robert97 wrote:
Hi All!
Can you please review my profile?
Thank you very much!
Background and nationality: Hungarian, male, 27 years old by the time I apply.
Undergrad Information: Law degree from a Hungarian university, GPA: 4,61/5 with a summa cum laude distinction, top 15% of the class. I have received national excellence scholarships (these scholarships are given to students who have particularly high GPAs and performed certain extracurricular activities) for three semesters and national merit scholarships for all other semesters from the Hungarian Ministry of Justice and have received a Dean’s Award as well.
GMAT: aiming for 760-770
Work experience and leadership: by the time I apply I’ll have more than three years of experience working as a transactional lawyer on real estate and m&a deals at leading international law firms in Budapest, including 200-400 million EUR cross-border deals, not much leadership experience as I’m still considered a quite junior associate in the legal environment, however I have regularly coordinated different sub-tasks of a larger matter, where I had to lead and coordinate the work of my colleagues who are even more junior than me.
Community and others: now this is definetely one of my weakest points, I do not have much community experience apart from being part of a college for advanced studies during my years at university, I also have won and placed well on a couple of national competitions and participated in an international competition as well and had several internships during uni as extracurricular activities.
Post MBA goals:
Short term: switch my carrier to investment banking, as I’m definetly more interested in the finance/business side of deals than the legal side
Long term: build on my experience gained as a transactional lawyer and an investment banker and establish an m&a/transactional advisory firm in Hungary
International experience: I have studied a semester abroad as an Erasmus student, but no significant international work experience
Hi
robert97 , very strong chances of getting an invite from Haas.
Hope this can help you on the aspect you are most concerned about :
If you are someone who has come to realize the dearth of Extra Curricular activities in your profile, take ideas from the following successful examples to weave a narrative that still shows you created broader perspectives and developed a well-rounded personality.
1. Begin by talking about your formative years
Beginning your narrative with some context of family situation and social environment helps the admissions committee to create a character sketch of you as a child or young adult and evaluate your involvement in school activities objectively. For example, a successful applicant once talked about making extra effort to adapt to her continuously changing schools due to her family’s relocations (shows adaptability). She went on to say that she pushed herself to participate in debates, elocutions and public speaking to overcome her intrinsic shyness and lack of self-confidence (shows persistence).
2. Small actions make big impact
Another successful applicant talked about helping her family during financial crisis by taking up odd gigs such as organizing coaching/tuition classes for neighborhood kids, starting home-made snacks business she marketed through social media connections and starting a women’s dress boutique at home where she worked with artisans on profit sharing basis. Through her undertakings in adolescence, her entrepreneurial bent of mind is evident even before she started college.
3. Show that you took a stand on social issues in your society/community
A successful applicant talked about participating in theatre and dramatics during her college days. She set the context well saying she comes from a conservative and regressive rural society where vices such as female infanticide, domestic violence and AIDs are prevalent but frowned upon when discussed openly. She decided to create awareness on such issues by writing and directing street plays which her team performed in villages to echo a strong message.
4. Are you an inclusive team leader at work?
If your time is all consumed at work and you do not have any active interests outside of office, talk about how you make your office a better place for others. Another successful applicant talked about creating an apprenticeship program for women employees to make the onboarding process more women-friendly in a highly male dominated field sales team (his LOR also substantiated this). Another successful applicant talked about organizing book club events in her US office where books from economically emerging countries were read and discussed to develop deeper perspectives and better inclusion at an extremely diverse workplace.
Profoundly thinking about your actions in hindsight is a great way to uncover aspects of your personality that created a strong impact on people around you. ECs need not necessarily be be about continuous community involvement or hobbies, rather, bringing a unique frame of reference through your occasional but strong stance on issues can also help you make a strong impression.
If you wish to seek professional guidance on your application strategy do reach out.
Regards
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21 Jan 2022, 13:54
