Prithvi10 wrote:
Requesting a profile evaluation, please help me with you valuable inputs.
I'm an Indian female interested in doing an MBA in either the US or UK. I just wrote my GMAT a week ago and got 660 (Q44 V37), had expected at least 700, so it is a bit of a disappointment but I'm not sure how much I can improve in such a short time period so I've decided to not write it again. I come from a engineering background having done my grad in Telecom from a top engineering college of my State. I'm not sure what my GPA would be but I graduated with First Class lying in the top 30% of my class. I work in a small product company that focus on video quality monitoring. I wouldn't term myself as an IT person mainly because my job has nothing to do with IT (at least that's how i see it). I have 2 yrs of work experience, by the time i start my MBA it would be 3.
Here's what I'm worried about, i had a job offer from a reputed company in India with a good pay, but I declined that offer to join the company I am working with presently. My dad founded the company and is the CEO, but I mainly joined cause I would be applying everything i learnt about in 4 yrs of college to do my job and i loved the technology they were working with. My designation is Product Manager - now I know ppl automatically conclude that I was given this because of who I am, I thought so too when I joined, but after two years I think I can confidently say I haven't let down my superiors who saw the potential in me and entrusted with such a big responsibility. I was dead set on not doing a job that 90% of engineers do, I wanted to learn, explore and do something different. And I got to do exactly that, I did a lot of research on upcoming strategies that the company should move towards, analysis on the pros and cons of that and helped implement this move as well. I was also responsible for a particular patent pending facet of our product that is our Intellectual Property and a big USP with our clients. The second year I spent a lot of time marketing our products in the US. I have had the opportunity to present and demo our product to our clients like Ericsson. I have also spent close to 5 months training our clients on how to use our products.
I guess what I wanna ask is, do I have a chance at some good schools with my score and work experience. The schools that I would wanna apply are:
Harvard
ISB
Yale
Cornell
Oxford: Said
Cambridge: Judge
Tuck
Tepper
Ross
I understand that some of the above schools may be out of reach, but if so I would like some advice on where to apply and where to not apply. I would love to apply to Booth and Kellogg as well but is it worth it? Am I unique enough for them, do I stand a chance? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Also should I talk about working in a company founded by my dad or not. I understand that some of the opportunities i have been given may have been cause of who I am but I also know that I have gone above and beyond every expectation my superiors have had of me. Due to that I think I was given a lot of assignments well beyond my age and experience, not because of my surname but because I had proved myself before.
Please let me know what I should do in terms of what schools to apply to and what strategy to use.
Many Thanks in advance..
Hi Prithvi,
You have a very interesting work profile. B-schools like people who challenge the known paths to take on the more risky ones, and this is exactly what you did by not taking up a regular and safe job. I think you have managed to get an all round development at the family business, which is great. So rather than think of your experience as a weakness, you should look upon it as your strength and also articulate it as such within the applications. Also, your career goals should be aligned to the knowledge/ skills you have gained so far. For instance you may want an MBA to help you grow the business to new territories/ expand into new product lines.
Your GMAT scores are a let down. The US based b-schools on your list have a high average GMAT scores, hence you have a disadvantage there. Is there a possibility that you apply in Round 2, which will leave you with ample time to retake the GMAT as well as work upon your applications? The other option is to apply to a few b-schools where your GMAT scores are more in sync with their class averages.
Namita
www.mbadecoder.com