Profile Evaluation - Thanks

[victor1.zhu]

Hi,
Thank you in advance for the evaluation. Below are my information and questions:

Stats:
GMAT 660 (44q, 36v, 5)
BS GPA 3.24 (CS - reputable public US school)
MS GPA 3.56 (info sys mgmt - top US tech school)
age 27, asian american, bilingual (fluent in both)

Work Experience:
internships (3 months each) - sales at financial firm, programmer/business analyst at major ibank, engineer at high tech firm
part time (1 year while in undergrad) - green tech start up
full time (3 years) - major bank - 2 year rotation leadership development program (associate); 1 year (1st rotation) risk management - represented the bank on a multinational consortium; 2 years (2nd rotation and current role) as project manager (junior VP) - lots of interesting projects/experiences to share = )

Extra Curricular/Community Service:
school - sports chair of social/culture club (250+ members); academic research - bittorrent (1 year); built and maintained an online social network community for the university (300+ users); school organized business chinese program to Shanghai, China.
work - helped built a community that connects analysts/associates across different businesses; peer mentor.
volunteer - Taught high school seniors (8 week program); mentoring a high school student; both via non profit organizations.

goal:
short term - move into general/product management or corporate strategy at a large international firm; long term - start a service consulting firm (ideal) in China to provide corporate strategies for public and private entities. Another long term goal on the back of my mind is to grow family manufacturing and real estate investment businesses in China.

Target schools:
Wharton, Booth, CBS, HBS, UCLA, MIT, Yale

Questions:
I understand 660 is far from average at each of the schools i've listed, but I'm not confident that I will score 700+ if I study for 1 or 2 more month.. If retaking GMAT is out of the scope, what're my chances? What can I do to offset this handicap (and others that I've overlooked) so I can ultimately gain acceptance to one of the listed schools?

Thanks!

[mbamission]

What were the percentiles for your Quantitative and Verbal sections? Your verbal score pulled your overall score down, so you will need to prove that you are a strong writer and that you have a solid command of English - which you can do via your essay writing style as well as by making sure you highlight stories in your essays related to your communication, presentation and writing skills.

Your work experience is pretty strong and it sounds like you will have interesting stories to share. I do think that HBS and Wharton are going to be quite competitive for you, but your other school choices are reasonable. The GMAT is only one piece of the puzzle, so I recommend that you work as hard as you can to ensure that every other aspect of your application is strong.

Best of luck!

Monica Okrah
MBA Mission
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