bschool2014 wrote:
Age: 29 at matriculation, 28 at the time of applying. I plan to apply for Fall 2012.
Gender: Female
Nationality: Indian
undergrad GPA(india): 3.86/4.00, 2nd in class of 130, Gold medal for 'Best outgoing student' in my dept.
undergrad college(india): reasonably well known - top 20, not IIT or NIT
Grad GPA: 3.66/4.0
Grad School: Large public school in the US, top 10 for Computer Science
GMAT: 730
WE: 4 yrs (come Oct) in one of the best enterprise software company in the US, on Fortune 500 list. I was promoted once. I was asked to take leadership of some critical components immediately after I joined. I rose up to the challenge and over the years I've become the goto person for it within the company. I've also mentored two engineers in the process. I lead new projects in the area I own and have performed significant performance enhancements to it over the years. However, the problem is being in the software product industry. Its very hard to interact directly with customers. Also being part of a large company and product, its very hard to show tangible improvements in revenue for the performance improvements/projects. I've been the campus representative at my university for my company have participated in the recruiting effort and have also organized the women in technology group.
EC: In college I was involved in my department's tech club and organized tech fest. I was also involved with the blood donors club, where we match donors with recipients. I didn't do much in grad school, but after graduating I've volunteered developing software for a UNHCR project that deployed the kits we built in Darfur. I personally didn't travel to Sudan, but was involved in the software development part of the kit. I didn't work on it on a sustained basis, it was more sporadic. Whenever we needed to deploy a kit, we would work 20 hr/wk for 2-3 months.I was also involved in kick starting and building up the alumni chapter for our college. The regional alumni chapter didn't exist before and I was involved in building it from ground up. I plan to continue this effort.
Hobbies: Running, Hiking, Mountaineering. I love the outdoors and have lead and participated in hiking and backpacking trips. I recently climbed some 14000+ peaks and plan to move into mountaineering. I've also run half marathons.
Goals: I'm not planning to goto b school to switch careers. I want to remain in the high tech industry but understand the business aspects of technology and move into technology management/entrepreneurship.
What are my chances at Sloan, Haas, Wharton, Kellogg, Ross, Anderson? Any other schools I should target? Also, if I spent the next one year improving my community service credentials will it improve my chances?
Thanks in advance for your comments.
I think you have chosen your target schools well given your goals and qualifications. You may also want to consider
CMU Tepper and
Duke. Yes, your community service is on the light side but it isn't non-existent. Some is impressive, but you will just need to make the most of what you've got. Apply and see how you do. With good essays, interviews, and recs, I think you have reason for optimism at one of your target schools.
Best,
Linda