Profile Evaluation Please (standard white guy in USA)

Question

I posted in another forum as well but your responses seem both entertaining and informational, do you think you could let me know where I stand?

American White Male, age 25
GPA: 3.5 (Rutgers University)
Degrees: Finance, History
GMAT: 720 (95th percentile), Quant was 74th% and Verbal was 95%, AWA 6.0
Work Experience: 3 years now, Government Relations (My job is to receive requests for information from government regulators like the Federal Reserve or State insurance departments and work with very high level staff (even board level) and coordinate a response. I do a LOT of relationship management and project management, but only a small amount of Quant work.) EDIT: Received two promotions, the second promotion was getting this job.
Clubs: Treasurer of Toastmasters at work, other than that not much
Recommendations: From two VPs and one from Senior VP
Other: Speak English and Russian

What would you say my chances are at:
Harvard
MIT
Wharton
Columbia
Cornell
NYU (PART TIME)
Dartmouth
Yale
Rutgers University (PART TIME)

Would you need anymore information?

Admissionado · Answer

Dude, I'm a regular white guy myself, so my heart goes out to you.

Regular white guys like ourselves do fine too (although ladies do finer). It's about having the stats and the stories. 720 - excellent. GPA 3.5 - very good Government Work - Super. Promotions - most excellent. What about leadership? Got some good management stories? leadership? mentoring? that stuff is very important. If you can tweak your stories also to show how you've got some "in" with high-up folks in government places, that can give you a HUGE boost. Basically, with your stats you could reasonably apply anywhere, although we would need a whole lot more information for a full profile evaluation. Your school list of where you actually apply may shift a bit here a but there, but basically you have a GMAT score that's great for an American candidate (Our Chinese friends keep on getting 780s, making the curve a bit tougher for non-Americans), and if you can maximize your stories and choose your schools well, we have high hopes. Drop us a line, good sir!

Anonymous · Answer

Hello, thank you very much for the reply and analysis, I genuinely appreciate it. Crafting the story is probably the hardest part. I'm not really sure what I even want to do (like many people probably). I'd like to work in international investments traveling around the world (on the company's dime).

Here are your questions to me:

What about leadership? 
I don't know if I any real leadership skills that I could communicate. Intrinsically, I know that I am capable of being a good leader, I feel like I demonstrate good leadership skills when I interact with friends or what not, people often look to me, but at work I haven't been in a position to be a leader. All I have is that I won an election for a work club Treasurer position.

Got some good management stories? 
What do you mean by stories? Something to include in the essay? My daily work involves coordinating very high level people (maybe as high as the direct reports of the CEO's direct reports. I'm at a large multinational insurance company). So I have a lot of project management, people management skills. As far as stories, well, I feel like I've done a good job, so there hasn't been any notable crisis that I had to resolve, I usually get it right the first time. We've had some big projects, and some projects that are on a continuous basis, I could probably describe something like that.

mentoring? 
I mentor my girlfriend lol, other than that not sure what to say. I've BEEN mentored, not sure who I'm even qualified to mentor. What sorts of things do you usually see that qualifies?

In with the government 
I have contacts in the government, no real "ins."

How low do we shift haha?

Admissionado · Answer

Ahhh we don't shift too low. The important thing was not check off every item in the list, but to gauge how much potential your stories might have. The most important thing is that you manage people (And preferably hierarchical management rather than in a matrix). From what you wrote it seems to me about average for an applicant (I was hoping for more), but you'd be surprised how much juice we can squeeze out of a single lemon.

Anonymous · Answer

Just wanted to say thanks again. I took the weekend to review what you said. I'm going to have to try and dig deep and figure out something to say without outright lying haha.

If I may ask (I know I must be abusing the priveledges of a free online forum), what do you typically tell people with limited leadership roles to write?

EDIT: I just realized how dumb this sounds. What kind of person who thinks they are cut out for these programs would ask this. Natural response would be to well...go lead something. I don't know if I have that luxury though. I have essays to submit. I suppose here is my current leadership, should I go with it or should I ham-up what I currently do.

High School: Trained employees, was "shift supervisor" (I was in charge if the supervisor was out since I had seniority). I was the leader of video game team that made it to highest level of competition (re-edit: that seems really foolish). Was a captain of a debate team (i hope no girls find this out)
College: Business Simulation Competition (1st place). There was no formal leader but I did 95% of the work and the decision making.
Part Time: A couple friends and I fix computers at night, I handle all of the business, give them all the equipment, show them what to do, I send them out to places if the customer is close to their house.
Work: I often coordinate the efforts of senior managers so there is no overlap in responsibilities and everything is farmed out to the right person, but I don't know if thats leading anything. We have a fairly sizeable toastmasters club, I won an election for Treasurer (I handle the budget, vote on changes, nothing major).

Admissionado · Answer

Well to give you an honest answer, this is something we work on. It needs a lot of digging to find the stuff, an then to decide what is best. You know there may be stories in your past that don;t SEEM like leadership to you, but that actually ARE. That having been said, high school is out. It's just too irrelevant. anything else is possible, but leadership in work and nonprofit is especially good as is community or military leadership.

Profile Evaluation Please (standard white guy in USA)

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards