Hey, guys. I see a lot of good advices from everybody. Just want to check how my profile stack up.
Is there anything you guys think I should be able to improve on or some other weakness I missed? What about my school choices? Any help or opinions are greatly appreciated.
Background:
- A 27 years old Chinese male working in financial services sector in New York City (US citizen).
- Graduated with BS in CompSci with low GPA (my major GPA is fairly decent). Part of it because I had to work so many jobs, part of it was my fault (thanks to Jack and Jim and Johny)
.
- I like sushi and steaks.
Experience:
- A ton of jobs during college, from internship to computer labs tech to TA.
- After graduating, nine months at a web development firm.
- Five years at my current financial software firm. My work involves building complete equity trading solution for brokage firms.
- I went from Specialist to Sr. Specialist to now TeamLeader/PM. From implementing other people's spec to writing my own spec to implement to writing spec that others can implement.
- My current team handles our some of the most crucial and high-profile clients, and I've been getting very good feedbacks.
GMAT:
- In progress. My pratice tests average is around 690-700. I am shooting for 730.
Recommendations:
- I have a very solid reputation at the firm, most if not all my managers are more than happy to write my recommendations.
Why do I need an MBA?
- I'm looking for international development (finance/business). I'm very interested in working in Europe and South America. I don't want to be the next Bill Gate, I want to enjoy my work, and I see the value of current work to be very ephemeral. I like to travel, having an MBA from a top school will definitely help me better market myself to the global companies.
Why MBA now?
- I'll be 28 if I get accepted for September 2007. If not now, probably never. My girl would kick my butt if she doesn't get a ring by the time I turned 30.
The serious answer is this, in the next 3-5 years, global competition will really heat up. China/India/Russia/Brazil will become major players in world's market. I want to be prepared for the next wave of business revolution.
Military:
- I spent 8 years in the Marine Reserve, (Honorable Discharge). My job was Weapon Repair and battalion armory operation (Non-Commissioned Officer in charge).
- Awarded twice for Navy/Marine Achievement Medal. It's a very good award actually. "Professional achievement which merits the award must clearly exceed that which is normally required or expected, considering the individual's grade or rate, training and experience, or be an important contribution of benefit to the United States and the Naval service." Most of my commanding officers didn't even have it
.
Extras:
- Nothing really special here. Working in financial service sector in NYC doesn't leave much time.
- I'm a scuba diver, enjoy diving a lot. I also swim, not Olympic or anything like that, just swim laps.
- I speak Chinese and obviously English. I'm also learning Spanish at the moment. French or Italian towards end of the year.
- My father and I owns a real estate company, mostly rentals. I work on it a lot. From installing boilers to carpetry to plumbing, and a lot paper work as well.
- I don't know if sponsoring Children's Internationl counts much?
- What about riding motorcyles? Does that count
? Planning on a trip from NYC to San Francisco and then Alaska (? questionable at this point) and back to NYC.
My "OMG, my son got into <XXX>, he's smarter than your stupid son" schools: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Tuck.
My "I would love to attend your school, Mr Adcom" schools: Columbia, IESE, LBS, Chicago.
I will also considered NYU as my somewhat "safe" school, a lot of pretty girls in NYU.
I think I have a decent shot at NYU
, everything else is a toss up.
I have several concerns/weaknesses:
1. My low GPA in college. Nothing I can do here, just hoping my work experience will back me up.
2. My lack of community services. I have absolutely no time to do, or ideas on what to do.
3. My ethnic background is Chinese, that puts me in a bracket against other asians with much better grades and much better schools.
I think my strong points are:
1. My work experience is strong, particularly in getting things done, taking initiatives, and leading teams. (See how I use parallelism here
)
2. My leadership exp is strong, both civilian and military.
Thanks,
-Adrian
"The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves."
close
28 Feb 2006, 14:34
To start with your first question, what you can improve on, I see three things you can do: (1) build an 'alternative transcript' by acing some MBA-related courses (e.g., stats), (2) find an intensive leadership role in an off-the-beaten-track (but also personally meaningful) community involvement, even if you can only do it on weekends (your Childrens Int'l. stuff alas doesn't impress adcoms if it just means donations), and (3) define goals better (what exactly do you mean by 'international development'? The World Bank?).
