Please provide any additional information to the Admissions Committee that you believe is important and/or will address any areas of concern that will ultimately be beneficial to the committee in considering your application.


During college I allowed my painting company to dominate my energy and schedule and as a result, my undergraduate transcript doesn’t reflect my true academic ability. In my freshman year the business took off and increasing my client base became my primary focus. I replicated my family’s entrepreneurial behavior and worked like mad to grow the business. Bennet Plumbing quickly became a vision for an entrepreneurial future rather than a means to pay tuition. Youthful naiveté teamed with a full docket of clients led me to see my undergraduate business major as redundant. Subsequently, I allowed my class commitments to slip and eventually switched to a creative writing major, a move geared more towards practicing a long-enjoyed hobby than one of academic or professional exploration.

In hindsight, I see that not only did I fail to calculate the value of a fully engaged academic experience; I failed to consider the context in which my business was growing. Near the end of college, when property values in the area fell, my clients disappeared. The equity that had been fueling my profits was gone and with it, the business and entrepreneurial future I had worked to create. For a more accurate assessment of my academic ability, please consider my GMAT scores, and that in 2005 I passed the Series 6 and 63 securities licensing tests, as well as licensing tests needed to sell various types of life and health insurance. Between 2006 and 2007, I passed tests to become a licensed mortgage broker in four states. And in 2009, I obtained certification as a Financial Products Derivative Specialist, and took a Quantitative Business Analysis class at UC Berkeley Extension. Since my undergraduate days I’ve worked to create a future and career vision with a much broader scope. My dreams of running a small business in my hometown have grown into dreams of changing the economic landscape of rapidly decaying communities through a career in philanthropic capital. I have full confidence in my ability to achieve that goal and to meet and exceed the rigorous academic demands of a McCombs MBA.