'm 1 month into my 18 month contract, so I am unable to elaborate more on this subject currently.
ECs:
Undergrad:
New student orientation: served for 3 years, and mentored many of the students in my group throughout the year.
Habitat for humanity: Had leadership positions in 3 trips across the US with 10-20 students from school in remote, high need areas during spring and fall breaks.
Special Olympics: Venue Coordinator for 3 years - Planned all the volleyball operations for special olympics weekend (largest student run SPO event in the nation).
Yearbook Photographer
Post Grad (Ongoing):
Member ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers)
Served on the Safety board at my old job - suggested a company wide safety imitative that they still practice.
On the recruitment board for local Habitat for Humanity
Young Alumni Member
Career Mentor
Other:
Enjoy cars - help run my friends car @ the track...kind of the pit crew for him. Also get together with a local group of "gear heads" about once a month to do car-guy stuff. (Very informal..but i enjoy it a lot)
Travel during hurricane season up and down the east coast to surf
Avid photographer (Not published - never tried)
Enjoy outdoors - hunting/hiking/climbing/etc. You name it, I love to do it.
MBA Goal (In flux, circling in on it...): I want to work in corporate finance (Treasury) for a F500 manufacturing/energy firm.
Why MBA: I want to leverage my background of "hands on" work with my work in the fixed income space to work my way up the corp fin. ladder at a large company. I believe my engineering experience combined with my experience in buying corporate debt allowed me to see not only how projects are built, but the financials on how they're made possible. An MBA will provide me with the hard skills to fill in the gaps between my experience, and "round me out" so that I will have the tools needed to succeed.
Why Now: Well.. for one my Contract is ending in 2014. two, I don't want to get stuck doing fixed income forever - I prefer to be in a company that makes something - not service. I feel that my experience allows me to see things from both sides of the spectrum, and all that is needed now is, as i mentioned before, something to fill in the gaps and brush up my soft skills.
My "list": Tuck, Wharton, Fuqua, Ross, Tepper, Johnson, and Darden. Open to adding or subtracting schools. The only reason W is on the list (love the school, but lets be honest, its a stretch) is because we are family friends with someone on the finance board. He has offered his support that he will be able to help me get in, but I am unsure of how this works/if this works. At any rate, I'll apply
My concerns: Well the obvious concern is the GMAT/GPA combo. I am not too keen on sitting for the MBA one more time, but if thats what I have to do, I'm game. I was going to use the next 6 months to take 2-3 courses to help build an alternative transcript (Currently taking UCLA Extension - Math for Management). Do you think that I need to redo the GMAT? I already have a monster improvement, I'm not sure how much more I can squeeze out. It seems silly to take it again for 20 +/- points. My quant is low (67th %), and I struggled during undergrad in my calculus courses. I believe this was due to overextending with my ECs + plain goofing off. I was very immature. Hopefully now that won't squash my dreams.
Let me know what you think, sorry for the long-windedness.
I think you have a pretty solid all around profile for the range of schools you're looking at - that is, taking the GMAT/GPA out of the equation.
With the GPA, adcoms are a bit more forgiving of those who did engineering, but with that said your GPA is still on the low side. As such, the GMAT becomes that much more important.
Retake the GMAT. It may seem silly for 20+ points, but it's important in your case. You still could be competitive for schools like Tepper, Cornell, Ross, Duke and Darden with what you have now, but it'll also be easy for the adcom to ding you based on your GMAT/GPA alone. Wharton and Tuck will be big stretches because of the GMAT/GPA combo.
Here's what I suggest:
1. Retake the GMAT. Shoot for 740. I know it's a stretch, but do whatever it takes. Hire a private tutor, enroll in a test prep course. No matter how strong your written applications and interviews are, it's still a real gamble with your current GMAT.
2. Enroll in 2-3 extension classes: some combo of calculus, algebra, statistics, accounting, finance, etc. Doesn't have to be upper level courses - freshman level courses are fine. I believe UCLA offers online extension classes, as do other universities. This will help to serve as a counterpoint to your GPA.
Do these two things, and you will be more competitive for the range of schools you listed (and schools like Wharton and Tuck will be less of a stretch). Good luck!