MBA Admissions Consultant
Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 2457
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: Hi Alex Please evaluate my profile
[#permalink]
15 Mar 2010, 17:05
I'm reposting something I mentioned to another poster, which should answer your question:
Here's the thing. This subjective process to admissions seems to be a particular blind spot for many Indian applicants, due to cultural differences.
For many Indians, they've spent their entire lives being benchmarked almost exclusively on their academic and analytical abilities - in plain English, its one big math competition with exams and certificates being the arena of competition.
So it would seemingly make sense for Indians like yourself to come into the b-school admissions process expecting to be judged in the same way. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably think the same way too because that is all I would know or all that I have been judged and evaluated on to date - by schools, employers (for technical jobs), peers, etc and maybe even by friends and family.
B-school admissions is an entirely different world. It will likely be a bigger re-orientation in terms of mentality, perspective and approach for folks like yourself (and perhaps other Asians) compared to those who have grown up in western countries.
B-school admissions isn't a math competition. The technical stuff - your GMAT scores, your GPA, etc. matter only up to a certain point -- and once you've reached that threshhold (which is actually not very high), no exceptional GMAT, GPA or academic/technical/analytical achievement will compensate for mediocre or even poor interpersonal and critical thinking (i.e. imagination, lateral thinking, etc.) skills.
Being able to communicate and articulate a *subjective* point of view in a compelling, engaging and persuasive manner is what it's about. On the surface, it may then appear to be a personality contest, a test of one's creativity or imagination -- when to others who grew up in the west who are more accustomed to this in their lives would see this simply as "being able to convey who you are as an individual person in a personable way".
Now, one may say "well why does all this personality, interpersonal stuff matter?!?!" -- because b-schools are looking for future managers. Future bosses. And a great boss to work for isn't necessarily the smartest (academically speaking) person in the room. But they have 'street smarts' - the ability to influence people's behavior. Managing people isn't a math competition - it's about your people skills. The curricula you learn in b-school is really there to support you in that -- when you learn all the technical things in accounting, finance, operations, etc. it's not for the purposes of you actually having to do that analysis in the real world, but to help you *understand* and *interpret* this sort of analytical work that your subordinates do so that you as a manager can make more judicious and informed decisions where there often is no "right" or "wrong" answer.
So it's this entire aspect of yourself that you have to be able to portray effectively and compellingly to an adcom. That is what will make or break you. Not whether you can complete more certificates or do more "business math" (i.e. finance, accounting).
So with that in mind, do you really think your academics really matter all that much? You're competing against a boatload of Asians (for INSEAD Singapore and NUS), many of whom are also highly academic, and frankly, who will have stronger academic records than you no matter what you do or what you say -- short of getting in a time machine and re-taking all your courses. You can take your GMAT time and again, but even if you score a 740, is it really going to make you stand out in a sea of other exam- and academically-obsessed Asian applicants?
Dare to be different. Dare to stand out. In your case, you're simply not going to win the "my grades/GMAT is better than yours" competition against a lot of other applicants (and again in an admissions process that doesn't care as much about academics beyond a certain basic threshhold). Be able to convey that you're better with people than numbers - because ultimately in business your ability to lead, manage and supervise people is what will make or break your career -- not your ability to do math.