Profile eval

Question

Hi Jon! I posted this in the "B-School support" forum, but saw how active you were here and would love some of your thoughts.

Here's some background on me:

Before getting into my stats/work experience etc., let me first say that public service is the thing that matters most to me, and is what I want to do after business school/focus my career on. This isn't just lip service; I have a reasonably compelling personal story behind public service, and everything I've done in college (mostly political activities) and my current job at the UN demonstrate this deep commitment.

I think my career path until now can best be described as an exploration of the best mechanism to actually serve the public and improve the lives of the citizenry. For awhile I thought that was in the public sector, focused on domestic (US) issues -- you'll see that I worked on a Presidential campaign, at the White House, in Congress, and held some national political appointed positions. I realized that if I only ever worked in the public sector, I wouldn't professionally develop the way that I wanted to , so I graduated college and joined McKinsey in order to develop private sector acumen and bring "business knowledge to the 'do-gooder' world." At the end of my time with McKinsey I realized that all of my service work had been focused domestically, and I hadn't ever explored or thought about international development; hence I left McKinsey to take a technology innovation role at the UN.

What I've come around to thinking is that, in the near term, the best way I can accomplish my dual goals of public service and having a satisfying and high-impact career is to transition to private sector technology startups (most likely software) and create products and services that solve real problems for people -- though I'm not sure yet if this should first be in developed markets or developing markets. One of my favorite quotes is "Capitalism's great genius is that it rewards people for solving other people's problems." Long term, I may return to this White House/UN world at a level of tenure/experience where I can be a decision maker, or continue and do some VC work for emerging market technology startups.

I've now spent a good amount of time working in "technology for development," and want to go to business school (actually, I don't really want to go to business school. I want to go to Stanford. If I didn't get into Stanford, I would probably just start my own company or join an early stage one) to:

a) Develop stronger leadership and general management skills. I've been lucky enough to be in positions where I was leading large teams or groups of volunteers/staff, but I've never spent the time really thinking about my leadership style, how to develop it, etc. and would love the opportunity to do this at Stanford
b) Create a runway to the Valley, especially leveraging Stanford's strong VC ties, and graduate in a position where I can found/fund my own company (or join someone else's early stage company)
c) Have the credential/option value for transitioning back into hierarchical organizations at a higher impact position later in my career
d) Take the time to think about the markets/verticals I would want my first company to be in, and find/begin working with the founding team

Overall, this is my narrative, why I want to go to business school, and what I want to do in the short-long term. I'd love feedback on if that makes sense -- this really isn't some contrived invention to meet an adcom's criteria, but really what I've been thinking about my career, so places where the logic/experience/story don't hold together are more likely communications issues than me trying to artificially join dots. I'd love feedback on how this holds together, if this makes sense, what you would ask me, what you would want to see/be interested in seeing to see if what I say is real, etc.

As for the rest...

Full time work experience: I dropped out of college to work on a Presidential campaign; I graduated college and joined McKinsey in New York; and I left McKinsey in New York to join a technology innovation unit within the UN whose goal is to accelerate the development and deployment of mobile technologies to improve the lives of the poor. I've been interviewed/featured in Fortune, on the World Bank website, on the UN website, and have delivered addresses at a few international conferences on "ICT4D" (ICT 4 Development)

Academics/smarts

GMAT: 730 (45Q, 45V, 8IR -- 63rd percentile, 99th percentile, 92nd percentile)

College: Top 10 Liberal Arts College, double majored in Government and Economics. Grad year 2011 (in 3.5 years, with the semester taken off for the campaign -- had to "overload" on classes most semesters to graduate on time)

Cumulative GPA: 3.75
Freshman year: 3.46, Sophomore year: 3.76, Junior year: 3.90, Senior year: 3.91

Extracurricular activities/internships/other work experience

*Community Service Coordinator for college
*Web editor of school paper
*Leadership positions with state and national political party chapters (e.g., Finance Director, Young Republicans of America)
*Interned at the White House
*Interned in Congress
*Interned at the Commerce Department

Application plan

Round 1, Stanford

Recommendations

Will have one from a Director at the UN who knows me/works with me very closely and reports directly to the Secretary General. Will have a second from a former senior partner at McKinsey who recently left to join a software startup firm as one of their VPs. Again, I'm very close with this guy -- we worked very closely on many projects, I've had dinner on multiple occasions with his wife and kids, etc. So these aren't "status" recommendations, but people who can really speak to what I'm about

Any feedback on my profile overall, as well as on the story/fit/narrative arc, would be very helpful. Thank you so much!

Admissionado · Answer

Hey there, Sorry for the delay in getting back to you so far. As you may have read in my post, I was on the road for a week, and it's taking me a wee bit of time to go through all the posts and answer them, and I want to make sure I get to everybody... Anyhow, on to your profile! So, you know that it's awesome right? I mean,t he McKinsey, the UN, the White House, elected positions. It's all golden. And yes, you have a good shot at Stanford (I haven't written that phrase often). I hear HBS is a good place too though

(I know, I know alignment with the goals.... but dude, it IS Harvard). Your story makes sense given what you have written about your career esp. the part in the UN. You do need a bit to tighten up the connection between the VC and the "Helping the citizenry" beyond the quote about capitalism, but the story is THERE, and it CAN make sense (just gotta hammer out the details). Stanford will likely love that you come from a liberal arts college, as they really do tend to like "men of the world" (women too, of course). So it's nice to have something that's beyond your goal, beyond your "simple" career, but something else too. What else can I write? The one other thing I loved in your profile was the way you presented your recommenders. It is very important that you have people who you know closely and who genuinely like you and know you well (plus, although they aren't "Status recs" at all, the DO still have status, so you got the best of both worlds here). Otherwise things look good, Best, Jon

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