niafong
My current job is in a very niche field within the advertising industry. Although I enjoy what I do, I feel like my career has stalled both financially and in terms of career path. I'm looking to apply to an MBA program to broaden my scope and ultimately go into brand management. Please see my profile below:
Nationality/Gender/Age: Thai/Female, 26 yrs old
Work Experience:
2.5 yrs as an animation director for a global animatics company. I direct test commercials for advertising agencies and brands across Asia, and occasionally for Europe. There's no job title differentiation between junior and senior directors, but I have been given increasing responsibilities and now I'm responsible for the region's most challenging projects and clients.
1 year as a post-producer at a commercial production company in Thailand. I supervised post-production of various TV commercials and managed the budget.
1 year working short-term jobs at commercial production houses in LA while trying to find a permanent job that would sponsor me a H1-B visa. I couldn't find one and had to leave the US.
Extra-Curriculars: Leadership officer at my college's film fraternity and started a music collective with friends pitching and directing music videos for local bands in LA. Limited EC after I came back to Thailand - only did a few volunteers at an art museum. However, next January I will start working as a volunteer teacher teaching underprivileged kids in Bangkok.
Education: USC, Film Production.
Spent my freshmen and sophomore years at Emerson College. I found the curriculum too easy and USC had always been my dream school since high school.
Undergrad GPA: 3.63; GPA at Emerson was 3.86
GMAT: 680 (Q 43, V41) ; I messed up my quant section due to time mismanagement. I would not be able to retake within R2 deadlines. Looking to retake it again in Feb. I would also like to know how badly my low quant score will affect my chances at the top 15 schools.
Short Term Goal: Brand manager at a CPG company. Having worked on so many campaigns and seeing my works bear results, I would like to be at the center of it all working in brand management.
Long Term Goal: VP Marketing role planning global strategy for a brand.
Schools: UCLA, Duke, Northwestern Kellogg (reach), U of Toronto, York University. Should I add any more schools to the list? I'm only looking for 2 years schools so I can take advantage of summer internships.
Are my short and long term goals valid enough to be why I want to get an MBA? Please let me know!
Hey there!
Great to hear from you!
You have a very interesting and very strong basis - you are Thai, female and in Media! That's three things that B-schools will like!
You also have good acads at B-school.
Right now the big question is the GMAT: Yes, you can get into a good school with a 680, but nonetheless a much less good school than you could get into with a 720. So what do you want to do? Retake and wait? And make it happen now and compromise on schools? Because that is the essence of your choice.
What should also factor in is that we are pretty late along in the application season, and if you haven't yet started your applications you likely don't have enough time to deliver them the best application you can give.
Your ST and LT goals are overall a good basis to work from, although I feel that they could use some tweaking to be brought in line with your past experience.
Anyhow, first things first: to wait till next year R1 and retake the GMAT? Or to push for a lower ranked school this year?
Lemme know! And I can advise you further,
Best,
Jon Frank.