Profile Evaluation Please

[Guest]

I just took my GMAT and scored a 710 (48Q and 38V).

I have an overall GPA of 3.8 from UC Berkeley.

I work in the Tokyo office for a top, global management consulting firm, and I have worked with over 40 life sciences companies and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan in approval and reimbursement of new medical technology.

I also studied abroad in Japan during my junior year of college and volunteered for a community school that teaches kids from K-12 that have learning disabilities and have dropped out of regular schools. During my tenure there, I was able to bring four of my students back to regular schools (including two that decided they wanted to go to college). Specifically, I taught chemistry in a creative way (i.e. describing chemical structures like Lego blocks) that made a student become so interested in Chemistry that he managed to get accepted to a Chemistry program in a leading Japanese university.

In terms of other accomplishments, I am also an Eagle Scout, and I also was part of the first group of Student Peer Advisors for Study Abroad for UC Berkeley and led the effort to continue the peer advisor program so that it could reach out to students less represented in the overall study abroad population (especially engineering majors).

I think I am a strong applicant at most of the top schools due to my numbers and my experience. My only worry is as I am a Political Science major, I have not taken many quant related courses. I have taken calculus, and game theory for a semester each, but they were graded Pass/Fail (I passed both of them). I can point to my decent quant score on my GMAT, and my work is also relatively quant heavy.

My guess is I can probably ask my letter writers to talk about my quant abilities, but UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business specifically asks how I can prove my quantitative proficiency (courses taken, etc.) I'm wondering how I can respond to this question adequately.

Also, please let me know which schools you think I will be very competitive at, and which schools will be a stretch (in the top 20).

Thanks!

[MBAApply]

I won't get into essay specifics here, but in short you don't need to worry about the fact that you were a lib arts major (consider it an advantage in a sea of engineers and numbers folks).

Your GMAT quant will be your biggest selling point in terms of raw quant ability, and you said yourself that you have a relatively analytical job. That should be enough.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com

[Guest]

Thanks Alex!

I'm the original poster.

I've decided to apply this year to UC Berkeley Haas, UCLA Anderson, and USC Marshall.

Given my background above, what do you think are my chances? Thanks in advance!

[MBAApply]

Honestly, I think you should be competitive.

UCLA and Berkeley would be sweet spots for you, while USC would be a safety.

You may be underestimating your candidacy - take a look at adding some higher ranked schools as reaches. Looks like you're set on California schools - I'd look at Stanford as a reach school that may be worth at least putting your hat in the ring -- you never know.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com