souvik101990 wrote:
Most people are familiar with my story on the forum. The TL;DR version is that I applied to a bunch of schools in 2016, got rejected in most of them, and then turned it around in 2017 and got a lot of admits/interviews and such. I posted my GMAT story
HERE and a brief version of my admission and application insights
HERE.
Since doing these two posts, I have been getting a lot of PM's about whether the GMAT is enough or whether applying to a certain school makes sense, and honestly, I have not been able to keep up with those PM's.
So this is my attempt to set up shop for my completely non-qualified and anecdotal advice. A place where I will entertain profile evaluation requestions, school strategy and positioning, and some general unadulterated feedback.
Go ahead, and Ask Me Anything!
Edit: I have no aspirations of becoming an admissions consultant. I am playing with the idea of helping others with basic stuff like school selection and resume review, but of course it will always be free!
Hello
souvik101990 , I have read all your debriefs and I would absolutely love to have your feedback on my profile.
GMAT - 760 (Q50, V44)
Gender - Male
Undergrad - IIT Patna (8.8/10 CGPA)
12th - 95.4%
WE - 8 months at Samsung , Delhi
- 2.5 months (internship) NTU, Singapore
- 3 months (internship) IIT Kharagpur
Extracurriculars :-
1) National Level Table Tennis player (Under 18 and Under 16).
2) Awards at school, college and district levels Table Tennis.
3) Youtube Channel (DIY videos of some techs and software that I explored)
4) Electronics club coordinator (2015-2016).
5) 3 research paper at IEEE conferences.
I know that without knowing my post MBA plans and other important variables that most of the schools look into, it will be very difficult to give an opinion on my profile.
However, given your experience in bschool application, I am sure that you will be able to provide me a ball park estimate of my current position.
I have three questions :-
1) I am thinking of applying for 2020 (Intake) MBA batch and will have 3 years work ex at the time joining the school. Is this strategy sound? Should I try waiting for a few more years ?
2) Indian IT Male usually have lower likelihood of getting accepted. Samsung research is pretty good, atleast in my opnion(ranks #15 in Fortune 500), however the IT background might kill my application. What all methods I can use to overcome this drawback ? Should I try changing my industry(I still have about 1.5 years left before application) ?
3) What all school should I aim for ? Please classify the schools into 3x2 (Safe , Moderate , Reach) and (Scholarship, No Scholarship) . I am thinking of either choosing top 5 or one of top 5-20 on the basis of scholarship offered.
Thank you for taking out the time to evaluate my profile. Any other thoughts on my profile are welcome.
##Please ignore any grammatical mistakes that I may have made.
Thanks for the PM.
Considering that you graduated in 2017, it is GREAT that you started so early and already have the GMAT out of the way. (also congrats on that amazing GMAT btw). I think your undergrad accomplishments are solid and I think your work experience sets you apart from the typical Indian IT male which is also a very welcome PLUS!
In terms of whether you should apply for the 2020 intake - yeah I think you absolutely should. That would give you 3 years of WE by the time you matriculate and I think that is more and more becoming the new sweet spot. I think some schools may frown at the limited experience (Sloan, Fuqua etc) but most schools will welcome it.
That said, if I were you, I would start working on building solid accomplishments at work, which I can see can be difficult in a large organisation, but can you try taking ambitious projects and deliver them with strong results? Also getting some people experience (such as managing a team, working cross functionally etc) could also get you really cool stuff to write about in your essays.
For your question about whether you should change your industry? I don't know to be honest. Do you like your current industry? If so, why would you change it? Thousands of Indian IT male apply, but not all of them have 760 GMATs and great accomplishments, so I would work more on building stronger accomplishments if I were you. Also, in a new industry you will probably be a fish out of the water at the beginning and you may not get the opportunity to make strong and meaningful impact.
In terms of schools, it would depend a lot on your post MBA goals. For vanilla goals like tech or consulting, any of the top 10-12 schools should be great. Schools end up being pretty random, so I do not recommend certain schools more than others, but because you have very strong stats, I would recommend these schools in descending order of competitiveness - Booth, Kellogg, Tuck, Ross, Stern. If you are keen on scholarship, I am a BIG fan of McCombs and they have been generous in the past, same goes for the Foster school of business. Both have amazing MBA programs with a very strong tech recruitment foundation.