Anyone have any insight?

I am very interested in marketing and possibly the media and entertainment industry.

I have already applied to NYU (reach), Boston University and HULT.

I am looking at the following schools, some of which are in the first tier, because someone suggested that I do not "sell myself short.." I would like to apply to five more schools from this list:

-U Texas Austin
-Vanderbilt
-UCLA
-UC Irvine
-U of Washington
-Arizona State University
-Northwestern (big reach too)
-St. John's University
-Baruch (CUNY)

Thoughts? Thank you in advance.

I think you're on the right track. Why do you think schools like NYU and Northwestern would be a reach? Your profile looks pretty good - especially if your work experience arc shows an increasing amount of responsibility and scope over the past few years.

I'd say that if anything, your GMAT score is a little on the low end of the distribution curve for those schools, however - I was told once by a rep at a top school that anything over 600 only reflects marginally on an applicant's profile - so it's not necessarily worth going to retake the GMAT for a few more points. In fact, it might actually hurt you because you end up looking like a perfectionist (which is not always good.)

Nonetheless, I think your instinct about spreading your apps out across the top and second tier is good. I'd say, though, that you should leverage more toward the top schools, rather than the other way around.

If you're still curious about other 1st and 2nd tier schools with good marketing programs (it seems like you're familiar with a lot of them), check out these:

Haas
University of Michigan
UNC - Chapel Hill
University of Virginia
University of Pennsylvania