This chat will be active on June 29th at 10 AM Pacific or 10:30 PM IST
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Please evaluate my profile
Background and nationality: 23 years, Indian Male
Undergrad Information: [3.3 out of 4] B.Tech from NIT Trichy (Majors in Computer Science and Engineering and Minors in Management Studies) (Tier-I college, ranked 9th in India)
GMAT: Haven’t given the exam yet (Aiming for 720+)
Work experience and leadership: 2 years (as of date)
Industrial experience:-
Software Engineer II, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (2 years+)
- Piloted the Build System Verification Project
- Influencive organiser of the outings planned within the Business unit.
- Editor cum Graphic designer cum of the weekly newsletter internal to the organisation
- Created documentations to help out freshers widely used by the team
- Mentoring the incoming freshers
Research and Development Intern, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (3 months)
- Pioneered the Triage automation Project which reduced the triage time and resources by more than 95%.
Software Development and UI/UX designer Intern, Skillveri Solutions Pvt. Ltd (3 months)
- Developed Windows Application which also involved designing a reports engine from scratch for the product SkillVeri Aura, the welding simulation.
- Designed and integrated all the graphic designs & icons used in the application of Skillveri Aura.
Data Analyst Intern, Technosoft Corporation Ltd.(2 months)
- Analysed and extracted patterns from the Denial Data set provided as part of the US Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management business, visualised it using graphs
Undergraduate extracurriculars:-
Core Member and Head of Team Quality Assurance of Pragyan 2019, Inter-collegiate Techno-managerial organisation.
- Headed a team of 40+ organisers; Responsible for 9 patronages including UNESCO, CEE, SAYEN, Make in India, etc.
- Responsible for registering the name of tech fest in the National Trademark registry.
- Responsible for acquisition of ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 20121:2012
- Internal Quality Auditor for the ISO Certifications
Under-Secretary General of Quality Assurance for the MUN conducted by the tech fest
Senior Graphic Designer of College’s Official Magazine, Cultural and Tech Fests, Department Symposiums (close to 5 clubs)
- Mentored close to 30 Junior Graphic Designers
Workshops Co-ordinator, Publicity coordinator and Organising Committee Member in intra-collegiate and intercollegiate festivals.
Student Secretary for the University hostel
Follow up:

High School:
Winner of the environmental quiz conducted by Petroleum Conservation and Research Organisation, Government of India Ltd.
Awarded Special Merit Certificate for outstanding performance and obtaining Grade A1 in AISSE 2013.
Awarded Special Merit Certificate for being among the top 0.1% of successful candidates in Mathematics of AISSCE 2015
Recipient of Academic Achievement Scholarship for top 350 outstanding performers in JEE offered by NLC Ltd
Recipient of INSPIRE Scholarship for being among the top 1% percent of successful candidates in Mathematics of AISSCE 2015.
Graduation: 12th grade: 94.5%; 10th grade: 10/10
Community and others: Volunteering for charity events & its fundraising events, Teaching kids at orphanages and conducting events for them, Mentoring incoming junior students
Post MBA goals: Short term goal is to get placed as a tech consultant or a product manager in FAANG or Microsoft. Longer focus is to get into the startup domain later down the line.
Target: Top 15-20 Business Schools in the US

Today’s chat session will start in around 30 minutes, stay tuned
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The chat session will start in about 10 minutes
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PBarik, Please post your question in one post

Ranjanashish, We have received your profile

Thank you PMC for joining, can you please introduce yourself to our audience?

Welcome Everyone! To the live chat
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Hello - looking forward to the conversation. By way of introduction, my name is Nicole Shay, a proud member of the Personal MBA coach team! I recently spent 6 years on the admissions committee at Columbia Business School, and happy to help with questions today.
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I will release profile one by one
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Thank you for this information. For top 15-20 business schools, they will expect typically at least 3 years of work experience post undergrad. It may be in your best interest to wait to apply in 2022. You will also want to aim for a 740+ or above on the GMAT for top 20 schools, as well as for consulting recruiting. Given your engineering experience doesn’t indicate a lot of management (people or projects) experience, you would need to be very clear as to what you’ve accomplished in this role and how it has prepared you for consulting. If you would like to discuss how our team can help with application strategy or GMAT tutoring, please feel free to reach out to me at nicole@personalmbacoach.com

Ranjanashish, have you given any thought to an executive mba? If your role involves the management of people or projects, as it likely does, this might be a good route for you given the amount of experience you have. I would say a 740+ is a good target for top schools, but a lot of the admissions decision will depend on what your short term goal is and whether is is practical given your past work experience.

SChatrg, Thank you for this information. An important part of your application will be your short term goal, so ensuring that this is practical given your experience. Your work experience seems solid, and yes, you’ll want to aim for 700+, ideally 730+ given your background. If you would like to discuss how our team can help with application strategy for EU schools please feel free to reach out to me at nicole@personalmbacoach.com

CrushTHYGMAT, Thank you for your information. What I like about your background is your less traditional industry but still strong set of functional skills. If you want consulting post mba or scholarships, increasing the GMAT score will be very important. I think your 3 school choices are solid, but if you are looking for scholarship money, you may want to consider a few schools slightly lower down in rankings to be more competitive. If you would like to discuss how our team can help with application strategy or GMAT tutoring, please feel free to reach out to me at nicole@personalmbacoach.com
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Qorda, Send us your profile
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Ravienator, if you are applying to a full time program with 10+ years of experience, you’ll need to be incredibly thoughtful when discussing "why" and "why now", and again, your short term goal will be the committee’s main focus so make sure this is practical given your experience. There are no specific schools I would recommend targeting or avoiding as an older candidate given committees cannot discriminate based on age. I hope this helps.

danielb2991, Thank you for sending this information. Overall, I think your a strong candidate for a number of reasons - solid GMAT score, which will be important to the schools, but also to consulting recruiters. You have a good amount of work experience and it aligns with your post mba goal. Oxford and Insead are good choices, but you could also apply to US schools, even in the top 10, with a carefully crafted narrative. If you would like to discuss how our team can help with application strategy please feel free to reach out to me at nicole@personalmbacoach.com

PBarik, Thanks for this information. You have a competitive GMAT score which will help you get noticed by HBS and GSB, but you’ll want to make sure that you highlight your accomplishments and clearly articulate your path (it sounds a little jumpy), but also very important to how you tie this to your short term and long term goals. If you would like to discuss how our team can help with application strategy for HBS and GSB please feel free to reach out to me at nicole@personalmbacoach.com
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bz2505, Please post your complete profile
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Ravienator, I believe I answered your question: "if you are applying to a full time program with 10+ years of experience, you’ll need to be incredibly thoughtful when discussing "why" and "why now", and again, your short term goal will be the committee’s main focus so make sure this is practical given your experience. There are no specific schools I would recommend targeting or avoiding as an older candidate given committees cannot discriminate based on age. I hope this helps."
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Vedang1, Send in your questions only once
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What age a candidate is considered, is it the age he is at the time of applying or at the time of beginning of class ?

apramay, much of what the committee will be interested to learn is about your short term goals, so make sure these align with your current experience. UNC and Tepper will be a bit of a reach with a 710, so if you can improve this, that will help. It may be to your benefit to apply in a year from now and get another year of work experience under your belt. Georgia Tech is a bit more realistic. You’ll want to highlight any leadership experience in your application where you can, as you did in this summary you just sent, to demonstrate those skillsets. If you would like to discuss how our team can help with application strategy, school selection, or GMAT prep, please feel free to reach out to me at nicole@personalmbacoach.com

Laxkar, Committees cannot consider age as a factor in the US legally. They will look at your years of work experience and this is typically any full time work experience after undergraduate up until you would start the mba program, but you should check with the individual school.
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bz2505, Do you have a question?
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Hello, I am planning to apply to Mim later this year. I have mentioned some of the highlights below from my profile, would love to know your recommendations and evaluation for it.

Nationality - India
CGPA - 8.0
Published - A review paper in journey

Works experience
Worked as consultant and social media manager for MNCs in India as (Intern) - 1 year
Worked as Operational Leader (Intern)
Founder of NGO - Expanding operations to Brazil

Extra curricular
AIESEC - Vice President (Made 16 International relations)
Cases over coffee - Global fellow ship program (Working with ex MBB partners on a live business problem)
Delegate - Harvard Asia Pacific conference

Lohit1006, your strength is your experience, so lean on that in applications. You’ll need a higher GMAT score to successfully recruit into consulting or banking (730+) and a 740+ to be more competitive for mba programs in the US (assuming this is your goal). Given your current stats, Duke, Darden would be good reach schools and you could move backwards from there. If you would like to discuss how our team can help with application strategy, school selections, or GMAT prep, please feel free to reach out to me at nicole@personalmbacoach.com
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Hello, I am planning to apply to Mim later this year. I have mentioned some of the highlights below from my profile, would love to know your recommendations and evaluation for it.

Nationality - India
CGPA - 8.0
Published - A review paper in journey

Works experience
Worked as consultant and social media manager for MNCs in India as (Intern) - 1 year
Worked as Operational Leader (Intern)
Founder of NGO - Expanding operations to Brazil

Extra curricular
AIESEC - Vice President (Made 16 International relations)
Cases over coffee - Global fellow ship program (Working with ex MBB partners on a live business problem)
Delegate - Harvard Asia Pacific conference

Hi …my profile is as follows:-

Indian male , 27, 6.3 years of work ex
Graduated from top 10 Indian Law Schools cgpa of 8.1/10, Headed certain Committees in colleges, won a B Plan competition and certain other extra curriculars
Working as a Manager with Indian Securities Market Regulator (equivalent of US SEC) – 3.5 years
Focused on Capital Markets policy, legal framework, litigation
prior to that worked as an Analyst for BlackRock and also an independent lawyer

Aiming for a GMAT score between 700-750
Post MBA goals:- Consulting, entrepreneurship

Possible target colleges?