etta wrote:
Hi Linda and the Accepted team,
Would love a profile evaluation, as I have never had one before, and grow more curious every day. Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
Demographics: Female, Australian, 26 (will be almost 27 at matriculation)
1) Brief description of your full-time work experience. What do you do?
1/ 2.5 yrs project manager at IBM, largest project managed was $35mil, managing an internal team of 5 and an external team of about 10 (vendors, subcontractors, client support). Promoted once.
2/ 1 yr consulting at a Big 4 (2 yrs at matriculation), designing transformations and implementations - i.e. large projects that involve collaborating with capabilities from across the firm, as well as engagement with various functions within client organisation. Expecting to be promoted in Dec this year.
2) Your GMAT.
710 - Q48, V38, IR 7, AWA 6
This was the first attempt. Not considering a re-take at this stage.
3) College info: The name of the college, your GPA or grade average, your major, year of graduation. For any graduate degrees, please provide the same info. If you grades are low, please indicate if there were extenuating circumstances.
Reputable university in Sydney. Double degree in Business and Psychology; entry into the course is only for students graduating high school in the top 4% of the country.
GPA is an equivalent of a 3.0 (perhaps? I was about average within this course)
I also did a semester abroad in the US. GPA in senior-level business courses were 3.55
Low grades = I was involved in a lot of extracurricular activities while studying, as well as working a few jobs to support myself financially.
4) Significant college and post-college extra-curricular activities or community service, especially leadership experience.
Undergraduate: student council, volunteering for the student union (leader), running a program for new students (similar to New Student Orientation at Stanford, and other US equivalents), ambulance squad, ran the ticketing and logistics for a 2500-seat annual student theatre production (leader), peer mentor for business students (leader), worked as a maths tutor for primary and high school students, worked as a librarian for the university (leader)
Post-education: alumni committee for the business school for uni (leader), run a non-profit that provides free education to adults in remote communities in Nepal. The program has been running since 2009 and we teach about 300 students (leader), a few other mentoring pieces here and there for business students
NB: In my applications, I don't actually mention a lot of the extra-curricular activities I did during undergraduate because I didn't have the room on my resume, or in the essays to talk about them. A bit concerned that by taking the interesting and diverse activities out, I've "boring-fied" myself!
5) Important certifications like CFA, CPA, FSA, or CA.
N/A. I have some international accreditation for project management, but it's not as quantitative as your CFA or CA.
Again, this is not mentioned in my profile.
6) Your target programs. Please note that my experience is with the top MBA programs (FT, PT, EMBA, Sloan Fellows) around the world. If the programs you are targeting are not listed here, I may not respond due to lack of time.
Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Yale
7) When you plan to apply? Please specify round and application cycle, for example R1 2013-14 or R3 2012-13.
Stanford, Harvard, MIT - R1 2013/14
Yale - R2 2013/14
8) Your post-MBA goal.
I have quite clear goals - I want to work in the education space (from a private sector perspective) to develop and design education programs for developing countries. In my applications, I talk about specific positions and companies I want to work for.
You certainly have a chance at all your target programs. Your work experience is strong and they don't get tons of apps from Austrlalian women so you will get a few diversity points. Your grades and GMAT are a little below average for HBS, Stanford, and MIT. You have a competitive profile for Yale. Have you considered the joint MBA/MEd at Darden?
Linda