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Eminmba
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Profile evaluation please! (low gpa, 680gmat and 7 yrs exp) 17 Dec 2017, 00:03
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Hi there - thanks for reading!

My undergrad GPA is very low, below 3, and my graduate school gpa is 3.14, not outstanding either.
GMAT 680
Industry experience working as a financial analyst for about 7 years, career goal is to break the plateau and climb the ladder.
I have been exposed to a very broad range of responsibilities at work, and my work quality is definitely good. Although I was an individual contributor, the nature of my work requires leadership skills since I need to constantly work with department leaders on budget and business issues, present them ideas and advice.

I am not looking for a career switch, and I plan to stay in SF Bay Area after graduation.

Can I get into Santa Clara? Can I try Berkeley?

Thanks for any thoughts!
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Profile evaluation please! (low gpa, 680gmat and 7 yrs exp) 17 Dec 2017, 06:45
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Eminmba
Hi there - thanks for reading!

My undergrad GPA is very low, below 3, and my graduate school gpa is 3.14, not outstanding either.
GMAT 680
Industry experience working as a financial analyst for about 7 years, career goal is to break the plateau and climb the ladder.
I have been exposed to a very broad range of responsibilities at work, and my work quality is definitely good. Although I was an individual contributor, the nature of my work requires leadership skills since I need to constantly work with department leaders on budget and business issues, present them ideas and advice.

I am not looking for a career switch, and I plan to stay in SF Bay Area after graduation.

Can I get into Santa Clara? Can I try Berkeley?

Thanks for any thoughts!
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Well dude,
For Santa Clara you're probably fine. For Haas, it'll be tough, though you could consider looking into the PT program if that fits your needs. It is however tough to give you a real deep and full on eval without some more info:

Where do you work? What do you do? How quickly have you advanced? Do you have any leadership? What are your great achievements? Do you have notable community service or extra curriculars? Which school did you graduate from?

All of these will play important roles in your evaluation.
Best,
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Profile evaluation please! (low gpa, 680gmat and 7 yrs exp) 17 Dec 2017, 09:39
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Eminmba
Hi there - thanks for reading!

My undergrad GPA is very low, below 3, and my graduate school gpa is 3.14, not outstanding either.
GMAT 680
Industry experience working as a financial analyst for about 7 years, career goal is to break the plateau and climb the ladder.
I have been exposed to a very broad range of responsibilities at work, and my work quality is definitely good. Although I was an individual contributor, the nature of my work requires leadership skills since I need to constantly work with department leaders on budget and business issues, present them ideas and advice.

I am not looking for a career switch, and I plan to stay in SF Bay Area after graduation.

Can I get into Santa Clara? Can I try Berkeley?

Thanks for any thoughts!
Show more

Eminmba

Thank you for your post! As mentioned above, we would need a bit more information to properly advise you.

- What specific company do you work for?
- Have you been there for all 7 years?
- Any gaps in work ex?
- Extra-curricular leadership?
- Q/V split on the 680?

Santa Clara would likely work out if you submitted a strong story, though for Haas you would be looking at their PT program and it would still be tricky with your profile. If you want to send your resume over, that would provide more information. [email protected] / www.personalmbacoach.com

Best,
Scott
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Eminmba
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Profile evaluation please! (low gpa, 680gmat and 7 yrs exp) 17 Dec 2017, 22:53
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Jon and Scott,

Thank you so much for your quick reply! BTW, do I sound like a dude? :P

My undergrad was in China. I did Economics with Finance major, and went for MSF in a top 100 school in the midwest. I graduated in Aug 2010, and started working in October 2010. Pretty much straight working from there until July this year. Now I am fulfilling my travel cravings and going around Asia like a nomad, and.. trying to make Youtube videos. But I do want to recharge, and I think an MBA definitely will benefit my career.

What do I do? My title is financial analyst, or Senior at my previous company, where I worked for almost 5 years. My responsibilities had been pretty broad since my manager used to be the VP finance, and became CFO early 2016, and I am the only person who develops analytics covering almost all aspects of our business, such as bookings, shipment, revenue, cost and supply chain, pricing, deal structure, budget.. The analysis gets distributed among all Execs and the CEO and founder. There is a business analyst working with me to get data and develop Access database that I use as a main tool.

My previous company is a 300M revenue company with about 600 people globally, what they do is similar to what NetApp does, big data, supercomputing... The company before my previous one is a contract manufacturing company, which also operates globally with about 200-300M revenue just in the US, and about 600 people including factory workers in the US. I also have experience working at SAAS companies for about 10 months in total, one of which had a massive lay off after 3 months I joined them. But I quickly landed my previous job within a month after I got laid off, that's why I didn't have much employment gap as I mentioned earlier.

My greatest achievement is probably to support my previous company with accurate, creative and in depth analysis. I built everything financial related in this company. My strength is to be productive and efficient. I know as a Financial analyst, people usually expect me to spend time dealing with data and spreadsheets, but I only use them as a tool and I spend most of my time doing research on the results, present my findings and insights, work across functional departments to get things done.

Recently, I don't have any extra curricular activities except that I am a member of the certified corporate FP&A and I participated in a AFP cut score meeting in Philly last May. I spend most of my time with my dog and visiting animal shelters (I often go to the Palo Alto animal foundation) and spend time with the cats. I have done a lot in college, student union, art club, broadcasting club, I don't know if they are too relevant anymore since it's over 10 years ago.

Do any of you know anything special about LSB at Santa Clara? I watched almost all their Youtube videos, researched on the internet, and I have two colleagues who graduated from their MBA program that gave me insights. And I am talking to the admission committee soon to get more info.

Again, thank you for both of your willingness to help. I really appreciate your advice. :)

Emma
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Profile evaluation please! (low gpa, 680gmat and 7 yrs exp) 18 Dec 2017, 04:35
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Wrong forum. I am moving the topic to admission consultants forum.