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23 Feb 2010, 21:41
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Veritas Prep
Goal: Top program
Stats: 25 years old (soon 26), little over 3 years work experience, Overall UG GPA
GPA details:
~3.1 (first year different school, all quant classes got approx 3.7 (As in all maths) ) next three years GPA 2.9 at top 20 world science school, U. British Columbia Major Astronomy/Physics
Realized Physics wasn't for me but luckily Astronomy is also secretly large scale data analysis / programming (little known-fact) so here is what I have done since graduating school in Dec 06'
Work experience:
Job #1
2 years
Bio-tech consulting/market research experience at a small company (started as 4 ppl, I helped grow to about 30). I crafted research reports on about 17 different countries and the market trends in their industries, published about 1300 pages, J&J said I had the best world report
I had to leave because of visa issues so I quit and finished my naturalization process in the USA!!!
Job #2
1.5 years experience with a high end financial data provider (related to above in many ways) The sector tabs you see on Google finance was our data, helped craft financial data products for all the major banks and the US military believe it or not...my role was product development associate. This was a dream job but the economic crisis got the worst of me, I got laid off!!!
Job#3 (Current)
1 month
In China working with a fast growing but small company (~50 people, but manages teams in the 1000s) that offers consulting/market research services to US/European companies looking to expand and/or compete into China (focus groups, studies, interviews, large scale mystery shopping, trend analysis, etc). I'm training over the next 3 months to replace the Director of International Research & Business Development. I can speak Intermediate Mandarin although I'm not asian (anglo-saxon). This company is now the #1 mystery shopper / suvery company in China and is growing fast, I'm in charge of expanding their business into the western world.
Side-companies:
Own a SAT/GRE study tool -- elitewordprep dot com (won't let me post urls)
Manage a small fund via a algorithmic trading program I created, it buys and sells stocks over the world's security exchanges and it produces 200-300% returns for the last 17 years.
Summary:
I want to get into a top business school for the connections and I believe I can provide my classmates insight on the connections I will garner in China, not to mention the cultural experience & my first hand entrepreneurial pursuits. I technically can live off my side business (the algorithm will be worth a million in a few years but it is my family's money, they gave me the initial 250,000K and they will invest more, my grandfather was an inventor who became a large scale steel manufacturer and later sold the business & my dad used to be the v.president of apple so they have the $$ to gave me in this pursuit, however I don't see any of this for a long time, the strat is recession independent as well so I don't feel too worried about it)
I also want to go to business school to learn management in the formal sense, if my businesses truly take off I want the name under my belt and if not I want the job security associated with it. I know my GPA is not stellar but I have solid business experience and I'm a doer, not an academic and I have been in roles where I lead others. I haven't taken the GMAT yet but I know it will be hard for me due to the verbal section. Math is a synch for me, I got mainly As in all my math/computer related subjects, it was the physics classes where I got mostly Bs and some Cs
I'm worried that admissions will see the jumps in my resume, but they were due to things out of my control, A) economic crisis B) Visa naturalization took far too long than what our family attorney stated!!
Questions for you:
A) Will admissions officers take my circumstances into account with changing my jobs? I would ideally liked to have stayed longer in them..
B) Is my GPA an issue? I know I took a really difficult major at a difficult school
C) What GMAT range should I aim for to get into a top school with all of the above considered?
D) Is my business experience good enough for a top program?
E) Evaluate my strategy: I work in China for another 2 years, learn Mandarin more and let the money flow in my from side businesses (they require little effort on my behalf), study for the GMAT for a year and ace it then apply
Thanks for your time and consideration, I understand this is a rather long post
Goal: Top program
Stats: 25 years old (soon 26), little over 3 years work experience, Overall UG GPA
GPA details:
~3.1 (first year different school, all quant classes got approx 3.7 (As in all maths) ) next three years GPA 2.9 at top 20 world science school, U. British Columbia Major Astronomy/Physics
Realized Physics wasn't for me but luckily Astronomy is also secretly large scale data analysis / programming (little known-fact) so here is what I have done since graduating school in Dec 06'
Work experience:
Job #1
2 years
Bio-tech consulting/market research experience at a small company (started as 4 ppl, I helped grow to about 30). I crafted research reports on about 17 different countries and the market trends in their industries, published about 1300 pages, J&J said I had the best world report
I had to leave because of visa issues so I quit and finished my naturalization process in the USA!!!
Job #2
1.5 years experience with a high end financial data provider (related to above in many ways) The sector tabs you see on Google finance was our data, helped craft financial data products for all the major banks and the US military believe it or not...my role was product development associate. This was a dream job but the economic crisis got the worst of me, I got laid off!!!
Job#3 (Current)
1 month
In China working with a fast growing but small company (~50 people, but manages teams in the 1000s) that offers consulting/market research services to US/European companies looking to expand and/or compete into China (focus groups, studies, interviews, large scale mystery shopping, trend analysis, etc). I'm training over the next 3 months to replace the Director of International Research & Business Development. I can speak Intermediate Mandarin although I'm not asian (anglo-saxon). This company is now the #1 mystery shopper / suvery company in China and is growing fast, I'm in charge of expanding their business into the western world.
Side-companies:
Own a SAT/GRE study tool -- elitewordprep dot com (won't let me post urls)
Manage a small fund via a algorithmic trading program I created, it buys and sells stocks over the world's security exchanges and it produces 200-300% returns for the last 17 years.
Summary:
I want to get into a top business school for the connections and I believe I can provide my classmates insight on the connections I will garner in China, not to mention the cultural experience & my first hand entrepreneurial pursuits. I technically can live off my side business (the algorithm will be worth a million in a few years but it is my family's money, they gave me the initial 250,000K and they will invest more, my grandfather was an inventor who became a large scale steel manufacturer and later sold the business & my dad used to be the v.president of apple so they have the $$ to gave me in this pursuit, however I don't see any of this for a long time, the strat is recession independent as well so I don't feel too worried about it)
I also want to go to business school to learn management in the formal sense, if my businesses truly take off I want the name under my belt and if not I want the job security associated with it. I know my GPA is not stellar but I have solid business experience and I'm a doer, not an academic and I have been in roles where I lead others. I haven't taken the GMAT yet but I know it will be hard for me due to the verbal section. Math is a synch for me, I got mainly As in all my math/computer related subjects, it was the physics classes where I got mostly Bs and some Cs
I'm worried that admissions will see the jumps in my resume, but they were due to things out of my control, A) economic crisis B) Visa naturalization took far too long than what our family attorney stated!!
Questions for you:
A) Will admissions officers take my circumstances into account with changing my jobs? I would ideally liked to have stayed longer in them..
B) Is my GPA an issue? I know I took a really difficult major at a difficult school
C) What GMAT range should I aim for to get into a top school with all of the above considered?
D) Is my business experience good enough for a top program?
E) Evaluate my strategy: I work in China for another 2 years, learn Mandarin more and let the money flow in my from side businesses (they require little effort on my behalf), study for the GMAT for a year and ace it then apply
Thanks for your time and consideration, I understand this is a rather long post
24 Feb 2010, 14:20
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi saltywalrus,
You have an interesting bakcground! I'll take your questions in order:
A) Will admissions officers take my circumstances into account with changing my jobs? I would ideally liked to have stayed longer in them.
Yes, they are always fairly open-minded about these things. Ideally, one of your recos could come from a former supervisor who reluctantly laid you off because he had to, not because you weren't a strong performer. But, even without something like this, don't think that a spotty employment record will automatically keep you out of a top school.
B) Is my GPA an issue? I know I took a really difficult major at a difficult school
Your GPA definitely will be a weakness in your application. If it had started low and then had gotten stronger over the next three years, this would be okay, but they will look at the 2.9 over your last three years and won't be impressed. You'll really need to shine on the GMAT. You should also consider taking an accounting-related course at a local college, just to show you have what it takes to do well in subject matter that's obviously related to a business degree.
C) What GMAT range should I aim for to get into a top school with all of the above considered?
Of course, it depends what you mean by "top school," but ideally you will score at least in the 80th percentile in both the quant and the verbal sections of the GMAT. This would put you at a 700+ total score. In your case, ideally you can do even better, because of your GPA.
D) Is my business experience good enough for a top program?
Yes, I think so. I would downplay the side business and trading algorithm stuff, though... You don't want to sound too unfocused, or make it sound like you'll be distracted while in school. That could compound the low GPA problem.
E) Evaluate my strategy: I work in China for another 2 years, learn Mandarin more and let the money flow in my from side businesses (they require little effort on my behalf), study for the GMAT for a year and ace it then apply
You've already got ~3.5 years of experience, right? Depending on what programs you target, another two years of work experience before you apply would put you above the median amount of work experience at some of those schools. HBS, for instance, is definitely hewing younger these days. I would think about applying this fall, before you start to get "too old" in some admissions officers' eyes.
Good luck!
Scott
You have an interesting bakcground! I'll take your questions in order:
A) Will admissions officers take my circumstances into account with changing my jobs? I would ideally liked to have stayed longer in them.
Yes, they are always fairly open-minded about these things. Ideally, one of your recos could come from a former supervisor who reluctantly laid you off because he had to, not because you weren't a strong performer. But, even without something like this, don't think that a spotty employment record will automatically keep you out of a top school.
B) Is my GPA an issue? I know I took a really difficult major at a difficult school
Your GPA definitely will be a weakness in your application. If it had started low and then had gotten stronger over the next three years, this would be okay, but they will look at the 2.9 over your last three years and won't be impressed. You'll really need to shine on the GMAT. You should also consider taking an accounting-related course at a local college, just to show you have what it takes to do well in subject matter that's obviously related to a business degree.
C) What GMAT range should I aim for to get into a top school with all of the above considered?
Of course, it depends what you mean by "top school," but ideally you will score at least in the 80th percentile in both the quant and the verbal sections of the GMAT. This would put you at a 700+ total score. In your case, ideally you can do even better, because of your GPA.
D) Is my business experience good enough for a top program?
Yes, I think so. I would downplay the side business and trading algorithm stuff, though... You don't want to sound too unfocused, or make it sound like you'll be distracted while in school. That could compound the low GPA problem.
E) Evaluate my strategy: I work in China for another 2 years, learn Mandarin more and let the money flow in my from side businesses (they require little effort on my behalf), study for the GMAT for a year and ace it then apply
You've already got ~3.5 years of experience, right? Depending on what programs you target, another two years of work experience before you apply would put you above the median amount of work experience at some of those schools. HBS, for instance, is definitely hewing younger these days. I would think about applying this fall, before you start to get "too old" in some admissions officers' eyes.
Good luck!
Scott
25 Feb 2010, 09:23
Kudos
Bookmarks
Well I was thinking along the lines of top 10 schools
I should add that the person I'm replacing in this job got accepted to u.Chicago and wait listed at LBS
She is a year younger than me though, plus I think she has way better grades than me.
Regardless. you think sooner is better than later? I just figured the more experience I have the less the GPA comes into question. I know my GPA may not have been an upward trend ( it was mainly an L shape, however I never failed anything, just straight b/b-'s in all my physics classes, *really*).
If you could elaborate just a little more I would appreciate it immensely.
Thanks!
I should add that the person I'm replacing in this job got accepted to u.Chicago and wait listed at LBS
She is a year younger than me though, plus I think she has way better grades than me.
Regardless. you think sooner is better than later? I just figured the more experience I have the less the GPA comes into question. I know my GPA may not have been an upward trend ( it was mainly an L shape, however I never failed anything, just straight b/b-'s in all my physics classes, *really*).
If you could elaborate just a little more I would appreciate it immensely.
Thanks!
