Can a GMAT outweigh a bad GPA

Linda

I would like to gain acceptance to a top program like Sloan or HBS but my undergrad GPA is a glaring weakness.

Age: 30, US citizen, caucasian
Graduated: Feb 1999
Undergrad Major: Biochemistry
GPA: Around 3.0 (I won't lie its ugly w/ a lot of Cs)

GMAT: 730 (48Q, 42V)

Work experience: I have worked on the bench doing drug discovery for 5 years. I have my name on 8 patent applications, a few publications and some of my direct discoveries are now in clinical trials. A year and half ago I transferred down to the business group and I now do product development, competative market analysis, etc.

Extras: For the past three years I have been on the Board of Directors of an inner city youth mentoring organization. We have tripled membership, held large corporate fund raisers, and even recieved a large grant from Harvards HARBUS foundation.

In college I was a resident advisor, and before my current youth work I voluteered for another inner city youth mentoring program sponsoered by Burton Snowboards.

My age is a little high because I performed the international baccalaureate degree at a boarding school in Austria.

Reason for an MBA: I feel that in order to sucessfully develop a winning strategy at a pharmaceutical company you need an intimate understanding of drug discovery and the entire process involved with bringing an experimental drug to the market. An MBA will allow me to gain the leadership skills to transistion my laboratory experience into a senior managment position at a startup biotech and help transform the company into a pharmaceutical success story. I want to continue working at small start-up stage biotechs since so many of them are founded on new and innovative science, but most importantly they have that entrapreneural spirit that is so full of hope and excitement. My ultimate goal is to secure a senior position at a venture capital firm that specializes in biotech seed money. From this position I could leverage all my experience from the laboratory bench and business development to foster the development of several companies at a time. I would love to be in the position to evaluate emerging techonologies and really be responsible for letting them grow and prosper.


My reccomendations are very solid all from current or previous direct supervisors. I also have many project examples within my work etc.

Can I overcome the bad GPA with good essays? Should I address it right away with Harvards "What about your undergrad experience" question? Does the GMAT score outweigh the GPA since I am so far out of school?

Thanks for any insight you might be able to offer.

Brendan.