Ask MBA Crystal Ball

Sameer ji,

I would like to add few more things as per my analysis for the last few days:

I have shortlisted few schools:
1. Rotterdam
2. Tepper
3. Emory
4. NUS
5. Nanyang
6. Tuck
7. ROSS

Based on my goals and my profile can you please give your comments on my selection. I would appreciate if you can let me know which of the above schools are out of my reach or not good in alignment of my goals.

Can you please suggest few more b-schools(a mix of stretch and safe) which will fit my profile and goals. This will be very helpful in finalizing my b-school list.

I want to be in Consulting. Telecom will be an icing on the cake(but not so rigid about it)

Thanks.
Sandip

Sandi, though your experience is in telecom client service, but you will be looked at as an IT professional. With around 3 years of work-ex, you do fall into an extremely competitive pool and the GMAT is definitely on the lower side. But, if you've written your essays well (for instance, leveraging family business point adequately) and differentiated your profile sufficiently, you could have a shot at this. The international experience is a definite plus.

On other schools, I think the MCB report could be a good tool to get a broad perspective on that.

Cheers!

Sandip-bhai,

In addition to what my partner MG has mentioned, I'd like to say that you might want to make your list more US-focussed this year. With your age/experience level, you will fit in well there. You'll buy yourself more time to experience all that a regular US-style MBA has to offer. Gives you 1 extra year to build your network within the program and within the industry.

Choose a strong brand as it will also gel well with your aspirations of starting your own company in the future.

European schools ko 1-2 saal ke baad dekhna if you can't get into the US school of your choice this year.

Sounds logical, sir?

Samir jee,

Sounds very much logical sirjee(as you mentioned), please help me with the b-school selection.

I have shortlisted till now:
TEPPER
EMORY
TUCK
UNC
Cornell

Please let me know if the above selected schools are good enough for me, classifying them as safe and ambitious for my profile. Also please add some more schools(mix of safe and ambitious) which you feel will be good for me.


I am planning yo apply in 6 US schools at max + NUS and Nanyang. How shall I go ahead? Shall I apply in all during R1? OR leave aside few schools for R2(after ISB results)?

Regards.
Sandi

Sandi-bhai,

Going strictly by MCB report definitions I wouldn't say any of the schools on your list are 'safe'. They'll probably be hilling-and-doolling between Stretch and Ambitious.

Hamare param-pujya MG sir ki baat maan ljiye naa. It'll be nice to have you waxing eloquent here in a few days and going gaga about the MCB process and the report.

It also doubles up as a red carpet entry to our latest raapchik addition --> MCB's LinkedIn Page. Many of the soon-to-be-international-MBA-sensations are already out there waiting for new friends of MCB to join their ranks.

Start building your MBA network BEFORE you get into B-school!

Hi Sameer,

Any update on my post?

Thanks,
Nikhil

Samir jee,

Thanks a lot. I will definitely give a thought on MG's advice and get back to you.

Regards.
Sandi

Hi sameer,
pls help me with my profile evaluation

Male/Indian/24 Years old.
Undergrad study: Bachelor of Engineering. Graduated with 1st class (74 %) out of 100.
GMAT: 710 (Q50/V34) / AWA 5.0

Work Experience(Will be 4 years by admit time):
- Working as a senior software developer in a mid level startup (around 1200 employees). The employee count was around 500 when i joined 3.5 yrs back. The company was having very small business at that time.no international clients and very few indian clients. In the past 4 yrs company has made great strides in terms of acquiring new customers both in india and across the globe. It has signed multi million dollar deals with 2 big global telecom giants. It is the fastest growing telecom VAS company now. I am a part of billing platform of the company. It is the most critical part in any deployment. Due to small size of company i was performing work in diverse roles. Software developer profile was not just limited to development it also involved requirement gathering & sometimes involved in direct discussions & solution presentation to clients at their premises.

- Very small international work ex of 25 days. This is the biggest international deployment of the company in terms of revenues. Was there to deploy the most critical component the whole deployment. Was directly dealing with the client in these 25 days on the technical front (and it was a very short time span in which the whole system was made live).

- Can get very good recommendations from my technical manager as well as business manager.

- Working as a intern in motorola electronics during my graduate course for a period of 7 months. Was involved in a technical aspect of a bid presentation by motorola for a multi crore Rs tender (biggest at that time in indian telecom domain). But my work involved only the technical part. My work was to plan the coverage of cell towers and minimizing their number as each cell tower costed huge amount, so based on the final number of cell towers they have to estimate the cost for the bid.


post-MBA career goal: business development/statergy consulting

Extra curricular:
- Was an active participant in professional sports. Participated till state level in 2 sports during school time. Was a member of college sports team. Participated from my company for intercorporate tournaments and won them. There were around 20 companies participating in that tournaments and i won across 3 different sports. Have certificates for all of them.
- Working for an NGO for last 5 months.
- Won many performance awards at work. Includes highest award for recognition(2 times)
- Involved in various cultural societies in college.


I am planning to apply to ISB, NUS, Nanyang, HKUST, schulich.

My queries-
1 ) Is my profile good enough to target these schools. What are my chances in them? Or should i downgrade my choices a bit.
2) Does the verbal/quant split in gmat score seen by these schools ? As my score split is not that good ,so how will it effect my chances?
3) Can i upgrade my school choices to include said oxford and hec paris. What are my chances in these?
4) Since the company i am working in is no more a start up now(1200 employees) and at the time when i joined there were 500 employees. So can i project this as a start up in some way ?

any other of your suggestions are welcome. Hoping to see your reply soon.

Thanks.
Piyush.

Piyush, your work-ex profile does put you in a very competitive pool. Having said that, it all boils down to how well you can communicate the work done as different and value adding compared to plain vanilla IT work. It does look like you've been veering towards business development and that is the theme I would recommend as a post-mba goal. 500+ company as a startup is a stretch frankly, better to call it a SME or sth.

Coming to the school choices, the schools you mention would be in the practical to stretch category for you and yes, schools (especially ISB) do look at the split of verbal/quant. But it usually makes sense to have atleast one ambitious and a couple of safe schools in one's target list. Here, the MCB report would be of immense value to find out best suited schools for your profile.

Hi Nikhil,

If you've had the distinction of being the youngest in the team to receive the spot award (not sure what that means, though) in a company like Oracle, I'm guessing there's something special about you. Right?

So please stop underestimating yourself and focus on highlighting why you are special. I'm sure if you do a little more introspection, you'll be able to come up with many more stories like this.


You've also got me interested to know more about why you feel it was innovative. Rather than just leaving these hooks open ended in your essays, use them to satiate the reader's curiosity.

Fikar naat too much sir, about what's not there. There's enough to fill in those essays with what you have.

Hi Sameer,

Need your help to evaluate my profile:

Indian/Male/31 Years (I would be 32 by the start of the program next year)
GMAT: 730 (Q49, V41, AWA: 5.0)
Bachelor of Engineering from Good University - 74% (top 5%)
Master of Engineering from Indian Institute of Science (one of top school in India): CGPA 6.4 on the scale of 8.0
Extra-curricular - Good. Organized events during college days and participated in few events. Doing community work for past 2 years

Experience: 8+ years (would complete 9 years by next year)
Ex1: 1 year on research in a govt. sponsored research program
Ex2: 7 Years on Top Indian IT company as Analyst/consultant/Tech Lead; worked for world's leading Financial Corporations (Banking and Equity/Capital Markets). Have worked on 2 very big and critical integration projects. Heavily interacted with clients and managed teams.
Overseas: US - 2 years; UK - 2 months
Publications: Published many papers internal to my company
Career progression: good - from engineer -> analyst-> Tech Lead; Got few awards on the work, have team mangement (of size 10) experience for 2 years


Areas of interest (post MBA): 1. Consultancy/Investment Banking, and 2. Brand Management/Marketing of Software/IT Products.
Not sure if I would fit in Finance (although I want to) - any suggestion as how to convince the adcom that I want to move to finance

Considering my age and experience (in IT field), could you please help me in selecting few schools in which I may have a chance:

1. 4-5 schools from top 15-20 US business schools ?
2. Please suggest 3-4 schools from this list: INSEAD, IE, IMD, HEC, Cambridge, Oxford etc.

Please suggest few safety schools from both (US and non-US) the categories.

I would prefer to do an MBA from US B-schools but do not want to limit myself as I might be over-aged for those programs. What are your opinions on this?

Please let me know if I have missed any crucial information.


Thanks in advance.

Hello Sameer,

Please evaluate my profile and provide me guidance on B-schools I have selected.

My MBA interest:Opeartions and supply chain management

GMAT 1(on 30th oct, 2009) - 630 (Q49, V26) AWA 4.5
GMAT 2(on 14th sep, 2010)-710(Q 50, V36) AWA 4
Toefl : 107 R,L,S,W: 26,28,26,27 :107

Total Work Exp: 4 years in Aug 2011, Marine engineer

International Exp:
Working in a multicultural and multilingual environment

Sex – Male
Age – 24 yrs
Nationality - Indian
Professional sumary:
• 3+years of experience in Maritime industry from Sep 2007 till date
• Practical Exposure to various machinery systems such as Hydraulic, Pneumatic and Power Management Systems

• Key Responsibility Areas involved handling, loading and discharging opeartions of cargo worth millions of dollors
• Hands on experience in maintenance and opeartion of Centralised Air Conditioning system
• Managed a team of resources across different systems such as Main Propulsion System , Power Management System , Cargo Pumping Systems , Boilers, Inert gas generation System and Hydraulic Oil Systems
• Facilitated in planning and implementation of Ship Spare Inventory Management System
• Solely held responsibility of ship's Bunker Operation ( Critical Operation)
• Co-ordinated and facilitated various ship surveys and vetting
• Performance testing of various Machinery systems such as Propulsion System, Power Generation System and Air Compressors
• Implemented company’s Environmental and Safety policy to ensure compliance with changing international regulations like SOLAS, MARPOL and ISM Code
• Assisted my brother in Operation of family owned Hindustan Petroleum Retail Outlet during vacations

Education:
Professional License MEO class 4
BS in Marine Engineering from BITS Pilani 2003-2007, with cgpa of 7.5/10
XII – 79, UP board
X – 73%, UP board

ECs:
• Conducted Various Workshops related to Fire Safety and Prevention at some of the Hindustan Petroliuem Retail Outlets.
• Presented a Project on ‘Electricity Production and Distribution’ at Techinical Festival TECHKRITI at IIT Kanpur
• Received ‘Award Of Merit’ from Bahai spiritual society for performance in class12th board examinations
• Secured highest marks in Mathematics among all schoolmates in both 10th and 12th
• Nominated as Division Cadet Captain in college.
• Successfully carried the responsibility of House Prefect in School
• Won accolades for participating in various Paper Presentations.
• Worked as Technical Co-ordinator in college FM radio Transmission team

Aim: I want to get into Supply chain consultancy.

B schools I am Applying:
1: ISB hyderabd
2: Dukes Fuqua
3: Penn state smeal
4: Fisher Ohio
5: Michigan Broad
6: Texas A$ m Mays
7 : Wiscosin Madison

what are my chances of admission and scholorships in above schools

Hi Sameer,

Request your help with my profile evaluation.

Age : 25
Nationality : Indian
Experience : 3
GMAT : 1st Attempt - 690 (50Q, 31 V, 5.0 AWA). Aug’10
2nd Attempt - 720 (51Q, 35V, 5.0 AWA). Sept’10
Undergrad : B.Tech(Honors) in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

Areas of Interest: General Management/Operations

Experience details (Total Exp – 3 yrs. Employer – Indian Oil Corporation Ltd.)
1. 2010 Mar – Production Engineer, Core Group

• Administration of the HGU unit at the time of commissioning and 1st start-up, in the shifts, and providing of theoretical and practical instruction to staff in production and required service areas.
• Dried out a high pressure circuit (that involved latest technology heaters, recycle gas compressor and make up gas compressors), leak tested, and started up the VGO-HDT, Atf and FCC-LPG Meroxes, and was awarded as the best amongst the equals in the commissioning team for the units.
• Experienced with the various pre-commissioning and commissioning activities involved with the organization’s Hydrogen Generation Unit (HGU) and its first ever VGO-HDT unit.

2. 2008 - 2010 Mar: Process Engineer, Core Group

• Worked in Core Group of Residue Up-gradation Project for construction and commissioning of HGU of the project.
• Involved with VGO-HDT unit since the 60% model review and have been working with Process Flow Diagrams’ and Piping &Instrumentation Diagrams’ revisions and construction of unit according to drawings.
• Responsible in crucial jobs like flushing , purging, vessel box up, catalyst loading, leak testing and starting up Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) unit and other jobs in pre-commissioning of HGU unit, of Residue up gradation project, Gujarat Refinery.
• Trained on Residue Up-gradation Technologies, SAP, Communication Skills, Efficient Furnace operations, HAZOP study, TPM, and Safety and Quality norms.

Extracurricular:

@college:•
• Taught rural children for a year at IIT, Kharagpur, under the National Service Scheme (NSS) and attended a NSS camp in a village near Kharagpur, 2004-06.
• The only Indian Chemical Engineer selected for ArcelorMittal’s, GEP program 2008.
• Secured the 1st prize at the Quiz organized in PETROTECH 2007, attended by students from 21 Universities from all over India.
• Governor, Technology Literary Society (Hindi), TSG, IIT Kharagpur, 2007-08.
• Founded, the 1st Literary cum Media festival at IIT Kharagpur, MANZAR, 2007.
• Student representative, Advisory Board, Raj Bhasha Cell, IIT Kharagpur, 2007-08.
• Corporate Management Head of the Social and Cultural Festival of IIT Kharagpur, 2007.
• Editor of “AWAAZ”, the Hindi Monthly of IIT KHARAGPUR, 2007-08.
• In charge Illumination Competition (‘07), leading LLR Hall of Residence to the 3rd place over all.
• Hindi Dramatics Captain, LLR Hall of Residence for 2 consecutive years, 2006-08.
• Started IIT Kharagpur’s Wall Magazine, “Hang On”, as TLS Governor (2007-08), hence was making the old society more popular, in presence of new magazines.
• As an organizing core team member, handled the financial aspects of one of the largest college festivals in India, Spring Fest 2006.
• Asst. editor of “AWAAZ”, the Hindi Monthly of IIT KHARAGPUR, 2006-07.
• General Secretary of the Chemical Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur, with the responsibility of departmental events and organizing CHEMINSIGHT 2007, annual techno symposium of the department, , 2006-07.
• Member of the gold winning Illumination and Rangoli Core design team of LLR Hall for year 2005.
• Dramatics Secretary, LLR Hall of Residence, for the year 2005-06.
• Won 3 golds, 2 bronze and a best sets design prize in various dramatics events (05-07).
• Member Technology Dramatic Society, and Banjara (a theatre group under the guidance of Internationally acclaimed director and actress Dr. Rashi Bhargava)
• Member LLR Hall, IIT Kharagpur Dramatics, Choreography, Elocution, Debate, Chemical Innovation Teams.
• Got a 'kishor vigyanik' certificate from state government cell for securing an All India highest in mathematics, 2003.

@work:
• Rated ‘Outstanding’ in both of appraisals during my tenure in IOCL.
• Volunteeered for Indu Management Institute (IMI) (Oct, 2008 - Mar, 2009) (IMI is a part of SHREE VALLABH SEVA NIKETAN TRUST, well known for its activities for services to humanity)
• Experience: Prepared presentations and identified jobs for the volunteers in the Traffic Chaos Management Project.
• Provided theoretical and practical training and mentoring to staff working under me in production, in 2009- 2010.

Target Colleges:

- Harvard
- NYU Stern
- ISB
- Nangyang

I need to write essays for these colleges and also shortlist 2 other colleges. Would be great if you can tag my chances in these. Only criterion for college is great faculty, Good Alumni network, Scholarship would be an icing on the cake .

Thank you for your time and effort!

Hi Sameer,

I am glad that I finally found someone who can give me some good reviews on my Profile.

I intend on applying for non-US based 1 year program B Schools. I gave my GMAT this month and have achieved a moderate score. Please go through my profile below and help me figure out my next move.

GMAT: 640 (Q-49,V-27).
Experience: I will have had 3.5 years of experience (in Luxury Retail Industry) by Sept. 2011 (the time when I wish to join a B School). Total experience: 3.5 years by Sept. 2011
Company- Swatch Group (Brand Tissot) as Sales Manager handling two major regions in India.
Qualifications: P.G.D.M - Full Time (Marketing) - 65%
B.E (Electronics) - 54%
I have a good extracurricular background.

I would really be obliged to have your reviews and B Schools that I could consider.

Thanks,
Anil.

Prasaad, upfront I think there are some strong points in your profile like the startup experience and decent ECs. The areas you need to be aware of are your competitive work-ex and a relatively modest AWA. The post-MBA goal also needs to be well thought through. The consults that you mention (atleast McK) do not have a dedicated practice specific hiring from B-schools. Deloitte does some, but its at a totally different level which you need to be aware of.


The schools you mention barring a few expcetions would fall in the ambitious to stretch category unless you can prove through your essays that the social media experience was rocking. Offcourse you will need to toil significantly to come up with a convincing story on that front. I would suggest you also throw in atleast a couple of safer schools to be sure. Needless to say, the MCB report can help you identify the right schools to target at

Cheers!

Ballu-bhai (no relation to Sallu-bhai, I hope),

As the chairman of the Late-bloomers-from-IT-hoping-to-change-careers association (we have no branches), I would like to invite you to this thread.


[In Sachin's voice] Aailah! That covers almost everything. You'll need to be a little more specific, Ballu bhai. Itne saare option de doge toh Adcoms chakra jayenge.


Why do you 'want to fit into' finance? And what part of finance? Again, have to get more specific here, sir. It would be tough for me to give you a general spiel without understanding what's motivating you to get into finance.


A million...ummm...kudos to you if you can guess why I haven't answered that and 2 million if you tell me the best way to get answers to ALL of these.


That was my reasoning as well, when I applied. But do remember that the age range for American schools is pretty wide too. Apart from age, the decision also depends on what you want to do and where.

Hi Sameer,

Request you to evaluate my profile.

Key data points
Indian
31/Male
GMAT 640 (Q48, V29, AWA 6.0)
8 Years of experience

I currently work with the software division of SIEMENS, and I lead the marketing & communications initiatives for the division in India. During my 5 years with the company, I have had a number of assignments that has impacted the business in India.

Prior to this role, I worked briefly with a media startup operations, and have a brief experience of helping a company start a business from scratch.

I worked very briefly in a sales role, but had achieved a 300% growth in the products I was dealing with.

I started my career with a market research firm, and have an experience in consumer behavior surveys, assignment ranged from creating the survey model to delivering the report.

Acad : Graduated from Stephen's with not so great GPA, but have an average close to 90% in both the board exams. Post graduate diploma in marketing with an above the average GPA.

EC : Exposed to social development work during school days due to my background. My father has held various positions in State Assembly, so i have worked closely with him in building schools for women, educating on population control, drafting letters to sponsors etc. I have also spent a year full time post undergrad, in planning and executing an election campaign.

Held positions such as President of student body during post grad course,Started the annual intra school fest (which has become a brand now) as well as contesting elections during under grad. So a lot of experience in public speaking, be it in a real political election or in college elections.

Objective of pursuing MBA, gain knowledge on business strategy and International economics with an emphasis on the Financial investment trends and a comparative study on its impact in the developed, developing and underdevelped economies. I also wish to polish my leadership skills, get indepth knowledge on leading organisations.
POst MBA intend to lead initiatives globally for a business with a specific emphasis on 'international markets', organisation productivity and leadership development( basically lead initiatives which are growth strategies other than the conventional growth models such as new market entry, growth through M&As, etc etc)

I guess this was too detail a post, sorry about that.

My question to you 1. Which schools should i apply? 2. DO i need to re take GMAT?

Look forward to your inputs.

Thanks and best regards,

Sandy