Profile Evaluation

[lunasea_29]

Hi there

I am interested in applying to all the top b-schools, Wharton, HBS, Columbia, NYU, Stanford, Tuck, Kellogg, Berkeley, Duke, Booth.

I graduated from a top Canadian school in 2006,
My GPA is 3.4-3.5, Majored in finance
My goal is to score around 720-730 on the GMAT


Been working for 3 years now, planning on applying next year, 2010, so by then I would have had 4 years of work experience.

My work experience
First job, Multi-national CPG company, based out of US, for almost a year. Worked in a team based environment, interacting with all other functional areas, eg. marketing, sales, supply chain. Work is primarily project driven, eg. Price increase impacts, optimization of spending on promotional activities, risk management analysis to facilitate better decision making.

Second job, working at one of the biggest Canadian CPG company, have a great track record, again, very team work oriented environment, devised various financial models to help with the analysis of the business to facilitate better decision making, such as profitability impact with launching of new products in Canada, commodity pricing of raw material impact on the business, product mix optimization model, optimization of pricing matrix, and also assisted marketing with product and brand positioning/strategy.


Volunteer experience
1. Currently serving on alumni club here in Toronto, organize and plan professional development workshops. It's still in the start-up stage.

2. Work with university students, more as a mentor to help them run and organize awareness programs on Hunger and Poverty related issues on campus. Able to coach and build a team of individuals to work towards a common goal.

3. Work as a volunteer with non-profit organizations to offer pro-bono consulting services to local small charities.

4. Volunteered overseas in underdeveloped countries for 3 weeks. Assisted and helped local agencies to develop and execute education and health related programs.

5. Work with small boutique firms to analyze their business development spending, help to develop an appropriate profit maximizing spending model.


Personal information

I have lived 4 continents while growing up, namely Asia, Australia, Africa and now North America. I think this is pretty unique and I am planning on weaving this piece of info into my essay somehow.

Based on what I’ve given you, how realistic are my goals? HBS and Columbia would be my first preference, since they have some pretty great social enterprise and international development programs. I know they might be a stretch. But this is one of the areas that I would like to explore more after I graduate. Having done a lot in this area myself and my background, I feel that it would help me make my case in my application.

Thank you for reading, sorry it’s so long.

[mbamission]

Hello,

I think that you have a strong profile. You have good grades from college and seem to have strong work experience where you are able to demonstrate the impact that you have had. You seem to be very involved with activities outside of work. I just want to make sure that you focus on the recent activities, rather than volunteer work you participated in during college (only). In general, top tier schools, like the ones you plan to apply to are looking for a history of achievement and impact in multi-dimensional candidates. It will be important to select experiences that demonstrate these attributes in your essays.

You have not yet taken the GMAT, so while you aim to score a 730, you will have to wait until you know your real score. You will also need to have a clearly articulated career goal and you’ll need to demonstrate knowledge of each school (specifically) and how its resources can help you achieve your goals. I recommend narrowing the set of schools you apply to, focusing on 4-6. Applying to 10 schools is a daunting task and the large number of applications might compromise the quality of each. You still have lots of time to continue researching schools and narrowing your list since you plan to apply in 2010.

Sincerely,

Akiba Smith-Francis

MBA Mission

646-485-8844

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