Profile Eval

Question

Hi

Would you be so kind as to give my profile an evaluation? I’m still a couple of years away so I’ll just share achievements up to now and maybe add just overall “where I’ll be at that point in time” stats (i’m 2-3 years away from applying as an average applicant).

BACKGROUND
-Male, 26 YO, from a southern EU country
-Attended a top US public college (think top 30) for undergrad, GPA not great unfo, a 3.0, majored in Econ & PoliSci (plenty of extracurricular stuff 
including but not limited to investment club president, student gov, tons of philanthropy)
-Interned in NYC, London, Tokyo all at top boutiques in AM and S&T during Ugrad (all FO roles)
-Took a year off between end of Ugrad and beginning of first FT job for variety of reasons; tldr is travelled then got an offer and had to wait to start 
-First job: 1YR of FT S&T exp in a “big commercial bank” in a different southern EU country where I learned the language fairly well.
-Took GMAT once, scored 650
-Decided to attend a top MFIN program (think ESSEC/ESADE/ESCP/IE), Master’s thesis grade 3.7 GPA, class rep, international case comp finalist
- Second job: Went back into S&T at a top EU trading house where I’ve been promoted to Associate a year early (2YR FT exp vs usual 3), led roadshows by myself
-Overall I am bilingual and speak two other languages reasonably well.

MY STATS WHEN APPLYING
-28/29 YO
-I’ll have 4 years FT exp in S&T across two firms, all in equities and plenty of good accomplishments like big IPOs, roadshows, different trading strategies etc soloing with being ranked by different buy sides and with an early promotion under my belt.
-I will retake the GMAT and hopefully get 720 or above
-Two degrees, maybe some progress done on the CAIA (always seemed super interesting to me)

MY POST-MBA GOALS
To be honest i’ll be pretty tired of S&T at that point so I’d probably like to try my hand at IBD or MBB. Locations wise i’d only target NYC and London (no visa issues for either)

TARGET SCHOOLS
Wharton (1st choice)
Booth
Tuck
INSEAD 
UNC
Yale
McCombs

Posted from my mobile device

Admissionado · Answer

I think you'll have a good shot at these schools -- your challenge will be differentiating yourself. It's good that you're coming from Europe since that adds class diversity but there will still be plenty of applicants who "look like" you on paper in terms of your work experience & post-MBA goals. Your existing masters degree will also make it a bit tougher to argue that you still need the MBA, so you'll want to be ready to name at least 3 specific skill gaps that you need to fill in b-school in order to achieve your goals. Given the challenge you'll face with differentiation it's good that you're thinking ahead so you'll have time to really be intentional about how to strengthen your profile between now & then. As much as possible you want to be able to position yourself as the best of the best (among those with a similar background) so do everything you can to rack up as many accomplishments at work as possible.

You'll also want to get some extracurricular experience under your belt since that sounds like a current weakness. It's good that you have some extracurriculars from undergrad, but they want to see recent ones & ideally ones where you've shown leadership. That might look like serving on the board of a nonprofit, organizing a major event, starting a chapter of something, etc.

I would aim for a 720 minimum on the GMAT & if possible a higher score would be ideal to help outweigh that GPA & again to differentiate you. With a 720 you've hit the average, but when you've got a low GPA & are coming from a common professional background ideally you want to exceed it (even though the masters GPA will also help to outweigh that undergrad one) .

Finally, you'll want to refine your goals so you can tell a really specific story there. They'll want to see a singular path and will want to know what unique impact you plan to have on your industry -- what trends will be impacting it in the next 10-12 years, what will that translate to in terms of opportunities & challenges for firms in that space, and what do you plan to do to take advantage of those opportunities & address those challenges. in addition you need to articulate WHY this is your passion. Out of all the things you could devote your career to, why is THIS the path you choose to take? The post-MBA goals are critical since they're not only a way to differentiate yourself but also form the basis for your argument for why you need the degree & why a particular school is the best fit for you.

If you need any help thinking through your strategy & your story definitely reach out to us. We offer an advanced planning service for folks just like yourself who are thinking ahead & want to do everything they can to maximize their chances of landing a spot at their dream school. If you reach out to Claudia at [email protected] she can share the details & answer any questions & you can also read about it here! https://admissionado.com/mba/mba-advanc ... g-program/

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