sabicha wrote:
Hi,
Please help me evaluate my profile for ISB
Age 34
GMAT 710
IR - 7
10th 71.4%
12th 74.8%
Undergrad 71% from a decent college in Karnataka
GRE -1440/1600
Masters in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Chicago with GPA of 3.64/4.0
Work Experience
Post my masters worked as an Application Engineer for an investment research company for 1 year. As I wanted to work for a startup joined a cloud networking startup( Arista Networks ) in Bay area founded by Co-founder and initial investor in Google. Worked with the same startup in Bay area for 2.5 years. In 2011 I returned to India and was instrumental in setting up, recruiting and training people for Bangalore office. During my employment at Arista I was the lead developer for 71xx series of switches, helping and enabling other colleagues to understand the nuances of the chip and also making sure all the support cases related to 71xx are resolved in a timely manner.
Entrepreneurship
In July 2015, Arista went public which gave me the financial freedom to start my own venture, Funrento - An online toy & book library for kids in the age of 2-8 years. I along with my wife started Funrento, realizing the importance of toys in the development of the child. However, toys in the market are very expensive and little ones do not with these expensive toys for very long. Due to some logistics challenges and difficulty in scaling, we decided to close the online toy library in Jan 2017.
Investment
During the last 2 years, I developed a lot of interest towards public and private investment. I exposed and learned a lot about different kinds of investment vehicles in India such as equity, mutual fund, debt and real estate. Investing in equity exposed me to a lot of financial ratios and parameters which were very helpful when evaluating a public company.
Also, I became an angel investor in 2 early stage startups, advising them on the strategy and helping them raise more funds from family and friends
Travelling
I also have a passion for traveling and have been doing a lot of Domestic as well as International travel over the past 2 years. I have traveled to South Africa, Greece, Australia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia
Volunteer Work
In 2017 I started working on a website with the aim of helping parents select schools based on reviews and facilities. This is still work in progress
I am also an active volunteer for Art of Living, humanitarian and educational non-governmental organizations, founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Ji. I have recently organized a happiness course for 50 participants in our residential complex.
After I closed my venture in January 2017 I started to learn more about investments and became an angel investor in 2 early stage startups. Also I spent some time learning about investments in Indian equity and debt. I wanted to understand if not having a full-time job currently will hurt my chances to get into prestigious B-Schools such as LBS, Oxford, INSEAD
Hey there,
Soooo lots of stuff here. First of all about the non-full time job. It can be a benefit or liability. A lot depends on what you have been doing instead, how big it is, and how successful you have been.
In general, from what you have written here it doesn't seem like it would be that great for you. But I hope you have enough to make a good case for yourself. Plus since your startup only ended a few months ago its not a big deal. However, keep in mind that you will have another entire year before you matriculate, and that the schools will be curious as to what you will do in that year.
A lot will depend on the story that you tell, on the goals you have...
Other than that, I should say that your school list might be a bit tough. Your an older candidate and with the weakness off the not having a job, it might make things a touch more complicated....
If you have any other questions. or thoughts, please do not hesitate to write.
Best,
JF
close
12 Sep 2017, 12:09
