ISB profile review

Question

Hi,

I am a chartered accountant with 2 years experience in corporate taxation from KPMG Mumbai. I have moved on to a strategy and operations roleinan FMCG start up in the last 6 months. I moved on from tax to get first hand experience from the business side of things and hence joined a start-up. I need a business education fr the future if iwant to start something on my own. Would request you to analyse my profile and let me know my chances at ISB or a top 20 B-shool in the USA.

GMAT: 690 (Q44 V39)
10th: 86%
12th: 78%
Bcom: 82%
Chartered Accountant -first attempt pass

Thank you

MBAkarma · Answer

Hello Dhruv17111992 The info provided is limited for a detailed feedback, however I'll give you some pointers. ISB will evaluate your profile holistically on admission factors mentioned here . If we break down your profile on the info given this is what we get- 1. Academic potential- Though your CA background may help and past grades are decent, your GMAT is below average that that of ISB. With work ex on the slightly lower side and to stand out in the applicant pool a 720+ is recommended. Or you will need a spike in all the other 3 factors mentioned below. 2. Quality of Work Ex- As mentioned above, your work ex is slightly on the lower side. Though not a deal breaker by any means, you will need to show career progression, achievements and business impact of your work. Also, why would you wish to pursue an MBA so soon into a new job where you shifted to primarily learn the ropes of the business. With the given info it is tough to identify a spike. 3. Diversity- Many CAs apply to ISB. What unique perspective will you bring to the class? your work ex and more importantly your extracurricular activities will be helpful to differentiate you. Please write more around your ECs. This becomes crucial as the very first essay asks about diversity. Again not easy to identify a spike here. 4. Career Goals- You have just joined a startup with the intent to learn, then why MBA now? The story will need to show organic movement. ISB will need to understand your career goals more specifically and why is an MBA an absolute necessity to reach these goals. You could supplement your research by reading here. . You need to be off the charts on at least 3 out of 4 factors. Except acads most info is missing or tough to evaluate in its current form. To success your essays will need to show excellent career progress, achievements, extracurricular and tie a story as to why now is the right time to go for an MBA. Coming to the other part of your question around top 20 in US, well the scenario becomes a little more competitive in that case. I'd recommend to bump up your GMAT for those definitely. Let me know if you have any questions. Best Varun Sharma +919137133507 Free Profile Review MBAkarma.com GMAT Score Predictor info@mbakarma.com

ISBeacon · Answer

Hi Dhruv, while your current GMAT score is  not  a show-stopper, see if you can  re-attempt  the exam to push your overall score by 20-30 points or more ( Quant  is clearly an area of improvement). This will further your chances in ISB as well as US b-schools.

While your experience is slightly on the  lower  side, a consistent academic record, including passing CA in first attempt, will help your cause in ISB.

You seem to be quite  clear  in terms of why you need MBA fulfill your professional goals, and what specifically you are looking for. Make sure you  articulate  this well, in your essays.

ABatExpertsGlobal · Answer

Hi  Dhruv17111992 ,

Thanks for your query.

The Chartered Accountancy degree, as well as the work-experience with KPMG sound good. However, besides mentioning your reason for joining the start-up, you will need to connect your career choices with your career goals, which are missing from your post. ISB needs to know why you want an MBA and what you intend to do post the same. Hence, while your essays should be representative of your overall skills, achievements, and leadership experience (if any), they should also speak about a well-defined set of short-term and long-term goals that align with your existing profile.

To add to the above, we would recommend a GMAT re-take. A 690 is about 20 points under the average at ISB and considering you belong to an over-represented pool of applicants, a higher GMAT score will help boost your chances.

With regard to applying to the top-20 US programs, we would certainly recommend a GMAT retake.

All the best!

Hima_MBA · Answer

Hi ,

I have a ~4 years of work ex in analytics and GMAT of 710(Q50, V35). My exp. is across 3 companies. My work has is focused around providing analytical solutions for business problems. Can you pls. evaluate my profile and tell me what are my chances at ISB? Thanks a lot in advance.

MBAkarma · Answer

Hello Hima_MBA Please mention more about your career progression, achievements at work, extracurricular activities and career goals for a meaningful feedback. You can read here why these are as important as your GMAT. Best Varun Sharma +919137133507 Free Profile Review MBAkarma.com GMAT Score Predictor info@mbakarma.com

Hima_MBA · Answer

Thanks for the quick reply. Below is a quick summary of the pointers you mentioned and I will build my essays in these directions. Please let me know your opinion on if I stand a chance at ISB? Thanks again.

Career Progression: I have started as a Trainee decision scientist and now I am working as a Sr. Analyst. I had 3 job roles in my career spanning over 4 years. I started my career in analytics with Mu Sigma where I learned the basics of analytics and used to work on Analytics side of designing Marketing strategies from scratch. Now as a senior analyst I handle identifying potential business opportunities to finding the root cause of business problems.Each year I progressed by taking up more responsibilities.

Achievement at work: This is the tricky part as all my promotions were after changing companies. In my final company I have a few awards but most of them are to given to the group as a whole. My team size is 3 . Do you think the group awards matter?

Extra curricular activities: I have always been an active member in sports and social service. In college I was part of the relevant clubs. During my working career as well, I am active in sport and have even conducted portfolio level competitions.

Career Goals: Till now my experience is analytics focused but varies across multiple domain such as airlines, social media and Banking. Through MBA I want to improve my thinking horizons and develop into a leader.

MBAkarma · Answer

hello  Hima_MBA

Please see my replies in-line in  Blue

Hima_MBA · Answer

Thanks a lot for the overview. This is really helpful!!

Tarunesh · Answer

Hi 
Kindly review my profile

Academics;
 10th - 84
 12th - 78
 Btech (Computer Science) ,DIT ,Dehradun (2006-10) : 63%
 Masters in Development Studies (TISS,Mumbai) ,2013-15 - 6.3/10
 GMAT or GRE not taken yet ( need advice on this ,how much minimum should I target)

Work ex: 3 years as a software engineer in an IT company (2010-13), 2 years in government of rajasthan(2015-17) ,close to one year in M.P government(Aug 2017- present)
 I was interested in social sector ,went to TISS for masters and then worked as Young Professional in Rajasthan state rural livelihood mission (Dept of rural development & panchayati raj,govt of rajasthan) from May 2015- May 2017 .There I worked for implementing National Rural Livelihood Mission .Main task was assisting district and state teams in capacity building(trainings to community cadre) ,institution building (SHG's,etc),financial inclusion ,livelihood intervention etc.
 Currently(Since Aug 2017) I am working as C.M Fellow in Government of Madhya Pradesh .I am working as a capacity of chief minister's research associate closely analyzing policy of state government and giving feedback on the same. i have conducted various assessment study of policies and schemes of govt. of india and govt of madhya pradesh.Here I am closely working with bureaucrats and also assisting the district collector of a district. I also have firsthand experience of conducting quantitative and qualitative research.
I want to pursue MBA to switch into international development consultancy.I believe MBA will give thrust to my career as I have been at grassroot and policy level and would be completing 4 years in this sector when I join ISB in 2019 and also I am seeking to remain in the social sector as a consultant after MBA.
looking at my profile .Do i have a chance to get into ISB Or can you please suggest other options which I can look into?

MBAkarma · Answer

Hello Tarunesh Your work experience looks very interesting and unique- will definitely help you stand out as a diverse applicant. However, not very convinced how an MBA from ISB really ties in here. You will need a convincing story to put forward linking your past skills/experience and future goals with an emphatic need for an MBA. (You could read more here on career goals ) Though not very crucial in your case, bring out extracurricular activities that you have been involved in. Lastly, though recommending a single score is tough without understanding your profile on a qualitative level, I'll say target a 700+ and you stand a very good chance. This score will also help compensate for the average past academic scores. Needless to say, tie all the admission factors mentioned here in your story/essays. Should you have further questions, feel free to reach out. Best Varun Sharma +919137133507 Free Profile Review MBAkarma.com GMAT Score Predictor info@mbakarma.com

OC2910 · Answer

Hi, 
please review my profile for good colleges(IIM A/B/C /ISB/top 20 across the world )
Basics
26 year male Indian
Xth = 80.2%
XIIth=85.5%
GPA = 7.83/10(Mechanical engineering from good private Indian university)
GMAT :680(q47/V36  abysmal IR -1  ,AWA-5)
Work experience 
4.5 years till now in a thermal power plant (core operations) handling operations of 2 x 300 MW power plant. 
Received many accolades and most number of spot recognition awards in the entire plant. 
promotion :twice 
Twice won best technical suggestion of the month

Also member of contingency team- providing help and suggestion at various departments of plant helping departments to smooth their functioning

Extracurricular 
won essay competition at corporate level 5 years in a row .
Organised annual meets, sports meets and technical meets for company along with hr team as a part of personal interest (love event management) 
Organised fests and clubs at college level also. 
Junior corporate level badminton and cricket player but had to leave due to injury
actively involved in companies CSR activities for helping the villages and poor children(our new project is of village digitization)

Thinking of MBA to have career in techno commercial field (mid management or junior management role)

MBAkarma · Answer

Hello StrugglingGmat2910 Your past acads look decent and your work ex shows potential in career progress and achievements. This is what makes good fodder for the essays, however, one will need to understand this in depth for a better feedback. Same is the case with extracurricular- look decent on paper, can work in your favor if you show your contribution and impact in these activities. Though I understand you wish to move into a managerial position from a technical one currently, be more specific. What sort of roles? Why is an MBA needed, why can't you progress on that path organically? Lastly coming to your GMAT- it may just work for ISB/IIM A/BC/ if you put together a strong application, even though you are below the school's average. ISB does not consider IR so should not be an issue. But for Top 20 across the world, 680 is going to be a real challenge. I'd recommend is 720+ in that case. Needless to say you will need to strengthen all the factors mentioned here in your application. Best Varun Sharma +919137133507 Free Profile Review MBAkarma.com GMAT Score Predictor info@mbakarma.com

ABatExpertsGlobal · Answer

Hi Tarunesh , Thanks for your query. Your differentiated profile will be very advantageous

Moreover, your work experience in both the corporate and public sectors will enable you to put forth a varied skill-set and allow you to have a number of talking points in your essays. Having said the above, the career goals and the need for MBA will be the most crucial elements of your profile and will need to be addressed in an appropriate manner. A compelling story will need to be drafted and the career goals will have to be in complete sync with the same. At the same time, how ISB will fit in with the overall scheme of things will be important as well

With regard to the GMAT score, you must definitely aim for a score upwards of a 700!

Also, to answer your question..of course, you have a good chance at receiving an ISB interview call provided you take care of the above-mentioned aspects. Should you feel then need for a detailed discussion, feel free to reach out to us. All the best!

yamato · Answer

the chartered accountancy I think is a big plus, and quite impressive. you're so close to a gmat 700, i'd say focus your efforts on getting over that- but even if you don't, I think you're still competitive for ISB

henryford · Answer

Hello,

Please evaluate my profile.

From India an Software Engineer by profession .

Age : 27

GMAT Score : Preparing and planning to apply in R2

Education : B.Sc Computers - 88% ; MS Software Engineering : 6.2/10 GPA

Experience: 7years in IT firm , worked in 9 different projects with Banking and Finance,MEDIA,Retail,Insurance sectors.

Am currently in team lead position in one of the top IT indian firm ,am leading a team of 12 and previously 22 number team and completed the deliveribles and got best team award once . I haveworked with multiple clients around the world but never a direct collaboration has happened .

I may have not achived in my current career is because am totally not intrested and not happy with work am doing , since i was always having the intrest in pursue my dream , which even helped me start a part time e commerce website after one year of hardwork it was a complete failure and greatest lesson in mylife which made me to think i need to do MBA to pursue my dream so after 1 year of research i have determined to pursue it but having so many hurdles to achieve it .

This is the reason my profile doesn't look that much glittering . So is there a chance for. my profile .

Target Schools :Harvard,Stanford,Booth,LBS,ISB/INSEAD/HEC Paris

WHY MBA and WHY AT THIS MOMENT : From my childhood I have interest & passion in business related topics or discussions and ,I want to attend the GMAT this year since with my research understood that work experience is consider an add-on to land in Top Business Schools .

Am I eligible to apply to the target schools

Please provide your valuable feed back .

MBAkarma · Answer

Hello henryford First things first- if you keep feeling that way about your past work life, you will certainly face issues in identifying the right stories (success/achievements etc). And selecting the right stories is primary in order to make your written application strong. The schools on your list give significant importance to the quality and depth of past work experience (namely, career progress, achievements, business impact etc) Secondly, while I understand that you are still preparing for the GMAT, but if you plan to apply in R2 I would go ahead and assume you would be in the last leg of you prep. What sort of score are you expecting. Though there is no magic number, it helps to be above par (especially for Indians from the IT background). The par score for some of these schools is 710 while for others it is 730, so that means you must aim for a pretty high score. Third, while on a personal level I relate to your goals- surely this is not the reason that you are going to present to the admissions committee In the current form, the career goals narrative is pretty weak. You will need to be more specific, why the need of an MBA, where will it land your post B School and what is your career's vision for the next 10 years. Then add to it why you want to study at a specific B School- how will that help. Lastly, it will help if you can touch up on extracurricular activities and your contribution in the same. It will bring the much needed diversity to your profile. The schools on your list are supposed to be the most selective schools in the world and they will expect you to be an achiever on Academics, GMAT, Work Experience and Diversity. This will need to be backed up with clear career goals. You may want to read here on the factors that matter in your written application and here on career goals. The info given is very limited (missing career goals, missing GMAT, missing work related achievements, missing extracurricular) and based on this giving any sort of meaningful feedback is tough. The schools look challenging in the light of available information, but any new info may change that. Best Varun Sharma +919137133507 MBAkarma.com GMAT Score Predictor info@mbakarma.com

Dementer · Answer

Hi Guys

Please evaluate my profile.
Target School :ISB Hyderabad

10th:93.1%
12th:86.2%
Engineering: 72%( International Institute of Information Technology, Bhubaneswar)
GMAT:670(Q49,V33)

EDUCATION
Delhi Public School, Bhilai -10th and 12th
International Institute of Information Technology, Bhubaneswar, India May 2017
Bachelor of Technology(B.Tech) – Computer Science & Engineering
Secured rank in mid 1500s in Odisha JEE Entrance exam

WORK EXPERIENCE
Dell Technologies, Karnataka, India Jul 2017 – Present

Senior Analyst/Software Developer 2 – Sales Order Pipeline ,Enterprise Business Intelligence
Oct 2019 – Present.
• Took the ownership to learn a new technology and worked in collaboration with support team to fix the orphan ongoing issues including incorrect population of exchange rate affecting the revenue directly
• Handled several enhancements, problem fixes, Data Quality issues across various Big Data Platforms | Educated or clarified multiple business users on the data and process to help them understand the concept of negative revenue in Sales
• Developed knowledge base by creating around 50+ documents from support experience thereby reducing around 200+ production defects and around 500+ recurring failures.
• Enabled automated deployment for the team across multiple environments| Educated the team on the same and currently frequency of deployments has increased from once a month to almost every alternate day | Reducing the 100+ man hours involved every time
• Conceptualized 15+ agile techniques to enhance Quotes process thereby improving the performance and reducing the manual efforts by 50+ man hours during weekends per month and 100+ man hours during quarter end.
• Led a team of 5 to deliver end to end solution which leveraged live Orders data using streaming solutions and latest technology available in the market with 100% clean deployment. The solution is being used by 20+ business analytics teams and around 10000+ users for their reporting purposes. Thereby reducing the gap in reporting. The most appreciated effort was making the audit logging table to process millions of records in near real time from transactional systems | Trained external members and business stakeholders as part of Knowledge Transfer.
• Been a Sales and Orders champion during one of the Database failures | Led and represented the teams and worked along with the platform teams to repair the DB and make the data available to around 9000+ users across multiple workspaces.
• Currently working in devising a solution to parse real time dynamic Jsons (using Scala, Spark and Kafka) from transactional systems which captures an order’s line and populate it in various Big Data platforms to cater 10000+ users with Order’s lifeline Data.
• Worked closely with platform team and business stakeholders to improve various process, remove unwanted objects thereby reducing 50TB space in the database | Provided recommendations on improving the availability of reports and the stability of the production environments.
• Currently I am also playing the role of a backup team lead and a backup program manager
• Have Interviewed various candidates for various positions and for various teams across the organization | Led CSR efforts for the team and have participated in various CSR events in my tenure in Dell

Software Developer 1 – Core/Orders Dev Team, Enterprise Business Intelligence
Nov 2018 – Sep 2019
• Took the stretch assignment of designing a Tableau dashboard for real time monitoring of 54+ transactional systems in a one single view | Produced 10+ reports which bolstered decision making of leadership team.
• Innovated a process to produce automated alerts for all the critical jobs and regular status mails for the leadership team using shell scripting which resulted in quicker and more efficient fixes leading to an improvement in the response time of critical errors by 80%
• In the FY 2019-2020 Independently achieved 100% resolution of 500 business critical incidents across multiple Big Data Platforms impacting multiple business critical reporting and
• In the absence of the key SME delivered a project single handedly from end to end with 100% success rate and communicate the business with regular updates. This project helped to resolve the corrupt Dell Customers database and fixed 10+ business reports.
• Developed a Dashboard for VP sales in a day’s time to track the performance of each sales representative sorted by managers. Bolstered decision making for the sales team and plan out ways to groom the lower performing sales rep.
• Worked tirelessly with platform team for multiple database migrations, cleanup activities, functional upgrades to improve the current system as much as possible | Reduced around 40TB + space and increased the throughput of data by 45% through such activities

Analyst – L3 Support Team, Enterprise Business Intelligence
Jul 2017 – Oct 2018
• Joined the highest level of support in the org as the first fresher and got the opportunity to dig in production defects and problems in the 1st few months itself | Resolved a record number of 15 critical incidents in a week resolving 1000+ daily failures.
• Independently achieved 100% resolution of 500 business critical incidents across multiple Big Data Platforms impacting multiple business critical reporting
• Liaised with cross functional teams to expedite data migration of 15+ datasets in 9 months.
• Collaborated with other areas of support (infrastructure, source systems, business support etc.) to resolve high impact events in a timely manner, to provide recommendations on improving the availability of reports and the stability of the production environments | Collaborated with outside departments to implement system-wide improvements.
• First point of contact for customer escalations and actively communicate on the progress. Learn the priorities from the customer and business impact related to RUN failures.
• Went beyond regular work and fixed a critical sales opportunity issue where revenue of $84824284.700 and 1017 deals were missing by working and coordinating closely with business stakeholders, managers, sales VPs, Sales & IT support teams.
• Participated and organized a number of CSR event in and off campus where we have helped a number of NGOs, orphans and Old Age homes in and around Bangalore ,India

OTHER ACTIVITIES & INTERESTS
• Achieved Vice president’s award for outstanding performance in a quarter at Dell.
• Have been awarded with multiple cash and non-cash awards at my tenure in dell amounting to a total around 15+ awards in my entire tenure
• Received Scholar badge and a scholar blazer for exemplary performance at school for 6 consecutive years.
• Won awards for drawing and painting at school, state, and national level.
• Participated and represented Sierra Leone in IIIT -Mun. Around 100+ delegates participated
• Won a number of coding competitions at IIIT Bhubaneswar
• Stood 1st position in National level Essay writing competition.
• Secured 85% marks in Annual all India GK Test in the year 2006
• Won multiple Cricket and Football competitions at School and College.
• Handled the position of hospitality head and sponsorship head in the annual tech cult fest Advaita in my college | Led a team of 20 folks to take care of all the hospitality work during the 4 days of the fest and brought in a sponsorship of around 2.5 lakhs for the fest
• Organized the cultural and Technical fest (Advaita ‘16) in IIIT Bhubaneswar.
• Organized various technical competitions at college
• Achieved certification from H.P on Network Management & Security
• Completed Industrial based training from Bhilai Steel Plant, S.A.I.L
• Organized a Blood donation camp in college where 200 + students donated blood.
• Owns the photography account (shutter_venom) in instagram
• Languages: Fluent in English, Hindi, Oriya.

PRI23YA · Answer

Hi, could you please evaluate my profile for ISB? I'm planning to apply for Class'24

Profile:
- 25yr old, female from Hyderabad, India.
- Education: 10.0 in class X (CBSE); 94% in XII (CBSE-Delhi public School); BBA-9.8 GPA (IBS Hyderabad)
- GRE: 337 (Q 170, V 167), given in 2022
- 3 yrs corporate work ex around Financial services (Dell Technologies and United Technologies, as a Financial Analyst) and 1 year into Family's construction business as a Purchase Executive.

Questions: 
- Should I take GMAT or does this GRE score suffice the requirement? 
- Should I include my family business exposure in my resume or would that push my profile back relatively? 
- How else do I improvise my profile if there are any blanks that need to be worked on?

MBAkarma ,  ABatExpertsGlobal ,  ISBeacon  ; Anyone and everyone is welcome to help me with your reviews and suggestions. Much appreciate your help.

ISBeacon · Answer

337! Holy cow! That's  massive . With even a reasonably decent application, you are  in  lady!

Absolutely no reason to take GMAT, especially after a breath-taking, heart-stopping, lip-smacking 337 on GRE.

This needs to be discussed. If this was part time and has no relevance to your future goals, I would skip it.

Just perform well in your office/work-surroundings. Most components of your profile are in place already anyway.

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