Hi all,
I would like to apply for MBA-FT in 2024 and would love to get my profile evaluated. Please help take a look at my profile and kindly suggest what US MBA school I can target.
Demographics
- 27 yr old female, Southeast Asian
Undergrad:
- Mechanical Engineering graduate from #1 national Uni (M7 B-School feeder undergrad)
- Grade: 3.63 (First class honors - Top 10% percentile of 1000+ student class size, Rank 3rd in the major with major GPA 3.8)
- Academic excellence scholarship
Gmat: 680 (Q47, V35) (5th attempt)
Professional exp:
- total work experience: ~4 years
A) 3.5yr: MBB’s fresh grad hire, 2 promotions, to receive MBA scholarship from the firm. Experience in retail and data analytics
- Worked on retail strategy cases focusing on pricing and promotion (Fashion and beauty) and customer segmentation, leveraging data analytics and machine learning to define the future-proof strategy for the largest retailer in Southeast Asia
- Launch dozens of A/B tests and build client capability for both pricing and promotion and customer segmentation module, with improvement in profit dollar
-Also work in Financial services during the first year: designed a Wealth-business services model for the largest bank nationally, drive organization change management, and drive digital transformation both back-end process and customer-facing touchpoints
B) 6m: (Externship) Manager at SEA's biggest e-commerce platform(as part of consulting firm’s externship prog), double-hatting as strategic fashion channel owner (Managing 10+ stakeholders) and working directly with CEO on regional segmentation strategy impacting >100M users
- Managed senior stakeholders, successfully upward managing difficult project leads, and provide recommendations directly to the CEO on customer segmentation strategy
- Entrepreneur role as Fashion channel owner, collaborate with multiple stakeholders to improve channel performance, from UI/UX, search/recommendation algo, marketing, campaign, account management, etc.
Extracur:
- Founder of non-profit org (college student mentorship program) with ~100 participants, doing in parallel with work at MBB
- Won Global social business case competition during UG for eco-friendly business model, representing APAC as global finalist and participating in 6m incubation program for social start-up (raised some amount of funds to set up the business but didn’t pursue further due to R&D difficulties caused by the pandemic)
- Worked at a social consulting firm (Pro-bono) for 6m before starting my role at MBB, focusing in education issues and waste management
LOR:
- Strong letter from a partner at the firm (M7 grad)
- Relatively strong letter from the CEO of the E-commerce platform (M7 Grad)
- Strong academic reference from UG professor (MIT grad - repetitional figure in local business and academic field)
Goal post-MBA:
- Theme: Consulting-Tech
- Why MBA: MBA will help broaden my expertise in data-driven strategy for retail, help deepen data-analytics strategy knowledge, and strengthen my creditability on customer segmentation strategy for SEA consulting landscape
- Short term: to stay in consulting (as I got firm's scholarship) and become Manager+ at MBB firm, to be the core member of retail practice and customer-centric strategy in SEA, using data to disrupt and unlock insights on the SEA consumer
- Long term: to be a partner at MBB firm and become regional practice lead for customer strategy and analytics
Target school:
- MIT (1st choice)
- Columbia
- Kellogg
My concern
1.) Do you think I have a chance at my 1st choice school given my GMAT? Or any M7?
My GMAT is the weak point in my candidacy right now. I am planning to attempt GMAT to the lifetime limit, but there is no guarantee how much I can improve in the next 3 attempts.
Due to the unfortunate timing of each gmat attempt, it was difficult to break through the 700 ceiling (i gave 2 attempts before starting my role at MBB firm and had to stop studying to concentrate on work. 2yrs later, got promoted and start studying again, took another 3 attempts and hit 680; then before I can break the 700 I went on an externship and was pulled by the CEO to work directly on his special strategy project, hence wasn’t able to study for 3m)
2.) Assume I need to apply with 680, what should I do more to strengthen my profile?
3.) Are the schools listed achievable with my profiles? If not, which school would be more promising?