Profile Evaluation Please

[ajoshipu]

Hello,

I would like to provide my statistics and hopefully get a profile evaluation.

My GMAT score was a 710 (Q47 79% V 40 89%) - right there at the 80/80 almost..do you think I should retake?
My undergraduate GPA: 3.3 (Major 3.4) Biomedical/Electrical Engineering
Outside activities:
- teach and tutor for Kaplan
- work as a civic leader for Young Professionals networking organization
- work with volunteer organization as a project site leader (organize events twice a year where we have over 250 volunteers show up)
- started my own admissions consulting program in the office for colleague's kids who needed help/along with toy drive to make more community outreach
Work:
I was selected for a top engineering sales program at IT giant
trained for 1 year and then promoted to the field where I worked with sales team to help essentially sell as much IT equipment. I was the technical backup and answered all the questions and presented in front of customers to show them why they need to buy it.
Transitioned to a startup company in biotechnology industry (desired industry) in August of 2009.
Long term goal: product manager at biotech firm (or start my own biotech firm)

There is a gap of a few months this year while I was looking. I'll only have a month or so of experience with this new job when my application is being read. Will that be a problem?

Targeted schools: Booth, Penn, kellogg, ross, fuqua, berkley, uva
Thanks!

[mbamission]

Hi and thank you for your inquiry.

You identified the biggest question the admissions committee will probably have - why are you looking to go to school so soon after joining the new company, especially since that company is your first professional exposure to your desired goals. You'll need to address that very clearly in a career essay or in the optional essay.

The work gap is less of a problem these days when many people struggle with job searches in this economy. If it was under 6 months then I don't think it should be a big issue but you may still want to touch on it in an optional essay.

Other than that, you have good scores (no, I don't think you need to re-take the GMAT), a solid GPA, diverse activities showing leadership and some proven expertise at work in terms of client interaction, presentations, etc as well as the technical skills. You also show some entrepreneurial spirit, both with the admissions consultancy and in joining a start up.

Depending on how well you are able to address the schools' concerns about leaving a new job so soon and demonstrating clarity of goals and a logical flow to reaching them, Ross, Fuqua and UVA seem like schools you will be competitive at; the others do seem like stretches, however.

Best of luck,

Jessica Shklar
mbaMission

Our blog: www.mbamission.com/blog