Hello,
Looking to get another perspective on my profile.
Hi @abajaj10 - thank you for reaching out to us - I'll be happy to give my perspective. Here are my stats:
Nationality: Indian
Gender: Male
Undergrad GPA: 3.3 in top 5 Canadian institution (B.A. Economics and Psychology)
GMAT: 730 (Q49 V40.) IR 7. AWA 6.
Years of work ex at time of matriculation: 4 years
References: CEO and Head of bizdev (who has a Haas MBA)
Company industry: IT/Technology. My company is a German start-up that provides public sector organizations in the EU with optimized data so they can make decisions on mission-critical topics such as climate policy and smart cities.
Role: Marketing Manager, driving the marketing department, youngest employee at company.
Big wins: Reignited a mid to long-term monetization project of our open-source tool at a company wide meeting, conducted market research to understand what was valuable to leads and how much they were willing to pay for functionalities, and now we have a new product line that has increased our customer base by 20%.
Internships:
- Worked as a soccer coach for 3 summers (was also the youngest employee at the org at 17, and some of the people I coached were older than me).
- Social media marketing internship at a media start up for 1 summer.
Extracurriculars:
- Player at a district level soccer level (8th out of 12th leagues in the German Football club) (post-college)
- Elected by 1500 students as the vice president of a student organization to advocate. Created social events, with a focus on inclusivity for international students who felt alienated. (during college)
- Elected by 50 residents as the representative of a student organization. Primarily provided mental health resources and organized social events. (during college)
- Organized an independent soccer tournament in New Delhi. Received high ratings and had over 100 participants. (during college)
- Pro-bono marketing consultant for a charitable institution that feeds undernourished children and an AI startup based in Vienna. Focus is on marketing strategy and early stage sales. (post-college)
Post-graduation career goal: To work in a data-driven business development role for a soccer club.
Why CBS: Excellent sports management courses with access to key stakeholders in the Major League Soccer ecosystem. Highly advanced data-driven marketing courses that use psychometric insights for campaign optimization, which is directly relevant to my ST career goal.
Why LBS: Highly diverse student body (appeal to me because I have lived and worked in 3 different continents, and am very passionate about intercultural experiences), very close proximity to decision-makers of top soccer clubs.
Why Stanford: Access to alumni base that includes C-level staff at top European clubs. A novel approach towards data-driven marketing that also takes into account phsyiological processes.
Any comments are helpful.
Areas of concern: As I'm sure you realize, you are in an overrepresented demographic, so will need to distinguish yourself, especially for the top schools you are targeting. Your GPA seems a bit on the lower side and your GMAT is average for these schools, so that is a concern. When do you plan to apply? Do you think you would be able to get a higher GMAT score if you took the test again? Your number of years worked is also on the lower to average, so you might consider waiting another year if you think that would result in a stronger test score or application.
Strengths: I like your work and extracurricular experience overall. Do you currently manage people? If so that would further help distinguish you. What I most like about your profile is your very specific career goal, how it combines your data experience with your interest in soccer, and how well you seem to have researched why these three tops schools are such a specifically good fit given your goal. You seem to have the makings for very strong essays that describe why you want to go to these particular schools.
If you are set on applying now, would you consider other schools as well? We would be happy to provide a free consultation to explore all of this in more detail with you. In any case, best of luck to you! Best,
A