Profile Evaluation - Risk Management

Hey longranger,

Thanks for reaching out to me.

Your 4 years of work experience - especially because it is within investment banking does set you apart from the traditional Indian (IT) applicant. With respect to sheer work months, you already know that US programs will likely consider it ample experience. It's borderline at EU programs. They want to see an average age of 28 or 29. In fact, a lot of EU programs have a hard and fast minimum work requirement to consider you for admittance; making you the runt of the pack in that respect (at the age of 26).

Your international experience (thus far in Singapore) you listed should not be sold short. It's up to you to leverage those experiences in your essays. Of course this requires you to examine how the programs you are applying to ask you about your work experiences. If the essays lean heavily towards international experience, team diversity, cultural barriers, etc., then you may come up a little short if asked to provide multiple examples. Review each school's current essays and see what stories you can form - without repeating the same international example.

In general, your bright spot seems to be your current work experience. I would have needed a little more information into your leadership/management responsibilities to determine if it really is that great. Beyond higher than average test scores, what I believe is most important for an Indian applicant is to possess significant international work experience. I think it is very compelling that you are able to work in overseas - and work with international clients (I believe that this is the case.) I think if you can get another year of this type of international management experience, INSEAD would love to have a look at your profile (it also helps to get another year older!)

What hurts you in particular is your GMAT - but you already knew this. So how much does it hurt you? Well, it is a marginally competitive score for your particular applicant pool. I know it does not hurt you as much with the EU programs. At the US programs, you are going to need to get in the low to mid 700s (higher than 710) to be at par with the rest of your applicant pool. This being said (I hate being the bearer of bad news) and based on the limited information that I have, programs in the top 10 are most likely just slightly out of reach. So that does hurt you at Yale and CBS. I also think you are going to have problems at NYU (everyone and their sister in finance applies to both NYU and Columbia). I would look at programs around the 15 + mark in the business school rankings. I do think that Cornell would be a good choice btw.

Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti