Hello there,
Thanks for the information. Please see my responses to your questions below:
You've got a very strong GMAT score and pretty strong work experience (especially since you moved into more of a management position at your company). The weaknesses in your profile include a lack of extracurricular and community leadership and a mostly technical (vs. business) career, and as you are aware, your age. This last one we can't change or do anything about, so we'll ignore it
The other, more important factor, I think, is the question of whether you really need an MBA to reach your career goal. If you stick with career goal one, it really seems that you would not need an MBA to get there, and I think the adcoms would see that. If you go with career goal two, perhaps you can make a stronger case for the MBA, but you'll also have to justify why you want to go into PE -- it's a big jump from what you do now, and you don't want to be overly ambitious, either. I'd urge you to think carefully about your career narrative, as I think the big question for adcoms when considering you will be, 'Does he really need us?" And if you can't convince them of this, I think you'd not have as strong a chance of admission.
I think that if you can really demonstrate strong leadership capability through your professional career and can weave a strong career/why MBA narrative, then you've got a shot at your target tier 1 schools. No guarantees, unfortunately, as you are a bit of wild card candidate given your age and other factors, but it's possible. The same holds for your target Tier 2 schools. These are possibilities for sure, but know that your application will be resting on your GMAT and the quality of your professional experience. If both of these are really strong, you could overcome your lack of extracurriculars/community and your age.
It is not so important that the company you work for is well-know or prestigious. It helps, sure, but only marginally. The quality of your experience and your contribution to your firm are going to matter much more.
I'd say the PhD degree wouldn't be an advantage to your profile. It could be seen as a slight negative in the sense that they could view you as a 'degree seeker' (someone who just wants to get a lot of graduate degrees), but I think as long as you can show how/why the PhD was important and plays into your path (past and future), then it should be okay. It's really about the narrative you are able to weave.
You might consider USC and NYU given your interested in tech and finance, respectively.
Hope this helps,
Mili
Mili Mittal
Senior Consultant
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