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I’m a 28-year-old male from Chile. I studied Business Administration at PUC, Chile’s top business school. I have over 4 years of experience in management and strategy consulting at Integration Consulting. I’ve delivered over 15 projects all over Latin America, in countries like Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Guatemala.
I believe that my application will overall be excellent (cv, experience, leadership, recommendations, essays, GMAT, etc.). However, I’m aware that my GPA will be the main concern. I think that everything else might at least partially offset this aspect. Do you think that I can do anything else to strengthen my case? Should I adjust my universities?
Target School: Wharton
Considering: MIT Sloan, Berkeley Haas, Kellogg SOM, NYU Stern, Yale
See More Profiles For: Wharton
Application Status: Open
Undergrad School: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Undergrad Major: Business Administration
GPA: 3.0
GMAT: 730
Age: 28, Ethnicity: Hispanic or Latino
Extracurriculars: I've been volunteering regularly since college mainly in education (as a volunteer teacher of mathematics, English and entrepreneurship) and in social causes (housing construction and community services) and most recently advising foundations on sales and planning strategy (mainly human rights and transgender rights organizations in Chile), In college I was very active as a teaching assistant of over 6 courses and participated in 2 investigations as a research assistant and did tutoring classes for underperforming students for 2 courses, I'm very interested in art and art history. I've been doing a professional certificate in art history for about a year with great grades and I've taken several art courses before.
Title: Management Consultant
Industry: Consulting
Company: Boutique Firm
Length of Employment: 5 yrs, 4 mos
I have been promoted 4 times, faster than my peers. Also, I’ve been exceptionally assigned the role of Co-manager for my office (southern cone – Chile and Argentina), which means that I’m co-responsible for team allocation, team development & promotions discussions, P&L, sales supervision, and general office administration.
– In the medium term, my main goal is to return to my firm and lead its growth in Chile. My vision is to turn Integration into one of the Top 5 local consulting firms. – In the long term, I see myself as a managing partner, leading my company’s growth into other markets in the region, mainly Colombia and Peru.
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Hi Mr. Ignacio, this is Julie-Anne Heafey with mbaMission. Wow, Chile – I was supposed to go there before Coronavirus hit, what an amazing place. I agree with Melisa that your profile is strong apart from your GPA and yes, an A in a graded course from a well regarded US program is a good idea to offset a lower-GPA….in your case though, I would just want to clarify what you are talking about with the 3.0. Have you converted to a 4.0 scale or is this off the normal PUC 7.0 scale? If you’ve converted it, that will make a difference and of course impact you less than if you are talking about a 3.0/7.0! 🙂 My assumption is that …
Hi Mr. Ignacio, this is Julie-Anne Heafey with mbaMission. Wow, Chile – I was supposed to go there before Coronavirus hit, what an amazing place. I agree with Melisa that your profile is strong apart from your GPA and yes, an A in a graded course from a well regarded US program is a good idea to offset a lower-GPA….in your case though, I would just want to clarify what you are talking about with the 3.0. Have you converted to a 4.0 scale or is this off the normal PUC 7.0 scale? If you’ve converted it, that will make a difference and of course impact you less than if you are talking about a 3.0/7.0! 🙂 My assumption is that you have converted it but it is still what you view as lower than the normal range at Wharton. The first thing to know is that Wharton doesn’t really report non 4.0 scale grades in its posting of averages, so if you worried about dragging down the averages, you probably don’t need to be concerned. Still, to counteract low grades with supplemental coursework, I usually suggest that when choosing a class, you look at what will either address weaknesses on your transcript (if you got a bad grade in calculus, or accounting, for example, you want to show a counterpoint to that) or show readiness for the rigor of the MBA in general (in this case, an overall program would be a good option), or show progress toward your goals if you are pivoting (not the case for you). Another thing is that sometimes these things carry some extra weight if you take the class at the school where you are applying. Unfortunately I believe Wharton’s Coursera courses are not letter graded per se, but since you are targeting Haas you might indeed look at their pre MBA Math for Management class, or perhaps a class at NYU pre-MBA class since you’re applying there (maybe do both a graded class elsewhere AND a Wharton Coursera course). Other than that, my advice is to be clear about why that program with each school on your list -one thing they all have in common is taking that very seriously and looking for specifics about why THEIR program is the best for you and your goals. I also think you will want to network strategically at your programs…some of the ones on your list give advantages to those who leverage connections at the schools (happy to discuss in a consultation if you like). I feel pretty good about your chances of success with your list if I’ve understood your grades correctly, but also agree that Darden can be fantastic for consulting and the work they are doing to develop world class opportunities there is phenomenal. Good luck!!
Hi Mr. Ignacio, Melisa here from Stratus Admissions. I’d agree with your assessment that you have a very strong profile overall, assuming you can tell a compelling and authentic story – which based on the little writing you have here is probably the case. I am also assuming based on your returning to your firm that you have that option, which is a big win as you already have a job post-MBA. So your GPA… First, obviously it is what it is. The fact that you have had a very successful career and a strong GMAT since will show you can handle the academic rigor of the program. I’d want to know if there is something that you can point to that impacted your GPA? …
Hi Mr. Ignacio, Melisa here from Stratus Admissions. I’d agree with your assessment that you have a very strong profile overall, assuming you can tell a compelling and authentic story – which based on the little writing you have here is probably the case. I am also assuming based on your returning to your firm that you have that option, which is a big win as you already have a job post-MBA. So your GPA… First, obviously it is what it is. The fact that you have had a very successful career and a strong GMAT since will show you can handle the academic rigor of the program. I’d want to know if there is something that you can point to that impacted your GPA? If so, you would want to explain this to admissions through an optional essay. If not, look at the trajectory of your GPA, is it increasing through the years as you took more difficult courses? Look at the quant classes on your transcript – how did you do here. I love for you that you are doing an art history certificate, as this is an interesting side for a consultant – and would show more recent grades. However if your UG quant classes were lower, this won’t help overcome that picture. You could consider taking a UCLA/Berkeley extension course – Math for Management or MBA Math to help augment your quant examples in the classroom (if this was an issue with our UG GPA). As far as your list of schools, I am a strong believer that everyone should apply to a range of schools. With Stern on your list I am seeing that range – you might want to consider Darden which has a strong consulting culture as well. The well roundedness of your profile and strong success at work is going to help overcome your lower GPA, but with a bit of analysis on your UG grades and potentially an additional data point on the quant side if that was the issue in UG, then you can show you are taking steps to build this profile. I wish you the best of luck! And please sign up for a free consult if you’d like to talk further about your profile.
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