Profile Evaluation Request

Hi gmataspirant123:

Thanks for the level of detail that you have provided. It really helps in my evaluation.

You have done a lot over the last three years of your life and professional working experience. As you know, the critical thing is going to be to differentiate your background from the large number of other Indian IT males. You seem to have a very good grasp on this concept.

For the most part, everything you have told me is very much in line with what I would expect from a competitive Indian applicant. To be clear, I do not see a lot that really places you ahead of the competitive section of Indian IT males that will be applying to business school. This is not to say that you will not be competitive at a business school program and a top 20 business school program at that. What I am saying is that I get the feeling you personally feel that you are at the top of your applicant subgroup. I believe that you are at the top of your demographic, but beware of bounded rationality. That is, all your fellow (IT Indian) applicants that are indeed competitive at top schools will have approximately the same experience.

There are a few things I wanted to point out. It is going to be very hard to define a truly great your organization is to the admissions committee. This is for several reasons. The first is that the reputation of a software firm is really hard for an admissions committee reader to differentiate. That is, how much better is Oracle than SAP? it is more a matter of opinion. Also, working for a prestigious firm does not necessarily correlate to you having a good or bad performance as a manager or leader. It seems that you have done well in your management role. However, this is not necessarily related to the prestige of the firm. In the essays, please focus on your individual efforts and that of your team's. Do not focus on the reputation of your firm.

I would not spend that much more time trying to improve your GMAT score. You really want to focus in on round one. Spending more time on the GMAT effectively decreases the amount of time you will be able to spend crafting essays, visiting schools and learning more about what you need to say and do in order to attend a top business school program. Your GMAT score is effective as is.

A lot of your extracurricular experiences are excellent. Again, they fall in line with what I would expect from a top business school applicant. Be careful to limit the amount of emphasis you pay to academic type awards and accomplishments. With your technical background and by viewing your resume in test scores, the admissions committee will know you are a smart guy, but be careful not to emphasize numbers as opposed to introspection. You need to break the stereotype of a "numbers" candidate from India. Focus more on introspection and on what you learned from every experience that you have been a part of. This will help break any stereotypes associated with your demographic. It will show that you are mature and introspective.

Demonstrating introspection is also important because being smart or getting the right numbers does not make a good manager or someone that will be successful in their ultimate goals. It certainly does not mean that you will be an effective contributor in the classroom.

It is really going to be hard for me to define what specific schools you should target, because I really do not have a good idea as to what your goals are.

So what are your short and long-term goals? What schools do you believe will be a good fit based on these goals and your research? Do this over, then reach out to me with your short list. I will be able to critique more effectively, or providing you with an analysis of not only your school choices, but also how you evaluate your fit with the schools.

Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti