Berkeley / Haas - 10-13-2025 | Clear Admit ApplyWire

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October 13, 2025 10:55am ET

Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Columbia, Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Stanford GSB

Intake Year: 2026

Pre-MBA Career: Senior Software Engineer and now Manager at FANG

Post-MBA Target Industry: Entrepreneurship

GRE: 317

GPA: 3.5

Years of Work Experience: 7

Notes:

My profile is not that exciting:
URM from Central America

Software Engineer - Computer Science BS from US school

Went from Junior to Senior and now Manager of a team of engineers in 5 years at FANG.

Comp went from $65k at first company (Goldman) to $450k (at FANG) -- I only mention this because there is a place to enter this data into the application, but I am not sure if it's just for data collection or actually informs the adcom.

Lots of international experience:

- Born and raised in Central America

- Studied in the USA

- Lived in Brazil as a volunteer (that became the head volunteer overseeing 200 other volunteers) for about a year and a half.

- I speak 4 languages fluently (again no one cares, likely)

Feeling like applying with these stats is a total waste of time and money.

Anyone got an interview with something mediocre like me?

Like (1)

Show Comments (4) Last: October 20, 2025

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1830 Is there any scope to improve your GRE score? That may well help make a difference. Your growth direction at work appears to be impressive. Showing impact, along the way, will be important.

Are you also involved in activities outside of work?

Be good to hear more about your “why MBA” and post MBA goals.

(0)

grichmond Verified User. Likes Earned: 1442 Frankly, I wouldn't characterize your profile as mediocre at all! The only major weakness that jumps out is the test score, since your grades are respectable (and in a quantitatively rigorous domain) and your career path to date is pretty remarkable. You also seem to have an interesting personal background - and that stint in Brazil sounds terrific. In short, if you work with a tutor or take a class, and can bump the GRE up, you could be VERY competitive. (0)

mbaapplicant77 Likes Earned: 6 received an interview at Johnson with that same GRE score and a much lower GPA. What is your quant/verbal breakdown? (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1830 More details on this candidacy in this episode of Wire Taps: https://www.clearadmit.com/2025/10/mba-wire-taps-452/ (0)