Hi, just wondering if you can assess my candidacy for Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley and London.
- Shooting for 2009 admissions, at which point I will be 28
- Korean-American male based in NYC (are we over and under represented in the overall MBA scene?)
- Perfectly fluent in Korean
- BS and MS in Computer Engineering from a top 5 engineering program in the US
- 3.3 GPA, 700 GMAT (49Q/35V)
- 1 year at large IT consulting firm right after college
- 3+ years at Lehman then Barclays (I survived.. for now)
- College internships include Intel and Samsung
- Not much extracurricular
As for extracurriculars, I participated in a few 1-day volunteer events and mentored a high school student for a year (3 hrs a week). I am also a member of 2 organizations but primarily so I can go and listen to high profile people speak. I have also attempted an e-business that never came to fruition. There is a reason why I don't have as much extracurriculars as I should. My parents are small business owners so I've been helping them out ever since juinor high. I'm not sure if schools care about this or if I should mention this at all.
Also my approach on the apps will not focus much on my work experience (as Asians working in i-banks are not uncommon) and focus more on personal experiences and my goal of leading Asia to the next frontier in this ever changing global world of business. I want to mention that I dont have the leadership skills they may look for so I want an MBA to fix this flaw, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing to say.
Harvard and Stanfords are definitely reach schools ("I wont know unless I try" type of thing). However, I really want to go to Berkeley for 2 reasons: great brand recognition in Asia and my background in tech may be more suited for S-Valley upon graduation.
What are your thoughts on my candidacy, extracurriculars and app approach? Should I narrow my goal down to something more concrete?
GMAT Forum
3 postsPage 1 of 1
- james
- MBAApply
I think you've done a pretty good self-assessment.
It's not really about ethnicity alone as it is about ethnicity PLUS occupation when it comes to whether you're overrepresented or underrepresented.
Asian-Americans applying to b-school are highly concentrated in finance, IT or engineering. As such, you're right the challenge is avoiding being lost in the shuffle.
However, without a lot of extracurricular achievements it becomes much harder to avoid talking about work. I don't think simply talking about "personal perspectives" is really enough, particularly at HBS or Stanford (where you will be competing against the Asian-American NCAA athlete who worked at Morgan Stanley, or the Asian-American voice major who spent 2 years as an opera singer in Germany before working full-time as a Big-4 consultant, and so forth). Are there people who are solid all around but without a lot of distinguished non-academic achievements at HBS and Stanford? Absolutely. But compared to the sheer number who didn't get in, it's really a luck of the draw.
For the other schools like Berkeley and LBS, you should be competitive. You don't really need to try so hard to be different - just put together a solid application - you don't need to avoid talking about work (because then you really won't have a lot of concrete experiences and achievements to reference or talk about).
Also, you don't go to b-school to "fix" your leadership skills. They really expect that you already have many of the skills and traits that show your leadership potential (or ideally formal leadership experience). Many schools engage in this double speak about "leadership" in b-school and how they "teach" it in the classroom, but in reality they know as well as anyone else that you can only help people synthesize and distill what they've already experienced - which is why they really really like applicants who already have leadership experience or who already can show tremendous leadership potential based on their non-academic achievements. The difference with say HBS/Stanford vs. the other schools is that the former will simply attract more accomplished applicants.
Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com
It's not really about ethnicity alone as it is about ethnicity PLUS occupation when it comes to whether you're overrepresented or underrepresented.
Asian-Americans applying to b-school are highly concentrated in finance, IT or engineering. As such, you're right the challenge is avoiding being lost in the shuffle.
However, without a lot of extracurricular achievements it becomes much harder to avoid talking about work. I don't think simply talking about "personal perspectives" is really enough, particularly at HBS or Stanford (where you will be competing against the Asian-American NCAA athlete who worked at Morgan Stanley, or the Asian-American voice major who spent 2 years as an opera singer in Germany before working full-time as a Big-4 consultant, and so forth). Are there people who are solid all around but without a lot of distinguished non-academic achievements at HBS and Stanford? Absolutely. But compared to the sheer number who didn't get in, it's really a luck of the draw.
For the other schools like Berkeley and LBS, you should be competitive. You don't really need to try so hard to be different - just put together a solid application - you don't need to avoid talking about work (because then you really won't have a lot of concrete experiences and achievements to reference or talk about).
Also, you don't go to b-school to "fix" your leadership skills. They really expect that you already have many of the skills and traits that show your leadership potential (or ideally formal leadership experience). Many schools engage in this double speak about "leadership" in b-school and how they "teach" it in the classroom, but in reality they know as well as anyone else that you can only help people synthesize and distill what they've already experienced - which is why they really really like applicants who already have leadership experience or who already can show tremendous leadership potential based on their non-academic achievements. The difference with say HBS/Stanford vs. the other schools is that the former will simply attract more accomplished applicants.
Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com
- james
thank you
Thanks so much Alex.
3 posts Page 1 of 1