Kox12345 wrote:
Hi all,
I am kindly wondering what you guys would suggest for me to improve/accomplish given my profile and targets. I am currently taking a gap semester from my BSc and I will graduate in the spring of 2021. My wish is to do a MiM / MSc in finance/economics abroad after graduating. Thus, I have roughly 1,5 years to work on my profile (among other things) and I would love to hear your thoughts! Which areas should I focus on?
Target schools
HEC, Oxford, INSEAD, LSE, Cass, Copenhagen Business School.
Profile
Demographics: Swedish male, 21 years old.
Education and grades: BSc in Business and Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics (4.46/5.00, approx. top 20%), Natural Sciences in upper secondary (approx. top 0.4%).
Work: Part-time intern at fin-tech start-up (9 months, parallel with BSc), full-time intern at corporate finance boutique (4 months).
Extra-curriculars: Not much. Unfortunately no superstar in neither sports nor music. I should perhaps engage in student organizations but would love to find something more "real" and meriting -- any thoughts? (Personal interests: modern classics, renewable energy, mountaineering)
Professional goals: To work in PE / VC.
GMAT: GMAT 1: 700 (Q 43, V 42, IR 6, AWA 4.5), practice 1: 670 (Q47, V 35), practice 2: 680 (Q48, V35). Perhaps I should retake and aim to improve my official quant score, IR and AWA?
Thanks a lot for reading!
Hello,
Kox12345. Welcome to the community. My take on your profile:
- Your grades seem fine. Of course, you want them to be as high as you can get them, but nothing stands out to me as being deficient.
- Your work experience is okay, not a lot, but you are 21 after all, and I hardly think that a business school committee would expect a 21-year-old to have 5+ years of relevant experience. I would focus on what I enjoyed about the jobs you listed and think about how that might tie into my career interests. In other words, if you are working in an area of finance in which you have little interest, then that will not go a long way toward furthering your goals, school-wise and otherwise. If, on the other hand, you have some genuine interest in some aspect of what you are doing, then that ought to serve you much better.
- You said yourself that extracurriculars are lacking. Why must it be so? I am not a fan of joining a bunch of clubs just to bolster an application, but I would think that any undergraduate institute would provide you some outlet to explore side interests. Is there nothing of the sort in the way of mountaineering, for example? Just try something out, even something in which you might not have any immediate interest. (I had a cousin who joined an intramural curling league, for instance, despite never having taken to the ice before. He loved it.)
- Yeah, your GMAT™ score could improve, but a 700 in the bag at your age is quite strong. I wonder how much you might be able to raise that score with dedicated study. No need to rush into a retake just yet. In fact, that could probably wait another year, even if you will be finishing up school. (Sometimes dedicating all your time to prep can work against you; the regimented structure of school allows for more regimented prep. Maybe you could start a GMAT prep club and kill two birds with one stone.)
Good luck, whatever you decide to do. I hope you may touch back now and again and inform the community of your progress.
- Andrew