31 y/o Australian male - profile evaluation

Question

Hi,

I would be very appreciative if you could evaluate my profile. I recently turned 31 and have been struggling with the GMAT for a long time otherwise i would have applied earlier. I am quite worried about my age and it is possible I may not get my required GMAT score by R3 at the European schools listed below. IF so, what are my chances for applying in September 2013, for the fall 2014 intake?

I am aiming for a 700+ on the GMAT and I should get at least 680+ based on current performance if i took it in the next few weeks. I took it once last year and got 580, and recently in December 2012 but had to cancel my score due to a major timing error in the Quant section that i didn't notice until it was too late.

I am targeting the following schools in R3 or R4, for this year's Fall intake:

Cambridge Judge
Oxford Said
LBS
IMD
INSEAD
Dartmouth Tuck

If I don't get in to any of those, I would like to apply for the following schools for Fall 2014:

Cambridge Judge
Oxford Said
LBS
IMD
INSEAD
Dartmouth Tuck
Haas
HBS
Stanford
MIT

Nationality: dual Australian/British. Grew up in Australia, came to work in London 5 years ago, have worked in Malta too since then.

Gender: M

Age: 31

GPA: 4.75 on a 7 scale in Australia. I did a 5-year dual degree - bachelor of IT (information systems) and a bachelor of business (e-business) at a good Australian university. the IT degree was quite hard - it's now called computer science at my uni. grades progressed upwards as time went on but had 1 very bad year in the middle of the degree.

Employer: well-known (in the UK) and regarded London-based 250-consultant niche business intelligence & information management consultancy. not really known outside of UK.

WORK EXPERIENCE: 8 years (in reverse chronological order)

** 2.5 years in London - Information Management Consultant at my current employer (no promotion yet but i moved sideways in the company 1 year ago into a more business analyst-type role from a technical role):
- business data advisor on a major financial regulation project at a major bank
- worked as a test team lead (of a team of 4) at a major bank client on a reporting project to automate reporting on the activities of all the branches in the UK for this bank.
- 3 mths at a leading waste management company, integrating data from multiple sources, analysing the business to align its data to its operations and reporting, and migrating their old reporting to new reporting
- Data Integration Lead on a data integration project across multiple data sources for a major media client. indirectly supervised/coordinated and closely worked with a team of 4 developers in Spain.
- call center analytics project business analyst
- trying to spearhead the development of a new big data practice within my company, along with a senior employee within the company.

** 1.5 years in Malta - senior business intelligence and CRM developer/analyst at a leading pan-European online sports betting company
- completely spearheaded, analysed, re-aligned and re-vamped company's Business Intelligence capability from almost no capability to fully-automated reporting and analytics solution across the company

** 2.5 years - business intelligence analyst/devloper in London UK at a pan-European online advertising company with HQ in the USA:
- business intelligence reporting, dashboard design
- business analysis
- key project instigator, analyst and developer in data warehouse project
- solely migrated company's reporting from Excel-based reporting to
fully-automated reporting

** 1 year - graduate consultant with large mining consulting company in australia

** 1 year - IT support helpdesk operator

EXTRACURRICULARS: australian football, badminton and tennis, dj-ing, cycling, travelling.

VOLUNTEERING: 6 month final year project in uni, completely free of charge, travelled to Norfolk Island to help the school there transform its IT. Apart from that, none, as the consulting lifestyle prohibits it on week days and the town i have been living in in the UK for the last 2 years has no weekend volunteering opportunities. also I have moved around a lot too which hasn't helped on this front.

MBA GOALS:
to change from a primarily technical role into technology strategy consulting, applying data and information technologies to help solve real world problems especially involving applying data and analytics and help guide innovation and corporate strategy. it is currently very hard to get out of my technical pigeon-hole. i love the strategy side of technology and business and have had a taste of it from time to time doing what i do now. however there are no real opportunities in this space in my company for me without any experience in this area or in-depth knowledge of business that an MBA would provide. i have a marked interest in big data. ultimately i'd love to manage data-driven projects in developing countries to help make a huge difference to people's daily lives.

MY BIGGEST CONCERNS:

- my current age
- average GPA with some failed subjects in the middle year of my degree due to personal difficulties and working too much part-time outside of university

basically, do i have a chance if i waited until september this year to apply to the schools mentioned above, plus MIT too? or should I try my best to get into one of the schools in their R3 round? waiting until Fall this year to apply in R1 would be much better for me for many reasons (financial, personal, professional)... but i fear about my age

thanks!

.

n.
-

thanks! . n. -

Accepted.com · Answer

clearly waiting till fall won't change your  undergrad GPA  and on the margins puts more distance between you and the GPA so that's not a factor. I think your chances will be better R1 with a higher GMAT at most of these schools (especially the European schools) than R3 with a lower GMAT. The U.S. ones are a little harder to call, but they are usually somewhat reluctant to admit int'l applicants later in the cycle because of visa issues. i suspect those issues are less significant for British nationals and frankly, U.S. business schools find Europeans to be somewhat  underrepresented these days i.e. they're wanted.

However, my bottom line advice is always to submit when you can submit the best overall app. If work and whatever is pressuring you now and you would do a better job in the late summer and fall, I'd wait.

You might be interested in  Applying to Regular MBA Programs as an Older Applicant

I hope this helps.

Best,
Linda

n2739178 · Answer

Hi Linda, Thanks for your reply. So do you think I would not be at a disadvantage (in terms of getting even older

) if I waited until Fall to apply to the listed schools? That's my biggest concern really. I will apply to Cambridge in their R4 or R5 this year and see what happens - they are a good school and a good fit, and their intake numbers are apparently the same in each round. If so, what sort of things could I do in the meantime to boost my profile significantly in that time? I don't really want to wait another year but if I have to because I could significantly increase my odds of getting in, I will. Thank you

Accepted.com · Answer

In terms of the European schools, I don't see the additional year of work experience as being an issue. It is more of a concern at the U.S. schools. However, if you don't think you can develop a compelling application round 3, I wouldn't try. You are trying to weigh the relative disadvantage of applying late in the application cycle vs being a year older. I can't be definitive in answering that questions, but my sense is that you would be better off R1 of next year, than R3 now. It's not black and white, however.

Best,
Linda

31 y/o Australian male - profile evaluation

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