Hi,At this time of the application season, many of the applicants have received a satisfactory offer. However, I have been rejected by many top 20 schools. After evaluating my application package, I have realized that it was really weak in “why school” and “career goals”. I have learned a lot more myself and about the application process, and made lots of changes to improve my profile.
Now I want to give it one more shot at a couple top 20 schools. Would you please give me some advice?
Please, help out a poor guy who was rejected by sloan, johnson, mccombs, and maybe a couple more in the next few weeks, lolBackground:30 year-old male, born and raised back in China. Immigrated to US at the age of 18. Currently a US citizen, live in upstate NY.
Academic:Not good… one of the state u of new york, computer science major, GPA 2.92. No specific reason, was really immature.
Gmat:Taken only once, in 2012. 740 – Q50, V39, AWA 5.5, IR 6
Work:6 yeas by matriculating. All in small (very small) companies.
First two years – Team leader in a small IT company.
Next four years – General manager in a small retail business (around 15 staffs).Contribution to this retail company: - Computerized and systematized the business routines.
- Improved the purchasing routine and established the merchandising department. Expanded the product and services variety to better meet customer’s demand.
- Supervised the opening of new stores, from site selection to recruiting new employees. Expanded the local store to a retail chain of 5 store in different cities.
Why MBA:The owner is satisfied with the scale of the company, and wanted to slow down the development. However, I want to continue to grow my career. I have a great chance to polished many of my soft skills such as interpersonal and analytical skills while running this small business. However, because I lack a academic background in business administration, I really need to learn the hard skills in order to qualify a management position in a large company.
Career goals:My true reason is that I wanted to go from a small company to a large corporation, because I don’t see any room for me to grow any more in this small company. In the previous applications, I poorly define my goals, I think that was one of the reason I got rejected by many top 20 schools.
Short Term – Becoming a retail purchasing manager in supply chain management. Reason: While leading the retail business, I spent a significant amount of time in developing its merchandising department. I have seen some parts of the supply chain operation, from wholeseller, to retailer, to customer. I want to bring this experience and combine with the hard skills and knowledge I am going to learn from a MBA program, to become a purchasing manager in a large retail corporation.
Long term – Becoming a retail general manager in a multinational corporation’s China division. As purchasing manager usually need to work with people in different countries, I will try to build connections in China and to learn more about its business cultures. I spent 18 years in china and I am fluent in Chinese. With the experience I am going to gain from mba and work, I believe I can be a good candidates for such position.
It is pretty long… thanks for your patience if you get to this far
Questions:1. is it too late to apply in the last round? Could I stand out from the rest of the last round applicants?
2. School selections. I wanted to try Haas and Yale. First of all, many others have already rejected me (again, my prior application had unclear goals and poorly answered the question why school). And I think this two has a good reputation in general management and offers SCM courses (I think everyone does). Am I getting a chance in those two? Any other suggestion?
3. Does my goals make sense? Does my work background, short term goal and long term connect well? People say it is really hard to jump from a very small company to a large one, is that one reason I keep getting rejected?
4. Is there anything special i should do to increase my chance in the last round? i didn't visited those school, i guess it is too late to do so anyway. pretty much getting the info from the school website, gmatclub.com, and search engine.
Thank you very much!!!!!
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28 Jan 2013, 21:47
