gmataspirant123 wrote:
Hi,
Please evaluate my profile and suitable schools to apply to. I am intending to attend only 1 of the top 20 B Schools in the world. Would be great help if you can provide me with some schools to target (realistic target, stretch).
• Indian/IT/Male/25 (Yeah, I belong to the most competitive pool of applicants !!!)
• GMAT – 740 (Q51, V39) – Am contemplating a retake of GMAT as my prep was solid (easily above 760), but screwed up on the exam day due to some unforeseen circumstances in work place. How good Is a 740 from an Indian/IT/Male category? My view is that is just average.
• Education (Consistently solid) :
B.Tech : CGPA – 8.4 ( in computer science engineering) from a top 15 college in India (Non-IIT) .
Xth – 85%
XIIth – 85%
• Work Experience : I believe my work experience is very much different from the normal IT job that people do and this is the area am banking on.
3 years today, 4 at matriculation
Got into the Biggest and the Best Software maker(worldwide) in the world straight out of college (Not the indian companies).
Fantastic career progression till date – Rated among top 20% of the employees.
Recruited into the Talent cum Leadership Development Program.
Highest leadership position in the Talent Development program at the company. Leading a team of 80 people in designing and executing the program to develop leaders at the company : Social initiatives, training initiatives, morale initiatives etc.
Organized plethora of events in the company.
Have gone to multiple teams over the last 3 years with varied roles in the Software cycle.
Currently a Program manager.
• Awards at workplace :
Highest Leadership position in the Talent Development Program.
Awarded Outstanding Contribution Award (Individual Award) for Leadership in FY11.
Awarded Star award for Leadership (Individual Award) during Q4 FY11.
Awarded Pro award for Execution (Individual Award) during Q3 FY10.
Awarded Pro award for Excellence (Individual Award) during Q4 FY09.
Awarded Team Award during Q4 FY09.
• Community Services :
Teaching every week at underprivileged government school over the last 1 year.
Worked with Help Age India organization a lot during school days.
Worked for National Student Services during College.
Organized fund raising events for an NGO.
• Extra curriculars(not much) :
Learnt French basic level and cleared DELF 1
Learnt German basic level– no certification yet.
Learning Salsa these days
Took part in national level Quiz Competition (Qualified till Quarter finals)
Won some jamming contests and essay writing contests.
Senior executive of the Computer Society of India
• International experience : Negligible, although have a few stories of what I learnt from these to talk about.
Just few training events in Beijing, Hong Kong and New York.
Any suggestions on which all areas to apply will be highly appreciated. I have about 3 months for R1 and 6 months for R2 applications.
Post MBA Goals : Getting into either Consulting or Finance.
Thanks in Advance.
You have an excellent profile and the 740 is a fine score. If you think you could easily boost it by 20 points, then by all means retake it, but it is not worth a great deal of effort in my opinion. While you seem to have excellent leadership experience, you are correct that you are in the largest pool of applicants. Differentiate yourself by not talking about what you've done within individual software development teams but rather the projects that earned you the leadership awards. The lack of international experience is not an issue for most programs, actually. The exceptions to that rule would be programs that focus on international business and specifically seek that experience in your background (INSEAD in particular). I recommend applying to a few of the top programs (H/S/W) and one or two more middle of the road ones (Stern, Ross, UCLA) in the first round. If you are open to attending a lower ranked program than that, then apply, but it doesn't make sense to apply to a program that you will not attend, in my opinion.
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12 Jun 2011, 12:31
