Peer Review / Admission for 2010 or 2011

Pleonasm,

Thank you for your response.

I would like to hear more thoughts on my profile, background and my chances at HBS/Wharton

i disagree with the poster above with regards to HBS. age seems to be more of a defining factor than you think in their eyes. you can see it in the numbers they post (~45% of their most recent class had 3 years or less of work experience). however, when i was up there, i witnessed it firsthand. i sat in on a class that seemed more like one of my undergrad classes (in terms of ages of students) than a B-school class.

this is not to discourage you from applying, but only meant to give you a reality check. also, i feel this phenomenon is fairly unique to HBS. other schools (especially wharton) still have relatively older students applying and attending, so you would likely have a better shot there.

i think whether you apply this year or apply next year, you would still be in the same boat regarding your age. so you might as well defer for a year, work on your story and your apps, and most importantly, spend time with the new baby

Thanks Shadowjsc,

I have heard different theories/observations from different people. But I guess you are right in saying that it does not make much of a difference this year or later.

As you may see, I am yet another Indian IT male but I feel that I have strong extra curricular activities. Immigration these days is a radioactive issue and even though it directly affects Entrepreneurship, I some times wonder how the schools, esp if some one has opinions or stand on the issue. I know that academia probably are the last place to have such people but I have seen folks from the academia go against high skilled immigration or any kind of immigration for that matter.

What do you guys think about my recommendations? One is the VP of Americas now and the other is a research associate in academia (in more than one school of my interest) with whom I have been working with. What are the pros and cons of my choice of people for recommendation? As I have time on hand, I can go back to the drawing board, if needed.

from what i've read, and from my personal experience, it doesn't matter WHO or what position your recommenders are - as long as they know you very well - well enough to write a very compelling recommendation. think about it - most people in the banking and finance industries are also going to be able to secure either 1) an alum or 2) a VP or executive from their company to write them an LOR. at some point, it's going to come down to how well you they know you and how much effort they're willing to put into your LOR. if they barely know you, or if it's just a common work relationship, then they'll write you a correspondingly average LOR.

since i am still pretty young and have maintained in touch with some of my undergrad professors, i actually chose 2 of them to write my LoRs, which goes against the conventional wisdom that they should not write them.

1 was a physics professor who i never had an official class with (i did have a project from an honors seminar course with him); however, i worked for him part time during the year for 4 years, and also became fairly close outside of the school setting

1 was my humanities professor who i took several classes with. we also worked together on a variety of projects related to cultural studies. again, i had a very good relationship with him, so he was more than willing to write me a good LOR

1 was a VP at my last company who was an alum. since the company was small, we worked together almost daily, and he respected my work very much. this one was tricky - i wasnt sure if i should use my former manager or the VP; however, after speaking with the VP in person, he was more than happy to write my LOR.

unless you have a huge allstar writing your LOR (the person who wrote my VP's LOR to get into HBS was the admiral of the US Navy ), then i dont think the person's rank will affect your chances in any way. just make sure they know you well enough to write a good and detailed LOR

one other note - from what i've read, it's generally not recommended that a peer write your LORs (this depends on the school obviously, but i think most schools share this view).you're going to want someone who managed you, or at least was higher in rank than you