Berkeley / Haas - 09-14-2021 | Clear Admit ApplyWire

September 14, 2021 8:12am ET

Applying: Berkeley / Haas, Columbia, MIT Sloan, NYU Stern, Stanford GSB

Intake Year: 2022

Pre-MBA Career: Chemistry, Software Engineering, Product Management

Post-MBA Target Industry: Technology Companies: Amazon , Apple , Facebook , Google , Hewlett Packard , IBM , LinkedIn , Microsoft , Tesla , Twitter , Uber

GRE: 328

GPA: 3.0

Years of Work Experience: 2.5

Location: Virginia

Post MBA Location: NYC, SF

Notes:

Came after the podcast on Spotify and it's been so helpful hearing posts from similar backgrounds!

American born, grew up in China, moved back to America starting high school. Chemistry Undergrad (3.0 GPA in top 7 american chem undergrad), noticed it wasn't my passion but too late to switch majors, so instead took leadership roles, design internships and focused on proving technical skills with publication in junior year.

Conducted flexible display research at Italian chemical startup. Transitioned to mobile developer role in Banking, at the same time conducted research on haptics and led a machine learning project which bought us a patent filing and my first time leading engineers as a PM from start to finish. After my promotion after 1.5 yrs, formally transitioned to a role in PM.

Goal: noticed I lacked business foundations (was restricted from analyst tasks and asked to focus on leading tech team) + business foresight / leadership skills to be in product leadership in the future (CPO Level),
long term goal is to lead in a global scope in LinkedIn / FAANG + location change to NYC/SF

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Show Comments (6) Last: September 23, 2021

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1577 Decent GRE, but worry about your GPA, even given the context you describe. Might be a good idea to do HBS CORe or MBA Math just to show you are ready, and recognize the concerns. WE sounds interesting, and ties well with your post MBA goals. Are you involved in activities outside of work? Might add 1-2 programs to your target list, Ross perhaps? (1)

hasegawa Likes Earned: 0 Thanks @alexbr4! I'm looking to retake the GRE and verbal was my weakness (161v/167m), would you recommend waiting until round 2 after a set of HBS CORe? Frankly I've been very involved in my role transition, so the extent of extracurriculars I had was a mentorship program and another for Women in Tech. With my recent role transition still looking for leadership opportunities within work. (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1577 You might apply to 1-2 in round 1, take HBS CORe in the next couple of months (indicate this plan in the optional essay). GRE is already decent, but if you know you can improve it, then it’s worth doing (re your GPA issue). (0)

alexbr4 Verified User. Likes Earned: 1577 More details on this candidacy in this episode of Wire Taps: https://www.clearadmit.com/2021/09/episode-186-wire-taps/ (1)

hasegawa Likes Earned: 0 Thanks for the feature, I just got to finish the podcast from Monday and didn't realize I was the third one! Will definitely look into HBS CORe, and from the past knowledge is it the case that I should take it for credit to cover for my GPA, or would the earlier sessions without an Undergraduate Credit sufficient? Thanks again! (0)

grichmond Verified User. Likes Earned: 1151 You need not take HBS CORe for undergraduate credit. That's more of an option for those still needing credits to complete undergraduate, and less about 'transcript repair'. In short, for the purposes of readying yourself for an MBA, I'd sign up and just take it ASAP, and perform well on the exam at the end. Best of luck to you!
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