Hey Sidd,
Thanks for your patience. As much as it pains me to say this - you really should retake the GMAT. While your rank and marks as an undergraduate school are solid (from what I can tell), I would consider getting your 700 GMAT up to at least the average. As an applicant within the hyper-competitive Indian applicant pool you should definitely aim for a score 20-30 above the school's average GMAT if gunning for a US school. With ISB and NUS, look to hit the average. Since it wasn't stated in your post, I am unsure as to whether this is the first time you have taken it. If this is the best score out of a number of attempts (let's say 4+), then you will instead have to rely on the other facets of the application to improve your appeal to an admissions committee - such as your undergrad marks and performance at work.
The international experience you listed should not be sold short at all. One of the biggest weaknesses I see with Indian applicants to US schools is the lack of international work experience - and related - a lack of drumming it up to the max where appropriate. 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. Besides the school's average GMAT, that should help you short-list your schools.
Just a word of caution and another point I wanted to make regarding diversity/empathy/cultural cohesion - Be careful (when writing your essays) to not make "absolute statements" in your essays. That is, a statement of "fact" that can be viewed as possibly extreme, or as an irrelevant comparison. For example - "I want to apply to Kellogg because it represents a greater diversity of thought and students then I could find in the EU or India." You have not done this in your post to me, but I do tend to see this a lot when dealing with international applicants, and I am not sure why exactly. At any rate, this is not a statement that will win an American admissions committee over because it won't be convincing without an overly long explanation. So avoid generalizations or examples that can not be explained - it just takes too long when you are given only 4, 5 or 600 words.
Other than misspelling the names of your target schools - lol - you have a very astute list going. You are not being too aggressive or too passive. In fact, I see that you are tending to pick US schools that have problems getting international students to apply and commit to their programs. Schools that are off the beaten path - like Ross, Tepper and Johnson - will have problems getting truly international students to apply and then matriculate. They will be looking for an applicant like you - decent GMAT, great work experience - so hit up these non-major-urban schools without hesitation.
Finally, don't join an NGO if your heart is not into it. It will be too little too late and the adcom will see right through it. American adcoms don't need to see NGO experience, they just want to see that you have passion for something - that could be work or family - not some orphanage.
Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti
siddharth86 wrote:
Hi
I would request to please evaluate my profile and please suggest me whether the schools i have mentioned are at par and what could be other schools where i could apply. my profile is as follows
GMAT 700(Q49,V35)
GPA 79% Computer Science Engineering
WE 4.5 years in IT(TCS) with diverse experience given below
worked in research and development team , technologies such as RFID and presently working in Insurance domain.
in research and development had the experience of working in some innovative projects such as TV Audience Measurement in real time and Context Aware Recommender System ,both these projects started of as mere ideas (trying to capitalize on stuff which had not been explored as of yet ) and became full projects which were presented in front of client , the Trp project was presented in front of ACNeilson(a big advertisement company) which helped my company win a big bid with the company and they also agreed to collaborate with us on future R&D en-devours .Also from each of these 2 projects i have under my name 2 publications in well known international conferences and 2 patents filed, we have our papers published on IEEEExplore and a mere search is enough to find us there.
I was also a part of not only the development and testing of these projects but also mots of the customer interaction as well , i was assigned form my project with the added role of presenting /demonstrating in front, getting their feedback etc of the client due to my good communication skills .We also one the best team award for the Trp project and got certificates for the same.
After that i have been working as a performance test engineer in Insurance domain and have been looking at the performance aspect of our solution for not only my project but also the various projects using the same product , i have also worked on development, customization and also functional testing to some extent .
I have also been an active member of some clubs which affiliate in communication,debate etc and have a few certificates .
I have been working with some important people in my organization and as i move ahead to oversee a lot more project i am sure that an mba degree will certainly help to not only hone my skills in areas such as leadership,consulting etc but also increase the knowledge required to take on bigger roles in organizations.
I am applying in R1 this year and want to know my chances in the following schools
1 ISB
2 NUS
3 Dardon
4 Johnson
5 Tepper
6 Ross
7 Hass
8 NTU
please advise whether these schools are ok to apply to considering my profile my chances ,and what could be good schools to apply to other than these , also any suggestions on how to improve my profile , also please suggest whether i need to join some NGO for applying to US schools and how important can certifications be .Also is it mandatory to give TOFEL.
Thanks for the help in advance
Awaiting replies eagerly
Thanks and regards ,
Sidd
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01 May 2013, 20:00
