Profile Eval. - Brazilian Engineer - 660 (Q49, V32) AWA 6.0

[coelholds]

Hi,

I am running to get advices from you guys. Here is a view of my profile. I would be very glad to receive any advice.

Thank you


Voluntary and Community Services:

1 - When I was 18 years old (1999), I founded a group of teachers to help adults to obtain the high school diploma. The program worked for one year. At the same time, I was a physics teacher of a state high school.

2 - Service at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: With 18 years old I was serving as a executive secretary of the Bishop of a congregation of 100 people. From 19 to 21 years old (2001 - 2003), I served as a missionary, in a voluntary work for the people of Northeast of Brazil, for fulltime (12 hours a day) with my own resources and the resources of my family. During this time I was called to serve as an executive secretary and traveling assistant of the Presidency and gave constant training to about 200 other missionaries (Each two missionaries help around 10 families per month to improve familiar relationships, to improve their studies, and other helps). After I returned from this voluntary service, I served during 3 years (2003-2006) as a Young Single Adult Representative, where the main responsibility was to represent circa of 400 Young Single Adults to the Stake Presidency and create programs and activities to help them enhance their skills in studies, social work and spirituality. During the next 3 years (2006-2009) until recently I was serving as Quorum President, which is responsible for helping around 30 men between 18 and 50 years old to be better providers for their families, better fathers, better husbands and better men in the society through community service. Nowadays, I am serving as a trainer to the next voluntaries as missionaries.

3 - Co-founder of Yom-Music, a non-government organization to teach culture to people through song and classical music. We have already trained more than 200 people.

4 - Moderator of a forum GMAT club, and member of another non-government organization, "Incentivo". Both are voluntaries services, and in both I teach Math for GMAT. In the last one, I also give incentive and advices for people improving their educational background and those who are qualified received help from Incentivo organization to pay their studies.



In the PETEEL (Tutorial Education Program of Electrical Engineering) group (3 years part-time) I think the main realizations are:

1 - I am the founder of a program to teach physics to about 400 students of high school per year, and parallel to this to give counseling of how to prepare to enter in the Federal Universities, the best ones in Brazil. I was the coordinator, and there is the involvement of 12 undergraduate students, one professor of the University and all the Physics teachers of High School. Now, I am not the coordinator anymore, because I am not at the University. However the program is in its fourth year and still continues with another coordinator.
I also was the coordinator of 15 PET groups around the state of Santa Catarina. This period is limited to 6 months.

2 - The organization of an event of 7 days to the students of the University, with some very famous professors from the country in the Engineering area, and some main companies. The event united around 1,000 students.

3 - The group was passing through a little financial crisis so I proposed a travel of studies. I organized and coordinated the whole travel of studies to Argentina. I was the coordinator and the responsible for contacting and getting the permission from the companies. I got permissions from the companies Nestlé, Arcor, Iveco and ABB. At the end of the travel, we had more in the cash than any other time of the 12 years of existence of the group.


In Dígitro Company (almost 2 years part-time)

1 - I was contract as an intern, but my functions were far away from the functions of an intern. Besides deciding how some 8 years old technologies should be changed and managed, I worked together with the Project Manager giving suggestions to the Planning Projects of several main products. I was reward with the "Autor Mais" prize, a prize given to the employee with more ideas approved by the Board of Directors. The company has more than 600 employees.


University:

My GPA is very high compared with the class. 8.2/10.0. I also was the student with more articles published (6 articles, of which 2 are in international congress) during the Undergraduation course (a 5 years course program), the student with more approved hours of the class (5504 studied-approved hours, never failed in anyone.), but I do not think I can get a letter from the University proving these, once the ONLY formal prize recognized by the University is to the student with the highest GPA.

I had my diploma of this course only with 27 years old because of two reasons:
1 - The 2 years of voluntary service at the Northeast of Brazil as a missionary of the Church.
2 - 2 years lost because of a change of course from Civil Engineering to Control and Automation Engineering. (I was studying Civil Engineering because of my Dad, but after returning from my mission, my mind opened and I noticed that I needed to be stronger to be happy. So I decided to study the course that I always dreamed, and that was much harder to pass. So I lost one year of classes, and another year to study for the Vestibular test again.)
Obs.:In the previous Vestibular test I got the highest grade in the Math test among more than 30,000 applicants.


Observations:
After getting 720 in the GMATPrep and Manhattan Test in the site 5 times, I did the Official GMAT and get 660 (Q49, V32) and 6.0 in the AWA at the end of August. I was really shocked.
I have got 103 on TOEFL (last year)
Reading 29
Listening 27
Speaking 23
Writing 24

Maybe because both test are not done in my city and I needed to travel 4 hours to the city and I slept very little to rest, I was still too tired to do the tests. I do not know. Maybe I am not so good in tests. I would like to receive some advices whether I should take the tests again once I would like to apply for Harvard and the Top ones in general. Will some better scores make a significant difference in my application considering my resume and my history? If yes, how better these GMAT and TOEFL scores should be?

I also do not know if I should go to the Prospective Student Day at Harvard. Once I live in Brazil it is very hard to me, just to go there to an event of a single day, and I have just read in the site of Harvard that this visiting does not make a difference any more.

Detail: As I just came from Germany I still do not have a job, so at the time of the application my new job will have only one or two months, so I do not think it will be possible to include any recommendation from the new employers right?

Sorry for the huge post, and thank you again.

Best regards,

Raphael Coelho

[mbamission]

Hi Raphael, thank you for your inquiry.

Your community service is quite impressive, showing depth, variety, leadership and initiative, and you have clear reasons why the late graduation from college. Business schools are generally pretty comfortable with transcripts from other universities and so may be able to judge easily the high quality of your undergraduate GPA. It sounds like you will have several interesting stories to tell and themes to explore in your application.

However I do have a few concerns. First, it sounds like you have only worked part-time, is that right? How part-time was it (e.g. there's a big difference between 10 hours/wk and 30 hours/wk)? Either way though, that might be the biggest concern a business school would have - lack of full time work experience, even though it sounds like what you did was very well received. Can you explain a bit more about your work history?

Secondly, yes the GMAT is low. I can't tell you whether it's worth travelling 4 hours, but in general you want your application to have as few weaknesses as possible. Since you already possibly have one with your work experience, your goal should be to minimize others and if you think you can pull the GMAT score up, it may be a worthwhile investment of time.

In terms of recommenders, one who has known you only for 1-2 months is too recent, yes. Find someone from your part time job or from a volunteer activity (someone who saw you in a leadership capacity in that role).

Finally, campus visits and information sessions are important in terms of giving you a feel for the campus and more information about it, but not in terms of "scoring points" for an acceptance. If traveling that far is too much, spend a lot of time on the schools' website, find out if there's a local alumni club, use your network to find current students or alumni. Those are all further ways to learn about the school.

Good luck,

Jessica Shklar
mbaMission

www.mbamission.com/blog

[coelholds]

Hi Jessica, thank you so much for the answer.

About my work experience, I imagine that this could bring me some trouble, but it was impossible working in a full-time job, while studying in a full-time course. So, I tried to be always working at least in a part-time job, and sometimes in two part-time jobs, because differently of one full-time job, with two part-time jobs I was able to manage my time to not fail in the classes from University. Here is my work history:

2000 - High School Physics Teacher (Part-time - 20hs) - 6 months. I did not write this one because it was to much time ago...

2005 - 2009 PETEEL - Actually it is 3 years and 10 months, so almost 4 years instead of 3. Part-time - 20 hours.

2007 - 2008 Dígitro Tecnology - Part-time 20 hrs. Notice that it was during the same time as PETEEL. It was a hard time working in both jobs and studying engineering this time. It can be considered as the same as working in one job full-time?

2008 - 2009 Fraunhofer Institute at Germany - Full time, 6 months for my final thesis of the Engineering course.

Also, since 2005 to 2009, I was a Math tutor for the Admission Test of the Brazilian Universities. However, I have never opened a firm or engaged in a formal instruction. All my students entered in contact with me through other students, so again I do not know if it is possible to prove.... . During this time, I gave training for a 100 maybe.


About the GMAT, I am planning to take again in October, 12. I am just a little concern because in a lot of simulations I got 700+ in MGMAT and in GMATPrep before getting that 660 in the Official. Well I am working on it.


I have already contacted some possible recommenders. I have recommenders from both, voluntary services and from my previous jobs. All of them told me that I can trust that they will do the best that they can in the recommendations.


PS.: Another merit I could say is that I speak English and Spanish fluently, and I have learned both languages by myself. Just an attempt to be better in the screen... :)

[mbamission]

Thanks for the follow up. The issue isn't really the number of hours - that just gave me a better idea - as much as it is the kind of responsibility you took on and the progression you showed. Usually part-time jobs don't lend themselves as much to growth opportunities. If you believe that you demonstrated that, then definitely use a recommender who can back up your claims, and use your essays to show significant work accomplishments. I also would recommend using the additional essay to explain your work history.

But quite honestly, I don't know how this will be received by the admissions office. You may want to ask if you can speak with someone from it for 15 minutes for an honest assessment of whether you should apply. If you were in your early 20s I would recommend taking a couple of years to gain full time experience, but in your case I don't think that's feasible.

You may want to broaden your sights on school selection though, given how unusual your background is.

Best of luck.

Jessica