Profile Evaluation

[Mammoth]

I am in a similar situation with many others who have a lower than ideal GMAT score but still have top 5 aspirations. Still within the 80% range of all top programs I am faced with that situation of retake vs. application focus but leaning towards the latter. I have a feeling you'll tell me that I might need some luck (perhaps luck better found in a Rd. 1 app?) for top 5 but wanted to gauge a few safety schools.

Academic Profile:
Carnegie Mellon, BS Electrical and Computer Engineering, GPA 3.75
Carnegie Mellon, MS Electrical and Computer Engineering, GPA 3.67
Graduated with University Honors Distinction
CIT Dean's List Honors (3.75 GPA or higher) Fall 2001 through Spring 2003
Elected to Eta Kappa Nu (EE Honors Society)
GSI for Graduate courses: VLSI, Tech Entrepreneurship (VC 101)
Business coursework in undergrad/grad: Fin Accntng, Microecon, Org Behav, Mgmt Across Cultures, Prob Theory, Stat Reasoning
Academic Extracurriculars:
Social fraternity, various leadership roles including term as President.
Unfortunately other than the honors society, gsi positions, hs and college tutoring, most of my life revolved around my fraternity.

Professional Experience:
2 summer associate positions at Medtronic, focusing on emerging technology area
4 yrs at Lockheed Martin, began in R&D group and led technical efforts, but began a transition to business through proposal development. Later I was selected from a pool of Leadership Development Program members to pursue business development and currently work on strategy development, M&A due diligence, market analysis. The intrapreneurship activities includes daily interface with VPs and Directors.
Professional Honors:
President's Volunteer Service Award; various special recognition awards; nominated and sponsored to attend corporate leadership institute; nominated and sponsored for company-level BD course and won "war game" case competition.
Professional Extracurriculars:
1 yr. Tennis League, 2 yrs. HS Tutoring, and participation in various small activities on a limited leadership role. Most of my time consumed with running an international non-profit effort that I founded a year and a half ago. Again, I hope this deep experience suffices for a variety of misc. leadership roles.

GMAT Score: I received a sub-par 680 88% (47Q 81%, 35V 75%) AWA 6.0. Low verbal is definitely a cause for concern which AWA probably won't make up. I took the exam in Nov. 07 which makes me pretty cold-turkey if I were to take it within the next month and still shoot for a round 1 deadline.

Considered Schools: (in order of preference)
Stanford, Harvard, Haas, MIT, NWU, UCLA
Stanford, Harvard, MIT likely reach/stretch but what is a safety school for me?

[MBAApply]

There are no real red flags (your GMAT verbal isn't great, but it's not bad either), but there's nothing that stands out as exceptional either. You have a solid background/resume -- a profile that would be right in the mix at schools like Kellogg, Sloan, Haas and UCLA.

There are no true safeties for you for one reason: your GMAT score isn't strong enough for sub Top-16 schools to take you based on your GMAT score. In other words, while you'll have a very good chance of getting into places like UT-Austin, Georgetown, UNC, USC, etc. it's not an automatic shoe-in either unless you have a high GMAT score (these are the schools where weaker candidates that are mostly international with astronomically high GMAT scores have a chance of getting in). So you're in an interesting situation where your overall profile is certainly competitive at the top tier schools like Kellogg, Sloan, etc. because of the quality of your resume, but at the same time you don't have a true safety net either.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com