Aximili85 wrote:
Hi
Appreciate your help in taking the time out to review my profile. Here's my information:
Personal Background: Born in India, speak English as a first language, Hindi fluently, may take Spanish courses soon (more that below under W/E)
Education:
University of Windsor, Canada
Graduated fall 2007, B.Sc. Biology (focus: Biotechnology), Minor 1: Economics, Minor 2: Chemistry
GPA: Canadian GPA out of 13; UPenn website gave roughly 3.0 cumulative, 3.2 Major. A professor at Michigan once told me that a lot of American universities make lee-way for the fact that Canadian GPA's are generally lower, I'm not sure how true that is.
GMAT history: Please view scores on the left under my name, quick summary: 640 (M42, V36), 640 (M40, V38), 710 (M42, V45). AWA - 6 consistently. Most significant hurdle for me. I'm almost certainly going to write a 4th time to pull up the math score, get a tutor this time; Duke faculty member has recommended I do the same (what do you say?)
Age: 26 (might be applying for 2013 not 2012, so will be 28 upon entering B-school)
W/E:
- Part-time Teachers Assistant in 4th year univeristy (Anatomy, Cellular Biology)
- Fulltime (4.5 years by 2012 fall):
- First ~2 years: Client servicing role in India, with British company Bates David (Account Executive), promoted in 9 months and joined second french company (Publicis Ambience) as Senior Account Executive.
- 1.5 years as of August 2011: Mckinsey & Company - US Healthcare Systems Research Analyst (promoted from Junior RA to RA in 15 months). Now here's my catch, my US team has offered to send me to Costa Rica for a year beginning December 2011, where we are setting up another low cost center and hiring people for the US Healthcare RA role. I would be going there as an unnofficial "mentor" and team lead (I can't get the official designation as I'm still too junior, but my senior has agreed to support this claim when I apply to B-school, I have been honest with the team about my apps). They had one condition, if I accept the Costa Rica stint I will have to defer my B-school apps to 2013 fall (by which time I will have 6+ years work exp total). I have agree to this and will get details soon. I will also have significant experience with consulting teams as I work with them very closely on client projects, and am going to Washington for 2 months to work directly with a client on a consulting team.
- Leadership roles:
In my second advertising job - managed several trainees under me.
Mckinsey RA role - mentoring a colleague here in New Delhi, after Costa Rica goes through I will have significant managerial experience, but not the official designation (I don't know whether the team will consider me for an earlier promotion but its unlikely due to my lack of tenure).
E/C:
I rank poorly here. I have taken part in a few chess tournaments, but no awards.
Writing: Received Mckinsey India's annual award for best blog this year, also trying to publish an article in a local monthyl magazine on US Healthcare reforms etc. I love to write on the side.
Community services: Part of organization committee for Mckinsey's Rotary Club Blood Donation camps, participated in Mckinsey's Social Olympics program, idea was shortlisted but not finalized. Trying to get more involved but waiting for Costa Rica to come through.
Goals:
Short term: Consulting role in healthcare domain OR join a large US health insurer in corporate strategy division.
Long term: still need to work on this; tentative - come back to India down the line and leverage ideas from American healthcare reform to better our healthcare system.
Schools:
This is a tentative list, I want to go for US dual MBA/Masters in Public Health (MPH) degrees so I have an employment edge in one of the few sectors doing well in the US economy: healthcare. I don't know if this is too ambitious.
Top Choices with dual offerings (OR healthcare focus): Berkeley Haas, Duke Fuqua, Ross Michigan, ENSEAD (no healthcare)
2nd options: but still would love to attend: Carnegie (Tepper), Indian School of Business, Vanderbilt Owen
Backups: UNC Kennan, still need to check China/Singapore options.
Note, Wharton/Columbia/Harvard all offer dual MBA/MPH, but I feel these are out of my league and a waste of time. A distant family friend who is a professor at Duke, mentioned that I should include these if I rewrite GMAT a 4th time and pull up my Quant score. He also wants me to look at generalist MBA schools like Booth, Tuck, Yale, Cornell etc.
Any advice you have on what my chances are, what schools I should be considering, what I should do in the coming 2 years, would be invaluable. Thank you so much. Thank you!
Professionally you definitely seem to be on the right track. I would encourage you to take risks on exciting new assignments in which you are able to shape new practices - as the Costa Rica assignment sounds, but I don't like the idea of you locking yourself in and not applying this year.
Yes, you will have to boost your Quant GMAT score to something like 47 or higher, and yes, I would like to see more involvement extracurricularly for these top programs. The McKinsey organizing committee role is a nice start but I would like to see you diversify the programming you're involved in beyond a 10 minute blood donation: can you get people to get involved and build a community? I encourage you to ask yourself that question often and not wait until any particular assignment or schedule parameter is met before you get involved and motivate people.
To figure out whether the MBA/MPH makes sense for you, I recommend speaking with connections in the industry about their credentials and which portions of their educations they really feel they use in their daily work. Sometimes in a tight market, employers use a particular credential as a weeding out tool, so I would hate for you to pass up the opportunity to gain the MPH when you're in school anyway.