I just got back from the GMAT test. I'm very unsure if a) my stats are good for these schools, because they don't show stats much b) my background is a fit - seems quite unconventional and hectic to me I'd probably need your help in pointing out my strength/weakness to highlight in my personal statement Background Work experience: 3-month internship at nameless tech startup - first marketing hire Indie marketing contractor for a few other startups, including one SaaS for databases, one SaaS for venture capital management, and one marketing agency 1 year marketing role & 5-month data role at top US startup in equity crowdfunding, team member number 10th Extra curriculars: Volunteer at largest Europe tech event Volunteer at 500 Startups (advising one portfolio company) Undergrad school/major: Top business university in the Nordics Major: international business; Minor: finance I haven't graduated yet, but will graduate in July 2019 Other education/coursework: A lot of Coursera specializations (specialization = group of many courses with one capstone project) DataCamp's data scientist track Now in Udacity Data Scientist nanodegree Race/nationality: Asian Sex: M - 22 yo Stats GMAT Score (include breakdown!): 740 (Q50 - V40 - IR6, don't know AW yet) Undergrad GPA: 4.33 over 5.00 or 3.46 over 4.00 (top 10% of class) - I haven't graduated yet, but will graduate in July 2019 Application info Goal: short: work in fintech and build a financial AI of sorts, long: perhaps PhD in computational neuroscience or found a company Target schools (not in order) Joint MSc Quant from ETH Zurich & Uni of Zurich MSc Quant from EPFLausanne MSc Computational Finance at Carnegie Mellon MSc Risk Management or Fintech at Imperial College MSc Financial Engineering at Nanyang Tech MSc Financial Engineering at UC Berkeley - Haas School of Business

Hello vl307 You have lofty goals here, I like them. However, you keep mixing MBA degree and MS in Quantitative Finance degree, so which one you would like to pursue ? How can you have short and long term MBA goals and apply to MSc in QF/Financial Engineering ? Explain me that. I am going to work here with MSc degree goal. Let start with Berkeley, that is best program in the world and most competitive in MS in QF category. After that comes Carnegie Mellon program. Both programs from Switzerland are great, moreover that is also great country for living and studying. Imperial is strong in QF or FinTech, so that is good choice. Nanyang Tech would be a safety choice. However, with GMAT of 740, you have fair chance of being admitted to all schools on your list. You said you dont know stats, well I do...and I can easily provide you with relevant ones for all schools on list, however that is redundant since you surpassed them in terms of average GMAT score, in another words you are set there. I am still confused with all info you provided, those are more important for MBA than MSc in QF, except for finance course you took online. All in all, you have very good chance at your target schools, I dont see a reason to spin much your story in personal essay, since you will major in international business/finance, so going for QF is not straying from course. We all know that work experience is sometimes more related with opportunities that we are offered than with our desires or prime interest, so that is fine. Definitely apply to all your target schools and good luck with application, I expect good news from you !

Thanks so much for your reply, billionaire . So sorry, I used a template from Reddit r/mba, and so missed a few mentions of MBA in the profile. I'm not thinking about MBA at all, just MSc, thank you for understanding. All of the information you've provided is already very helpful. I just want to make sure that I'm not aiming too high with my profile - most other alumni have experience in front-office of large trading firms or banks, hence this post. I can't thank you enough, but I'll thank you again. Do let me know if there's anything I can help you with :D