*Long story ahead, but needed for context* I was quasi-homeless growing up in the Southeast Texas area. My mom was a heroin addict and my father an alcoholic. Consequently, I moved around a ton but finally had some semblance of stability in highschool where I took up football. I was the first to graduate high school in my family and also had over ten division-1 scholarship offers my senior year. I accepted a full-scholarship offer to play at Baylor University where I majored in communications with a minor in entrepreneurship. My first few years were very difficult with no family support. I dove headlong into being an athlete as I excelled on the field with the desire of playing professionally. Due to my singular focus on my sport, my grades suffered. Additionally, I had two severe injuries that required surgery and extensive rehab that would eventually cause me to have to quit playing and greatly affect my class performance as well. During the middle of my junior year, my coaches involuntarily put me on a medical scholarship. At this time I realized that football was only taking me as far as a college degree so I refocused my efforts and did my best to finish strong. I was able to incrementally bring up my GPA to where I finished at 2.75, which I know is laughable. In between school and holding a part-time job as a personal trainer during my last 1.5 years there, I was able to start networking really hard and land a job with GE Capital post-graduation with their commercial finance business. I was with this group for almost 4 years with increasing responsibility until I left the business to work at a church/non-profit for 1 year. I had been leading in homeless outreach and a 12-step addiction recovery ministry that encompassed roughly 1,500 participants. A lot of this was driven by a passion to take action against the things that had plagued my childhood etc. and to help others experience recovery. After about 1 year there, I went back into commercial banking full-time and continue to lead in a lay capacity in those same ministries today. I have been back in banking for several years and I now work for Bank of America's commercial bank but want to dive deeper into my finance career. I want to make a move into private equity. I have not taken the GMAT yet, but I plan to take it in the summer of 2020. I have been studying diligently, however. In addition to my GMAT study, I have been working through the HBS Online CORe course in order to try and mitigate my less than stellar undergraduate GPA. I truly believe my past performance is not indicative of future success or current ability. I know that I will need to prove this to the admissions officers. I want to apply to most of the M7 schools in addition to McCombs, Fuqua, Darden, Jones, and Cox. My short-term goal would be to land a job with a PE firm like Blackstone or GS, with a long-term goal of starting my own fund. There is more to the story here but at a high-level, what are some thoughts here on my profile? If I were to get a GMAT in the 710-730 range, would I have a shot at these schools or should my focus change here? Obviously H/W/Col./Booth would be dreams. I would love for this to be selected for a wiretaps podcast feature. I am an avid listener! I have spent a ton of time listening to the great content on there. If I can provide more clarification, please ask. Thanks for taking the time to read and any advice you would give!