gauravprad wrote:
Could you please evaluate my profile?
28 year old Indian male
Education: Engineer with a GPA of around 3.25
Experience: 5 years 8 months total
Exp1: 3.5 years as a Systems Engineer with Tier1 Indian IT services company. Led two internal low to medium impact teams.
Exp2: 2 years as a Fellow with Teach for India (non-profit) Taught in a low-income municipal school in Mumbai. Led students to high achievement.
Exp3 (Present): 3 months as a Senior Manager (generic designation)/Program Coordinator (Role), with Naandi Foundation (non-profit), in a School Transformation Project in schools where Urdu is the language of instruction. I have a very little knowledge of Urdu. A first of its kind public private partnership project implemented on an epic scale by Municipal Corporation of Bombay, India, Mckinsey, Naandi Foundation and Save the Children India
Post MBA goals: Short term - A bit uncertain, to be honest, but looking at good General Management & Consulting programs
Long term - Social Entrepreneurship
Languages: English (fluent), Spanish (Limited working), Marathi (Native), Hindi (fluent)
Target GMAT: 730
Target Schools: IESE, INSEAD (Wish to work in the UK for few years)
Kellogg, Ross, Duke, Darden, UNC Kenan-Flagler
Hello there good sir,
Well you have a good profile. A great GMAT. And very very strong Volunteer work. So that is in itself very awesome. On the weakness side is your okay GPA and that fact that you are Indian/Tech/Male from a non IIT school. But so far you seem to have done the best you can.
What is missing for me however in this short paragraph here is something UNIQUE. Some sort of flashing pizzazz that will shout out to me "Hey let's have this guy in our school!". And that is something to think about as you approach your essay writing. How are you going to get across who you are to the AdCom? (without them saying "Oh, another Indian IT guy?")
Here's a thought: If your long-term goal is social entrepreneurship, why not make it your short-term goal already? Normally I don't recommend people to write about career changes, but since you have such vast nonprofit experience I think your profile carries enough weight to make this a reasonable proposition, and if it truly is your goal, maybe this will be a good way for you to tap into your passion and to write yet better essays.
Other than that, your school list is fine for starters. We can think about tweaking it a bit later, once you have your goals clearer in mind. The only strange thing is that you didn't include any UK schools even though you want to work in the UK! What about Oxford? Cambridge? Both great schools. Great programs.
Think about it dude,
And I hope this helps,
Best,
Jon