Director
Joined: 02 Nov 2009
Affiliations: Columbia, Wharton, LBS
Posts: 591
Schools:Harvard, Stanford, LBS, Columbia, Wharton, HEC Paris
Re: Profile Evaluation , also suggestions needed
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29 May 2013, 04:06
Thanks for your posting.
To start off with, you are in a very competitive demographic group - Indian males who studied engineering who work in IT. This means that no matter where you apply, you are going to have a lot of competition. Also, it means that anything that you can do to distinguish yourself from the large number of similar candidates who apply is definitely going to help you in the admissions process. We work with many Indian IT professionals and all have high ambition but the real challenge is finding the right schools to apply to. I know that ISB is appealing on many fronts - however, there are so many Indian IT professionals who apply that the acceptance rates are very low. There are many other attractive alternatives in Europe, Asia and North America. I encourage candidates with your background to seriously consider the better programs in Canada -- they are excellent and are the most open to Indian candidates. Most top programs in the United States are flooded with applicants so we often finding the right programs is challenging.
The other big problem with IT candidates is that they have difficulty marketing themselves properly to admissions - and generally submit sub-par applications. I would recommend investing the time, energy and resources to make sure that your application properly reflects your goals, motivations and potential. This is the one area where Indian candidates can really distinguish themselves, but far too few take this aspect of the application process seriously - admissions to graduate business school is far less numerically driven that what you are familiar with.
Good luck.
Kimberly Plaga
Senior Admissions Consultant
Manhattan Review