ISB Profile Evaluation - Tools for B-School Profile Evaluation

Hi Iti24,

You have a compelling profile for YLP- LSR is a great brand. Your acads are good and so is your overall extra-curricular experience. For e.g. having seen the scale of Tarang, I can imagine the kind of work which goes behind it.
The role at GEP is interesting and offers a lot of opportunities for working within Consulting in future.
However, the GMAT is on the lower side. Majority of the YLP admits have a ~700 score and almost as good a profile mix as yours.
Hence, ensure you have a very compelling essay and resume. Here's my analysis of the essay.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/isb-ylp- ... anan-puri/

Hope this helps. Feel free to reach out in case of queries.


All the best!

Cheers,
Manan

Hi. Could you please evaluate my profile (going by the comments on some forums/blogs, high years of experience might lower my chances?)

Age: 35 (Male, Married, 1 Kid)
Work Experience: 12+ years

GMAT score: 730 (Q50, V38, IR8)

10th: ~85% (CBSE)
12th: ~75% (CBSE)

B.Tech Chemical IIT Bombay - 7.51/10 (AIR 714)
Took CAT in 2010 and 11 (not sure how relevant it is for the application) and got ~99.5 percentile both the times.

Work Experience overview
First 2.5 hours in Analytics in Bangalore with one of the biggest Data Analytics organization
Next ~2 years in Consulting/Analytics with the same company but onsite with Microsoft as client, worked out of Seattle for ~2 years
Next ~5 years with US based price comparison company as Digital Marketing Manager, office in Gurgaon (4 promotions in 5 years)
Next ~1 year as Senior Manager Marketing Analytics with Dubai based e-commerce, office in Gurgaon
Current ~2.5 years as Director Product Management with a German based price comparison company, office in Gurgaon

Extra curriculars
Core group member of Asia's largest technology festival in college (led many volunteers and managed lakhs of budget)
Represented school in State/District TT championship
Hostel (College) cricket team captain, Received sports citation
2 years volunteering with NGO to teach underprivileged children
Advance certificate in Drums
Beginner level certificate in Scuba Diving

MBA Goal (Still need to work on it for more detail):
Having worked in Analytics (Data), Digital and Product Management world, I want to focus on gaining a Technology and Data driven business aspects. The short term goal is to learn the art of identifying business opportunities, risks and growth potential in Technology and Digital world.
Long term goal is to build a social impact focused business proposition

Planning to apply in R2

Please give an idea of the chances with above profile, specially on the fact that I have 12+ years of work experience

Thank You.

Hi MayankMM, I went to ISB with a similar profile . So, definitely possible.

Is ISB the only school that you're applying to?
--
Regards,
Ashish.

That's great to know. Thanks
I actually prefer to continue working in India so ISB is my preferred option. Along with it, I plan to apply for IIM A,B,C 1 year programs, although it might be tougher as I will be applying in their R3.
Maybe couple of outside India schools like INSEAD or IMD, though have not finalized the list, work in progress

Hi Mayank,

Nice profile overall. I see a lot of leadership aspects in your work profile, which is a key eligibility criterion for someone at your level of work experience. That should help in the application process.
I agree that you should not solely be looking at ISB, but also do apply to other programs such as the IIMs. You have an excellent GMAt score and that would help you in every application.
Among the programs abroad, you'd still be an outlier for INSEAD that prefers candidates within 10 years of work experience. IMD could be a good choice and also some other programs such as the Sloan Fellows programs that take place at LBS, MIT SLoan and Stanford.

Your short term goal is realistic and well aligned with your work experience so far. Your long term goal needs rethinking- if you wish to utilize your analytics skills for the social sector, nobody's stopping you from doing that right away. You can do this as a side project, in parallel with your job (many of our applicants already do that- they put their technical skills to use in an NGO, and I think that makes their profile doubly stronger). The need to earn will not become any lesser as you grow in your career, so getting into the social sector in the long term sounds a little far-fetched. Moreover if the passion is so strong for it, then you would be pursuing it now- probably in the short term. Additionally, heavy ECAs in volunteering should be supporting this goal.

Hope that helps, and do reach out for a more detailed discussion

Bachelors in Management Studies (Finance specialization)
Shaheeed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, University of Delhi (First Division)
10th: 10 cgpa
12th: 92.4%
Work ex: 2 years 11 months (Investment Banking KPO), Received the Chairman's Award at workplace. Rich understanding of Healthcare M&A.
5 internships across the areas of valuation and advisory
GMAT score: 650
Extracurricular activties: Led a national level event in college and served as a member of a student-run consulting cell
Close to 2 years of pro-bono startups and MSEs advisory experience during college
Awards: Multiple academic awards
Female, 22 years

Aiming for ISB. Any suggestions will be deeply appreciated. Thank you !

Bachelors in Management Studies (Finance specialization)
Shaheeed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, University of Delhi (First Division, ~75%)
10th: 10 cgpa
12th: 92.4%
Work ex: 2 years 11 months (Investment Banking KPO), Received the Chairman's Award at workplace. Rich understanding of Healthcare M&A.
5 internships across the areas of valuation and advisory
GMAT score: 650
Extracurricular activties: Led a national level event in college and served as a member of a student-run consulting cell
Close to 2 years of pro-bono startups and MSEs advisory experience during college
Awards: Multiple academic awards
Female, 22 years

Aiming for ISB. Any suggestions will be deeply appreciated. Thank you !

Hi,

I have posted my profile details below.I'd be really grateful if you can give me an assessment of of profile and my fit for ISB.

1) Gender: Male

2) Nationality: Indian

3) Age: 30

4) GMAT Score: 690 (Q50, V33, IR 5)

5) Education: Btech. in Mechanical engineering

6) UG Grade: First class (74%)

7) School Grades: X: 86%, XII: 88%

8) Work experience: As of now, I have a total of 8 years of work experience. I am an analytics manager at Merkle and have had extensive experience in data analytics. I also have significant international exposure in countries such as Singapore,Dubai (lived as a permanent resident), US and Canada.

EC's - Actively involved in theatre and have performed various plays across India. Also, involved with an NGO in teaching kids about a contemporary Indian theatre style and Improv.

Hi saksh12,

Very impressive profile overall. CBS is the best brand for BMS (erstwhile BBS) and BFIA courses at the University of Delhi. I understand the scores go above 80% at CBS as S4G's Co-founder is a CBS + ISB alum and incidentally worked a KPO immediately after CBS . Hence, it's more important to note if you were in the top 5 there (can be highlighted somewhere in the application).
Your extra-curricular complement your profile really well. I feel that even a 30-point increase in your GMAT along with a highly impactful application would sail you through. Happy to chat about your profile and more importantly your goals.

All the best!

-
Manan
Co-founder, S4G | ISB Class of 2013

Hi Arvind90,

While the acads are on the average/lower side, you have a rich work experience especially if you are associated with DataSource and cover various industries (my assumption, let me know otherwise). The extra-curricular are good as well. Do cover your potential contributions to the Theatre Club at ISB in your application.
I couldn't get a sense of your goals. Could you please share?
With this profile, you can also target the IIMs, especially A which gives a lot of importance to international exposure.

Cheers,
Manan
Co-founder, S4G

Hi Manan,
Thanks a lot, this is very insightful. I will get in touch with you regarding my overall profile. Thanks again.

Hi saksh12, you really have to do something about this score. There are still 2+ months left for the ISB deadline. How hard can it be to push that score by 30-40 points? After all, an entire year is at stake.

Thank you so much for the insights. It really helps. And yes, after doing a bit more research, it seems that ISB these days does not prefer candidates with 12+ years of work experience, although they are not exclusively ruled out. So I will be certainly applying to IIMs and shortlist 2-3 schools outside India.
Will connect over email for next steps once I start with application process.

Hey Iti24,

You have a pretty great profile,

Academically, you have an impressive GPA and undergraduate brand, which showcases your academic prowess. However, while your grades and brand do play an important part, you should highlight your extracurricular activities and other endeavors because AdComs are looking for applicants with holistically developed profiles

That said, you have a lot of achievements and varied roles, your winnings in theater and role as the president of the club showcase leadership skills and innate team spirit. Moreover, your participation in fests and societies, undertaking varied roles, showcase your proactiveness and ability to take initiative and lead teams. Highlighting the accolades you won here and how this has influenced your life would help authenticate your capability of creating impacts. Though to be clear, Adcoms are more interested in impact created rather than participation, hence adding quantifiable achievements in these activities would help enhance your application.

You have two social volunteering experiences which are again great value additions. These showcase your ability to take up initiatives, impact others, and empathize with other people. B-schools are looking for applicants that are future leaders and such experiences and qualities most certainly vouch for your abilities and strengthen your application.

Talking about your academic achievements, while they are impressive and showcase your academic inclination, they were all before your under-graduation and would not be considered, since most B-schools only focus on the applicant’s achievement and participation during their undergraduate and after.

As far as your internship and work experience goes, you ought to explain and highlight the major projects of your work and how these experiences helped to develop and further groom your skills and knowledge. Highlight why you chose these firms, how you have gone beyond the role, any initiatives you took, and any kind of impact created to establish a connection with your goals and portray the knowledge gained from these experiences. Properly highlighting this would allow you to stand at par with candidates with more extensive work experience hailing from the big 4 brands. That said, connecting your work experience and your decision to pursue a master’s degree is very important.

Coming to your GMAT, while you have a great quant score your overall GMAT score is a bit on the lower end, since you are targeting the MiM program at the top B-schools, you would require a score of 700 and above to increase your chances of acceptance. So retaking your GMAT to boost your score by 40 to 50 points would help make your application stronger and open up a wide variety of schools for you to target.

As for the schools you are targeting, LBS, LSE, and HEC come under the dream category while Imperial lands under the competitive category.
Dream schools have a very stringent acceptance rate of 12-15%. Hence, it is always better to target
a mix of dream, competitive, and safe schools, in order to hedge your bets wisely. Having evaluated your profile, I’d say you have a 50% chance of getting admitted to the schools in the dream category and a 70% chance of getting admitted to the schools in the competitive category, and a 90% chance for schools in the safe category.

To help you understand better, I’ve suggested a few competitive and safe schools that you
could be targeting:

Competitive: ESSEC, FSFM, IE, ESCP, ESADE
Safe: EDHEC, SKEMA, Grenoble

All said and done, while you have a good profile, there will be thousands of applicants out there with similarly great profiles, which is why your application would play a huge role in enhancing your chances of getting accepted into your target schools. You would need to highlight your profile USP’s and how you can be a great addition to the school whilst posing the right examples to legitimize your claim. Additionally, you need to ensure that your LORs and Resume, equally depict the strengths of your profile since your application( SOP, ESSAY, LOR & RESUME ) will hold a 30% value in the selection procedure.

That said, since each application takes 10-15 days to be perfected, you should start preparing your applications to these schools in parallel with your preparation for retaking the GMAT exam so that you can submit your applications for round two as soon as you get your GMAT score. On this note, if you are looking to target the top B-schools and want to prepare a strong application to meet the Round 2 deadlines right on time, you can check our comprehensive all in one solution that has helped thousands of applicants get into their dream schools including schools like HEC, LSE, and LBS!

Link to our All-In-One Solution-

https://www.mim-essay.com/mim-all-in-one

Here, you can even Book a Free Consulting call to connect with one of our consultants

Hope this helped!

Hi,

I have posted my profile details below. I'd be really grateful if you can give me an assessment of the profile and my fit for ISB. Already applied for R1 taking exception of GMAT score reporting until Oct 31. But due to less score, I want to report a GRE score.

1) Gender: Male

2) Nationality: Indian

3) Age: 25

4) GRE Score: 298(Q-157, V-141, AWA- 3)

5) Education: Btech. in Computer Science

6) UG Grade: First class (6.95/10)

7) School Grades: X: 90%, XII: 89.1%

8) Work experience: As of now, I have a total of 4.3 years of work experience. I am a mobile apps analyst at one top OS company and have had extensive experience in mobile apps development and 9months of experience in blockchain. Two awards at the workplace for performance-related. Top annual rating for 2 consecutive years.

EC's -

- Worked as Microsoft Student Associate and Partner for 2 years in college days.
- Got patent approval from Govt of India for an application design.

PS: with the above profile I got admits into New York University (NYU) for Management of Technology program, Fall 2020, and Northeastern University MEM program, Spring 2021. But due to COVID treatment, I missed NYU admit. So I am thinking whether the above profile works for the ISB PGP program.

GRE score is still sub par. The range for ISB is 311-335.

Posted from my mobile device

Hi,

I have posted my profile details below. I'd be really grateful if you can give me an assessment of the profile and my fit for ISB. Already applied for R1 taking exception of GMAT score reporting until Oct 31. But due to less score, I want to report a GRE score.

1) Gender: Male

2) Nationality: Indian

3) Age: 25

4) GRE Score: 298(Q-157, V-141, AWA- 3)

5) Education: Btech. in Computer Science

6) UG Grade: First class (6.95/10)

7) School Grades: X: 90%, XII: 89.1%

8) Work experience: As of now, I have a total of 4.3 years of work experience. I am a mobile apps analyst at one top OS company and have had extensive experience in mobile apps development and 9months of experience in blockchain. Two awards at the workplace for performance-related. Top annual rating for 2 consecutive years.

EC's -

- Worked as Microsoft Student Associate and Partner for 2 years in college days.
- Got patent approval from Govt of India for an application design.

PS: with the above profile I got admits into New York University (NYU) for Management of Technology program, Fall 2020, and Northeastern University MEM program, Spring 2021. But due to COVID treatment, I missed those admits. So I am thinking whether the above profile works for the ISB PGP program.