Hi EC,
Thanks for reaching out. Yes, being "cultured" will help, so long as that flavor comes through in your applications. The easiest way for international exposure and experience to come through is if your long-term career goals have a bent in that direction. As you will find, you will spill a lot of ink supporting your career goals, so it is a place on the application where you can highlight things very easily. (Conversely, if a long-term goal is not supported by interesting passions, motivations, and experiences, the application will start to feel a bit flimsy.) So if those international experiences and what you learned from them become part of a vision for what you want to do in your career, it will be easy to broadcast that color around your candidacy. If not, then you have to work harder by framing individuals stories of leadership, teamwork, failure, etc. as happening in these unique places. I don't want to shape your career goals too much in a forum post, but having a long-term vision of drawing upon these unique experiences and investing in health care in a cross-borders way could be really great stuff and it will allow you to paint a really rich picture.
I wouldn't sweat your ECs from college. Many schools are limiting the importance of your "laundry list" of activities because it is hard to normalize across cultures and also hard to verify. So it is the individual stories you share and traits you put on display that move the needle, not just a list of bullet points. (Ross ditched ECs altogether on this year's application; something they had been considering for a while.)
Your career transition is something that will be totally fine AS LONG as you craft really great essays. You want everything to feel intentional, with a vision behind it, as opposed to just sort of jumping from one boat to another. Most schools occupy a "middle ground" on career changers where they don't wildly embrace but also don't cast extra scrutiny on those folks who are making a big move, say from consulting to finance, from finance to marketing, from marketing to consulting. One exception is Columbia - they frown on career changers and in our experience, it's been hard to change that fact. They are a very paternalistic business school with regard to career progress, so that might not be an ideal place to look, despite the fact that CBS is strong in finance and in entrepreneurship (and internationally, should you decide to go that direction).
A school that SHOULD be on your list is the one right down the road, which is of course NYU. Stern is a haven for career changers, especially those who move from a major industry to another major industry, such as your transition from consulting to finance. They have a program called IMI (Industry Mentoring Initiative) that is built for this and it speaks to both the experience you would have, but also the philosophy of the program which is "give us your career changers." Haas is another school that we've seen really embrace career changers in a positive way. Also Tuck.
Again, most schools are neutral on that and leave it up to you to explain You + Them = Next. But another program that I believe should be on your list is Wharton. It will be a longer shot because Wharton has a very high average GPA, making yours more problematic than it will be at other schools, but Wharton is strong in finance, strong in health care, supports entrepreneurs, and rewards both innovation and global perspective. In other words, you could craft a perfect application there. (Plus, as long as Wharton doesn't dramatically change the application for next year, it is one of the schools were you can gain the biggest advantage by knowing what you are doing on the essays. The gap between "perfect" and "train wreck" is particularly wide at Wharton.)
On GPA, I know you are probably worried about your 3.0, but as long as you apply to enough schools for padding, as long as you pick the right schools, as long as you are perfect in your applications, as long as you hammer maturity/focus/discipline in your professional life, I think you will be okay. We haven't seen the 3.0-3.3 type GPA keep people out so long as the rest is done correctly.
So I would keep a healthy list of 6-7 schools, but I would only apply to one from the Darden/Texas/Vandy mix. I would keep Duke. Definitely keep Yale (for finance + health care + valuing GMAT more than GPA). Like Michigan for you. Obviously would encourage adding NYU, Wharton, and Haas.
So my list for you would be:
1. NYU
2. Yale
3. Wharton
4. Duke
5. Haas
6. Kellogg
7. Darden/Texas/Vandy
Hope this helps. If you want to set up a consultation to really get into this, we'd be happy to line one up for you. We've had a lot of success with profiles similar to yours. Go ahead and email
mba@amerasiaconsulting.com and we'll get you all squared away.
Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti