GMAT Club Legend
Joined: 04 Jun 2007
Status:Um... what do you want to know?
Posts: 5456
Given Kudos: 14
Location: SF, CA, USA
Concentration: Technology, Entrepreneurship, Digital Media & Entertainment
Schools:UC Berkeley Haas School of Business MBA 2010
Q51 V41
GPA: 3.9 - undergrad 3.6 - grad-EE
WE 1: Social Gaming
My Chances at Fall 2008 B-School?
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Updated on: 31 Oct 2007, 15:03
Alright, I decided to go to B-school roughly around May, and have been studying for the GMAT (early August test date) and researching schools for the past couple of months. Here's a rough sketch about me, just to see what the more experienced GMAT Club members think of my chances. I know focusing on the essays is key, and that will be my goal starting from early August until I apply first round end of October/early November. I tried to highlight a few things I will talk about in my essays.
Profile:
- Chinese American (lived and went to school in Taiwan for 5 years before high school, bilingual and well versed in Chinese culture)
- Male
- Engineering Degrees (BS, MS) from top engineering schools.
- Formerly engineer, now business development
- 30 yo
- 6 years work Ex, same company. First 5 years engineering/software, past year business development. Did a lateral career change in the company, and thus piqued my interest in business. After a year doing the job, I now want to explore business more by attending b-school
- GPA: 3.9/4.0 from undergrad, 3.6/4.0 in grad.
- GMAT: 760, Q51, V41
- Recommendations: One from past direct manager of 2 years who knows my technical abilities and organizational skills at work. One from my current manager who knows how fast I learned how to do biz dev and work in teams. Third rec for Stanford will come from a peer who knows my extracurriculars well and is an excellent writer.
- Leadership: A lot of stuff, key points will be:
-- company's leadership development program graduate
-- advisor for a student honor society for the past 8 years
-- led my company's intern program, and actively participated in it for 4 years
-- forming and captaining 2 tennis teams, one belonging to company
-- highly involved with campus recruiting for my company, liaison responsible for planning recruiting events for a key school.
-- starting a new hire social network at my company, involved with new hire activities
-- Part of my HOA board for the past 3 years
-- participation in company's diversity efforts
-- Random volunteering stuff like teaching disadvantaged middle school kids violin, teaching business to elementary school kids, and teaching astronomy to kids
- MBA Goals: Entrepreneurship, International business, or high level strategy at a tech company
Target Schools:
- Stanford
- Berkeley
- Maybe Columbia or Stern or UCLA, one of the three. I need to do more research into these.
My choices are very limited to where I would want to live and how much time I want to spend in applications. I'm ruling out all the schools in the mid-west since that's not where I will eventually live or work, nor do I want to focus on finance. HBS and MIT are out because of location.
Differentiation:
- American born but very heavily influenced by Asian/Chinese culture and language. Emphasize multi-cultural/linguistic background and interest in international management (especially in Asia)
- Engineer who slowly discovered that he enjoys people interactions and leading more than pure tech, thus leading to career shift before even applying to B-school
- Constantly "leading" in work and extracurricular activities, even with crazy work hours (60 hours a week in the past) and travel schedule (up to 50% travel).
I would love to hear some feedback on:
1. What people think my chances are.
2. What people think of my differentiation criteria. Should I find something else?
3. Anything I should emphasize more than others?
4. Am I crazy for starting so late and aiming for Round 1 (to maximize my chances)?
5. Any other comments?
Thank you all so much in advance for your help! I look forward to a healthy discussion and constructive criticism!
Originally posted by
kryzak on 05 Jul 2007, 00:34.
Last edited by
kryzak on 31 Oct 2007, 15:03, edited 3 times in total.