Mr. International Oil

This is not going to happen. The reason: There is nothing driving you in. While the CFA qualifications are something to be proud of, they aren’t going to offset some other issues with your profile, including a GMAT score that is 20 points below Harvard’s median. Plus your undergraduate education and, I will assume, your employer lack “gold” status and are more like “silver.” Nothing wrong with that, of course, except you are competing against other applicants in the pool who have “gold” credentials. Your post-MBA goal to work in a hedge fund or a VC firm seems unrealistic given your experience as an engineer for an oil company. How to turn this around? You need a higher GMAT score and several examples where you have stretched your leadership muscles both at work and in extracurricular activities that show you have real leadership potential. And you shouldn’t say you want to work for a VC firm or a hedge fund, without a financial background or any indication where that would make sense. Otherwise, you really don’t stand a chance at Harvard or Wharton.