Hey a2105,

You have got a decent profile with your background in economics research in the financial services industry and your undergraduate education (hopefully in economics I suppose) all of which will typically fall in the underrepresented segment of the application pool. You test scores and details of your experience are not mentioned and hence it will be difficult to provide a detailed assessment of your profile. From the looks of it you are applying to too many schools so the first advice would be to have a more targeted approach for your school shortlisting, ideally 5-7 schools should be good enough with a mix of ambitious and safe choices. Since you have a desire to be a part of the Financial Services industry, keep in mind that bulk of the roles are in the Investment Banking space (will be close to 70%) and the remaining split between PE/VC/AM and Corp Banking, so purely from a probability perspective you will have higher chances landing an IB gig although there are candidates who do manage to score a good AM gig. Cant stress on the importance of being in NY, Chicago for the purpose of cracking that AM role, since they rely heavily on networking and entail extensive ground work. Thus, would suggest have some of the schools in these areas or close by in mind while thinking about your application strategy. Also, most of these schools would require a GMAT north of 740 from Indian candidates, so do have that factor at the back of your mind . Do hedge your bets with some other schools that have a strong recruiting pipeline for the financial services industry.

Hope that helps? Do reach out at info@thembaedge.com in case if you want to have a more detailed conversation.

All the best!

Thanks.

My undergraduate degree is in the field of Economics and Finance, from University of London. I have a Upper second (2:1).

I have a 640 on the GMAT as of now. I understand this is low, wanted to assess my possibilities as of now