Ask MBA Admit - Dr. Shel Watts

Hi Dr. Shel Watts,

Thank you so much for taking out time and responding to my query. I do plan to retake the gmat sometime in end July or mid august and I hope to improve my score to 1 730+. However I was wondering how my profile looks currently at my targeted schools and also which schools should I prioritize in round 1 (feel free to mention schools not on the list). I do not have too many people around me who are planning to pursue an MBA from abroad hence I really appreciate your help.

Thank you.

Hello all,
We have recently posted some articles regarding the GMAT. Feel free to sign up for our MBA Admit Newsletter on our website's homepage to get our most recent Newsletter that contains 6 articles about the GMAT. https://mbaadmit.com We are posting one of those articles here.

Feel free to also visit our website to benefit from free webinars. Recent topics include Getting Into the Top-10 MBA Programs; Overriding a Low GPA; and Overriding a Low GMAT Score. https://mbaadmit.com/webinars/

Best wishes,
Dr. Shel, MBA Admit.com


My Quant Score is Below 80th Percentile – Test Again?

In the past 18 months, it has been relatively hard for candidates to score in the 80s (percentile) on the quant part of the GMAT exam. The raw score of 50 often correlates with an 88th percentile performance in quant, while a raw score of 49 often correlates with a 79th percentile performance in quant! That is a big difference in percentile ranking.

So, for the candidate who only scores at the 74th or 79th percentile in quant, is your quest for admissions to a top US MBA program futile? No! A score of 47-51 on quant is a solid performance. Your profile (under-represented vs. over-represented) may impact whether the admissions committee at one of the Top-10 business schools will accept a quant score in the low-70s (percentile), but given where the raw score places you and the fact that there was little room for improvement on the raw score, you should not assume a GMAT score in the low-70s (percentile) will cause an automatic rejection. The admissions committee will likely assess that score in the context of your entire GMAT performance (IR especially) and your entire academic and professional record (how strong your college grades were, if you have excelled in quantitative courses or professional work, etc.). Plenty of candidates have made it into the Top-5 business schools in the last two years with quant scores on the GMAT that placed them in the 70s by way of percentile.


Need assistance with your MBA applications? Please contact us at info@mbaadmit.com

Would you like a free profile evaluation? Fill out the profile evaluation form on our homepage at https://mbaadmit.com.

To benefit from our free webinars, click https://mbaadmit.com/webinars/.

Best wishes,
Dr. Shel (Shelly Watts)
President, MBA Admit.com
https://www.mbaadmit.com
Email: info@mbaadmit.com

Hello all,
We have recently posted some articles regarding the Harvard essay and application. Feel free to sign up for our MBA Admit Newsletter on our website's homepage to get our most recent Newsletter that contains articles about Harvard's admissions. https://www.mbaadmit.com We are posting one of those articles here.

Feel free to also visit our website to benefit from free webinars. Recent topics include Getting Into the Top-10 MBA Programs; Overriding a Low GPA; and Overriding a Low GMAT Score. https://mbaadmit.com/webinars/

Best wishes,
Dr. Shel, MBA Admit.com




HBS: 8 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Application

When applying to Harvard Business School, it is a given you should have strong academic credentials. It is a given that your GMAT should be solid, preferably with a strong quant score. It is a given you should have valuable experiences and that ideally you will not have yet “aged out” of the ideal age range for the HBS program. But these are often “necessary” but not “sufficient” requirements of the typical successful HBS applicant.

They are not “sufficient” because, even if you have all of the above, you can still fail to gain admission to HBS – and there are several common reasons why some candidates fail to make it into the 11% of applicants who are granted admission to HBS. Consider 8 of the most common flaws in HBS applications:

1. Failing to focus somewhere in the application/essays/recommendations on your successful leadership
2. Failing to note your desire to make a notable impact in the future
3. Failing to draw solid attention to your key selling point(s) and stress them
4. Failing to convey evidence of your intellectual curiosity, analytical rigor and originality of thought
5. Failing to highlight somewhere in the application/essays/recommendations your proven teamwork capabilities
6. Failing to convey proof that you have been a top performer in your professional career
7. Failing to distinguish yourself from the pack of similar-profile applicants
8. Failing to provide two stellar recommendations (one flat recommendation can close the door!)

Be mindful of these common flaws as you put your HBS application together!



Need assistance with your MBA applications? Please contact us at info@mbaadmit.com

Would you like a free profile evaluation? Fill out the profile evaluation form on our homepage at https://mbaadmit.com.

To benefit from our free webinars, click https://mbaadmit.com/webinars/.

Best wishes,
Dr. Shel (Shelly Watts)
President, MBA Admit.com
https://www.mbaadmit.com
Email: info@mbaadmit.com

ShellyLWatts , Please evaluate my profile:

Introduction
I am a 28 year old Indian male working in Canada for last 3 years in a top tier aerospace company. I intend to apply to top 15 schools for MBA in USA.

GMAT Score
650 (Q49, V30, AWA 6, IR 7)
690 (Q49, V34, AWA 5.5, IR 4)
750 (Q49, V44, AWA awaited, IR 6)

Education
- UG GPA: 74.6% (top 10%)
- Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering
- Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi, India
- Won many extra curricular awards
- Master's GPA: 3.53
- Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering (Thesis based), 2 publications.
- McGill University, Canada

Work Experience
3.5 Years in a top tier Aerospace Company (Employs 30,000+ people and has 100 sites across the world)
- Working as Lead Certification Analyst (certify interiors for business jets for their structural integrity), making sure that the products conform to the regulations and industry standards.
- Manage a team of 5 engineers (for 1 program) and indirectly a team of 10 engineers (for 2 programs)
- Promoted to the above post after only 10 months of experience, pay raises double the usual amount for the past 2 years.
- Led 2 teams of 3 engineers each to oversee update of important company directives, guidelines and manuals that dictate the manufacturing and quality standards of the company.

Strong International Exposure
- Lived, Studied, Worked and travelled to multiple countries
- Nominated (only engineer) to go to France and USA to represent the facility at intra-company conferences and international symposiums
- Worked in International teams and leading a team of Engineers (located in UK, USA, France and Germany) to develop next set of methodologies that will save the company a lot of money once implemented.

Extracurriculars
- Tutoring kids at risk subjects such as Maths, Science and English from grades 3 to 12 (been close to 10 months now, 4-6 hours per week, volunteer basis).
- Team member of company's soccer team
- Teach professional and technical English (related to Aerospace Industry, both written and spoken) to colleagues after work
- Learning French and Spanish over the weekends
- Member of tennis and squash teams of YMCA and play as a member of Montreal Squash League
- Teach colleagues from work tennis after work
- Leading a team of 15 volunteers since 2013-14 for a community heart and eye checkup camp , held once every year for 3 days. This is a free event for anyone who wants to participate.

Post-MBA Goal
I plan to transition from Engineering based role to a management / strategy role in retail/technology. I wish to leverage my experience of leading diverse teams and apply the vast knowledge, exposure and experience I have gained in managing different product portfolios in retail/technology.

Target Schools

- Columbia (Early Decision)
- Chicago Booth
- Stanford
- UCLA
- UC Berkeley
- Wharton
- Cornell
- NY Stern
- Kellogg
- Duke Fuqua (Early Decision)
- Michigan Ross
- CMU Tepper
- Yale SOM

All the above schools Round 1 or Round 2 , 2015, Full Time MBA

Questions
1. Do you think I have a decent shot at the school of my choice (listed above). It will be of immense help to me if you can categorize the schools above as
1) Not possible, forget about it!
2) Good Chance
3) Not at all easy but can be given a shot

2. Also please advise which schools I should target in Round 1 and in Round 2?.
3. Please also advise which other schools (not listed above) will help me achieve my career goals.

Hi Dr.Wats,

Request you to analyze profile and provide your thoughts on schools I am targeting.

27 year Indian male with 4 years of full-time experience in Sales and Marketing consulting (Analytics).

GMAT1 – 710 (Q49 V38)
GMAT2 – 730 (Q48 V42)

Engineering graduate from a top10 Indian tech school (Non-IIT)

GPA 8/10 (Top 15%)

Worked for a niche consulting firm focused on Pharma sales and marketing.

Significant experience in innovation: wrote self-learning algorithm for a data science-based iPad app for sales reps that suggests what message he/she should give individual HCPs based on the HCP’s preferences. The app has been a huge success and the firm has managed to secure $2MM worth projects in just 2 months after completing the POC (featured in yahoo finance and multiple other media, multiple projects are in the pipeline)

Significant leadership experience – Have lead small (1-2 associates) to med size teams (5-6 associates) on multiple client engagements (most of the times I have managed multiple projects at the same time)

Collaborated with diverse teams – data science team and tech teams to develop the app

Additionally, I have worked part-time (~2 years) as a co-coordinator for an education startup, developing the curriculum for it using Learning Management System and Gamification. Helped it with the marketing strategy as well.

Currently working on my startup and launching in the next 2 months.

Extra-Cur : Chief coordinator of tech fest (attended by ~10,000 students from all over India) organized by grad school

Short term goal – Work in Management Consulting (MBB) advising hi-tech/tech startups on growth strategies
for a few years before taking an internal strategy role in a tech firm (facebook/google)

Long term goal – Start a tech based analytics firm to support sales and marketing problems for pharma/CPG/FMCG/tech firms

Target schools R1 – MIT Sloan, Darden, Tuck, Ross, UCLA Anderson
R2 - Fuqua, Kellogg MMM (If not possible in R1)

Dr. Shel,

Hoping you can shed some insight on the feasibility of my application to my target schools.

Target to start school in Fall 2017

US Citizen, Asian Male, will be 26 in Fall 2016

GMAT Score
1.) 660 (Q48, V32, AWA 6, IR 7)
2.) 680 (Q49, V34, AWA 5.5, IR 7 [The poster above me got a 690 with the same split )

Education
- UG GPA: 3.5
- Economics Major, Math Minor
- US Liberal Arts College (Top 20)
- College EC's: 4 Year Varsity Athlete (captain senior year), Co-founder of a club sport that competed at club nationals, Managing editor of school paper, Economics peer tutor, Held on campus job (10-15 hours/week)
- Honors: Economic honor society, academic scholar awards, team scholar, etc.

Work Experience (in Fall 2016)
-1 Year at a leading global bank in a finance/risk rotational training program
-1 Year at the same bank doing both Corporate Banking and M&A Origination for consumer/retail sector
-2 Years at a top bulge bracket bank doing corporate development (recently promoted to associate, manage team of analysts)

Extracurricular Activities
- Volunteer for a non-profit to teach swim lessons for impoverished inner city kids. Also assist CEO of the non-profit to create budgets and crunch numbers to evaluate opportunities to expand program
- Career adviser to current college students (resume review, advice, etc.)
- Fitness: working out, running 5ks
- Learning guitar

Post-MBA Goal
- Corporate strategy at a company focused on health/lifestyle (would rather work on the internal side of things, but may have to do a few years in management consulting)

Target Schools
- Haas (top choice)
- Sloan
- Tuck
- Kellogg
- Yale SOM
- Booth
- Fuqua
- Ross
- Darden


1.) Would I be competitive at Haas and these other schools?
2.) Would it be worth taking the GMAT again in a few months to hit 700+ (boost overall score by raising Verbal)?
3.) What do you think I should do in the next year to better position myself and increase my chances of being accepted?

Hi,

I would like to apply for 1 Year Full Time MBA Programme. I request you to go through my profile and provide your valuable guidance for admission & scholarship details.

The schools i am targeting are:

1. Indian Institute of Management
2. Indian School of Business
3. Nanyang
4. NUS
5. Melbourne B School
6. London Business School
7. HKUST
8. Hong Kong University
9. CEIBS.
10. SDA Boccioni

Any other please let me know.

Hey,

Can you please help me in evaluating my profile :

Indian female

Grades :
Xth - 91%
XIIth - 88% ( Have been on scholarship since class 8th in school)
Undergrad ( NIT kurukshetra<Top 25 Engineering Schools in India> ) - 7.93/10 (2008-2012) Gpa 4.0 according to WES
GMAT - 720 (Q50, V38, IR5)

Work experience -
* Have been working in Samsung from the past 3 years
Have had 2 promotions in 3 years
First as a software developer, then moved into Pre-sales consulting owing to my interest in Marketing.
In that I worked with Samsung Sales division in APAC regions, assisted clients and partners in Dubai, SA, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Singlehandedly set up a whole Enterprise business conclave in India marketing Regional HQ, Worked with directors of engineering of Hyatt, Oberoi, and Taj hotels.
Demonstrated Samsung solutions in events, conclaves, summits to CXO's of different verticals.

* Member of cultural commitee in Samsung, Won the best innovative project of the Quarter for a project, Winner of many cultural competitions held in Office.

Extra Curriculars -
* Won accolades for Dance from age 6, Working as a dance instructor in a Dance studio.
* 2 District level prizes in Arts, College level athlete( won 10 medals ) in NIT sports meet' 09, '10, '11
* Head of 3 committees in tech and cultural national level fests in NIT.
* Started a society for teaching Underprivileged children of College's workers. This has been published in a local newspaper of Kurukshetra.
* Working as a UN online volunteer for a research project on Women Situation in Thailand.
* Represented North Zone ( 4 states ) In a national level General knowledge Quiz held in Hyd.
* 1 district level prize in Analytical ability (scholarship given).

Working on my startup idea as well ( It would be completed by the end of the year )

Post Mba goal - I want to enter into Brand management or marketing.

My target schools are - Kellogg 1 year program, ISB, Insead, HEC paris, NUS, NTU.
I even want a partial scholarship for these programs.

Can you please tell me about the shortcomings in my profile and how can I be the good fit for these above schools?

Do I need to hire consultant for the essays or should I try writing them on your own?

Hey Dr. Watts,

Thank you so much for taking out the time to evaluate my profile. My credentials are:

Gender : Male
Nationality : Indian
Age : 29 years

Academics :
Xth - 83%
XIIth - 87%
Graduation : Chemical engineer from IIT Delhi (Consistently ranked among the top 2 engineering universities in India) - CGPA - 6.5/10

GMAT - 740

Work experience :

Total 48 months

* 1 year 8 months as a Proprietary trader at one of the largest prop trading firms in India. Not very famous outside India though.
* 2 years 2 months as cofounder of an educational startup that grew to 60,000 monthly users. Did not not raise venture funding. The startup has been closed.
* Managing director of family investment firm for the past 6 months. This is part-time so I don't really know how much it counts.

Extra Curriculars :

* Director of a family run Non Profit organisation that is working towards the prevention and eradication of Encephalitis. It's a small organisation currently and work has been limited to 3 districts in India.
* Captain of hostel soccer team.

International Exposure:

3 months as an International Research scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Activities & Interest:

* Traveling : Have traveled to more than 15 countries. Into exploring cultures and understanding the values and traditions of people living in different parts of our beautiful planet.
* Soccer.

Post MBA goal - Product Management at an established technology company or a high growth startup so that I can learn valuable skills I am currently lacking, and which along with the lessons from my previous startup enable me to create an organisation that significantly improves the lives of people involved.

My target schools are - Wharton, Berkeley, Kellogg, UCLA.

My main considerations are Location (Silicon Valley) and placement in technology companies.

I would love to know your view on my profile, preferably the weaker points and things that can be done to mitigate the weakness in my profile.

Again, thank you for doing this.

Hi I do not intend to retake the gmat. I'm hoping that my non-engineering background along with my decent extra curriculars might offset the lower gmat score. Which schools out of my list should I realistically target? Thanks

Hello Dr. Watts,

Can you please evaluate my profile. Main point are :

Indian male

GMAT Score 710 Q49V38 IR 7, AWA awaited.

X th : 81% out of 100%
XIIth : 76% out of 100%

Undergraduated ( NIT Hamirpur) : 7.66 out of 10 on CGPA scale.

Work Experience : 6 years approx.

Worked in Product company Fibcom India Ltd. (10 month as Engineer).
Worked with VNL India Pvt Ltd ( Product company) for 26 month as a NPI engineer with basic responsibility of product design and Life cycle management.
Now working with a Start-up for last 24 months approx , which include international Work Experience of working with Sagem ( Saffron Group company ) for almost 15 month
My basic concern is my work experience as i have worked with Indian Industry ( except for international assignment) and all small or mid level company.
Can you please suggest some school I can target.
I am interested in General Management or Product Management.

Best Regards,
Pankaj Vashist

Hi Dr Watts,

Hope someone here could evaluate my profile. Thanks in advance!

Age: 27
Country: Philippines
College: Ateneo de Manila University (top private school in the country, think Harvard of the Philippines)
Course: Bachelor of Science in Management Engineering (Honor's Course, requires that an applicant's entrance exam score be on the top 10% of all takers) with a Minor in Finance
GMAT: 670, but retaking again this month
GPA: 3.3 (kind of worried here, but took Advanced Finance courses towards end of my university life, got straight 4s in all 6 subjects, buoying up my overall GPA)

Work experience:
Internship at JP Morgan's IB division (2 months), only one slot for the entire country
2 years consulting at Big 4 firm (KPMG)
1 year at Daiwa Capital Markets (regional IB) -- Institutional Investor Magazine-rated analyst
1 year at UBS Investment Bank (bulge bracket IB) -- Institutional Investor Magazine- and Asia Money Magazine-rated analyst, number 2 most read analyst in the Asia Pacific region, number 1 analyst in a couple of big funds such as Fidelity; collaborated with a lot of buy-side analysts and top management to bring forth valuable insights about the company; also spearheaded one of the biggest private equity deals in the Philippines

Extra-curricular activities:
University
(1) Associate Vice President of largest organisation in the univerisity
(2) Represented University in the Chartered Financial Analyst Investment Research Challenge
Work
(1) Active member of Akyat Aral (where we help communities in the mountains by bringing school supplies and building classrooms, not to mention our latest project, which is to provide solar panels, for the Mangyan Tribe in Mindoro).. also just finished building a classroom for the Dumagat Triube in Nueva Ecija --- I think this is where I will focus on my essays.. wanting to write about an ethical and leadership issue that I faced. It also has a social impact because it involved a politician (very original story)
(2) Ultramarathoner and ultra-tail runner (think 50-100KM races), was also featured by GoPro Philippines and The North Face Philippines.. also coached 6 people to finish their first half-marathon, including someone who was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and someone who was deemed overweight (through BMI)
(3) Holds records for mountaineering feats such as first Filipino to complete Magayon Trio in 3 consecutive days, also led teams to reach the summit of Mt. Pulag and of Mt. Apo

Schools: HBS/Wharton/MIT/Columbia/LBS/Stanford

Post-MBA goals: Work in Private Equity that focuses on retail (as I am a retail analyst to begin with and I believe getting an MBA will give me a general look, bird's eye view of things, rather than focusing on just the finance aspect of a business)

Hoping for your kind response,
D

please evaluate my profile :

Indian Male

Grades :
Xth - 89.5%
XIIth - 89.9%
Undergrad ( DVR college ) - 7.4/10
GMAT 3 - 750 (Q50, V41, IR3)
GMAT 2- 680, GMAT 1- 610, both IR 6

Work experience - Total 6 yrs at the time of admission ( 26 months in I.T. (infosys), 46 months Entrepreneurship)
Business co-owner at a chain of retail marts. directly responsible for over 150 employees
deeply involved in the managerial decisions of a fast growing Real estate company. Involvement includes but not limited to viability calculations, direct marketing to customers, etc

Extra curricula:
-won several debates and school
-consistently awarded for academics throughout school life
-One of the two co-ordinators of a national level technical symposium at college; during this stint i was involved with securing the funds, marketing the event and developing a more convenient and practical web portal along with setting guidelines and placing regulations. The event was covered widely by TV news.

Social responsibility
was member of a social team SNEHAM, through which i taught in remote villages, raised funds as part of secret santa to underprivileged, at Infosys.
many a times worked as a fund raiser for charity, collecting funds from the business community i am closely acquainted with ( both retail and real estate). These funds were donated to IT colleges, merit candidates who have no funds to further their education or any person who is deserving.
pro-bono management consulting to small and medium scale enterprises. i worked with several establishments ranging from hair saloons to restaurants to construction. The thought of directly of indirectly making a difference to several employees under these companies is what propels me to continue doing so.


Failed Startup:
Immediately after quitting my job, i came up with an idea when i found a clear security flaw through which a test prep company’s material could be hacked. Invited 2 other colleagues/ friends of mine to assist me technically. The idea was security/encryption on flash drive. Worked on it for 6 months from having an idea to creating a market to finally coming up with a beta product. Developed the beta product. The business plan was solid. Direct marketing was also elaborate. I was able to get two test prep companies on board with the idea to secure their data that they deliver via USB.I also networked with a scientist in Indian defense organization (DRDO) and garnered immense. We were able to address the security flaw too. It encrypted the data very quickly,But it took lot of time to decrypt. To get real time decryption and to compete with companies who actually provide this software we needed to use secure pendrives, not normal pendrives. And those pendrives are very cheap to manufacture but very costly to buy. We cannot manufacture them and so we could not reduce our prices, because our material landing cost itself was significantly more than the cost of both software and secure drives sold by our competitors . we eventually shred the idea.

Future Goal:
i want to establish a tech startup serving the health care industry. I always think big no matter how i start, big or small. I wish to create an app that will eventually predict health issues before to it can happen, help governments to assess which sections in health care to improve, connect patients to other patients with similar medical history, provide more insights to doctor,remind patients of when to take what medicines( very helpful in rural areas), digitize medical records and generate reports in laymen words and help junior doctor gain an insight with the vast range of cases that are digitally aggregated. In other words, i wish to revolutionize health care industry. I have already planned a revenue stream through this app too.

During MBA i would like to be connected to like minded people who are especially enthusiastic toward entrepreneurship. I wish to have access to Venture Capitalists who would be interested in the idea. I wish to apply for a business school who would only prepare me for this kind of venture. Also, i wish to intern as a management consultant during summer, a job that will eventually make me better and more structured at management consulting. I want to do so because pro-bono consulting to SME will always be a part of me.

B-school requirements:
Strong responsive alumni.
passionate professors who are reachable and research latest trends or influence new trends.
Entrepreneurship minded batch mates.

I believe that for true and accurate assessment of my skills i need to be as transparent and detailed as possible. Hence, the long post.

thanks for reading thus far.

I would like to know my chances of joining the below b school i deem fit for me.

Harvard
Stanford
Columbia (CBS)
Darden, Cornell ( for the small class size, which i hope helps in knowing my to be work partners more)

Also, kindly suggest the schools that you deem fit for me.

i apologize. i failed to mention how my experience and future outlook link. I have worked with more than one related-business at a time. This helped me in ways unimaginable. Of course, i would still remain a partner in my previous businesses and use the b school knowledge to improve it. The business was not doing great presently. I had to change the strategy, shifting the stores to a different location, improving power factors to reduce the power consumption and reducing the employee turnover(a very challenging task). we compete with almost every store in the locality some in terms of quality and some in terms of quantity. This was our founding principle to give the best product at least cost. But it is not very viable. But, eventually untraditional measures formulated by me and solid support by my other partner helped us get through. Now, we are making profits, have gained reputation and have gained customer loyalty.I see strong growth. I was able to provide extended customer support and vast range of products effectively without overloaded inventory(reduced the turn over time). But i failed to establish the store as a premium brand( this has its perks and also in our mission statement).
i failed to mention that i would like to start a management consultancy in the near future for established and profit making enterprises along with pro-bono consulting for upcoming SME's.You are right when you said that there is a lot to be done here. I failed to mentioned it.
I also believe that an idea no matter how bright or how viable a business idea maybe, it will eventually die when there is no proper association or a supporting community. I feel association with schools that have international presence and highly reputed name will help me tremendously. So, the need to apply to top b-schools.
Also, i agree that there is a lot of work to be done to restructure my profile so that it is appealing and true to the Adcom.

GMAT - 650
Under graduation - Delhi College Of Engineering, 64%
Work Ex - 4years, in core construction as Planning engineer
at Mega construction projects like Delhi Metro, Jaipur Metro,
Major skills include - costing, budgeting, cash flow, cost flow, scheduling, project management, PMG, Resource optimization and tendering

Entrepreneurial experience - started 2 online ventures - failed; now in progress with my 3rd starup

NGO- active team member (corporate relations and coordinator) at Happy Horizons since 2013 - NGO education underprivileged children

Family Business - Have past experience at my family business too, sales monitoring, claims preparation, mobile distribution business in a district. Controlled region of more than 20 Million Rupees.

Additional Experiences - Doing additional courses like Six Sigma certification, Etc

Extracurriculars - Creative writing - Blog writing, college newspaper editor, Magazine editor of my company, Content developer at NGo-happy horizons

Hi Dr Shelly,

My question is a bit unconventional. I applied to CBS, Wharton, Tuck, LBS , Booth and Stern for R1. After securing interview from all the schools except CBS. My results were:
Wharton - waitlist after interview
Booth - ding after interview
LBS - waitlist
Tuck - waitlist
CBS - ding without interview
Stern - admitted

My profile is given below.

4 years when I join-2 years in a niche Financial Consultancy, worked with Bank Front Office teams in India and Singapore on valuation post global financial crisis
2 years - Thomson Reuters (Singapore) - in a pre- sales role, involved in revenue generation and interacting with business stake holders focusing more on buy-side clients.Managing client expectations, proposing and designing solutions. Geographic mandate includes South Asia and have travelled to 8 different countries within region for client meetings.

2) GMAT - 760 (99 percentile, Q-51 (97) , V- 41 (94), AWA -5)

3) Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay, GPA -7.8/10, Bachelors in Chemical Engineering

4) Managing investments for friends and relatives (140 K USD) in Indian debt and equity markets for last 3 years
Part of Foundation at current organization and have participated and led multiple drives for raising funds and creating awareness against human trafficking
Part of Debating club, co-founder first-ever National Debate in the institute.Led a team of 25 co-ordinators to organize the event
Won prizes in debating at college and national tournaments
Volunteered as a teacher and content planner for NGO which helps in child education for almost a year

5) CFA and FRM charters

6)Make a long term career in investment management.

Currently, I am very close to securing a role as risk analyst at a leading sovereign wealth fund(SWF). Given my current results and the offer from SWF, would it make sense to pursue Stern or gain an additional year of experience and re-try again next year at schools like CBS, Booth. How do these schools view re-applicants?

Looking forward to your reply.

Hi,

Do you have any idea where you ranked in your class in college?

Once I have that info I can respond with more precision.

Best wishes,
Dr. Shel

Hi,

You have some good credentials, but need to get your GMAT score higher. Aim for 730 or so. If you think you will fare better on the GRE, then take that instead. If your GMAT stays low, you likely can still gain admission but it will likely be to schools in the top 13-20 not the Top 1-13.

Best wishes,
Dr. Shel