Hello, I hope to get some clarity on the questions that I have in my mind. I intend to apply for B-school fall 2017 admissions(class of 2019). Thank you very much in advance for taking the time to read through the long post and answering my questions
.I pledge to give back(atleast 5x) the help that I receive from you today
Background: Indian, Male, 26years (will be 27 when I join fall 2017)
GMAT: Attempt #1: 720 (Q49, V37, IR8, AWA 4)
Attempt #2: 760 (Q50, V42, IR7, AWA 5.5)
Work Experience: Investment Bank Risk management. 2.5yrs at present - Will be 4years when I join B school - in Risk and funding management role in Indian office of the top investment bank in the world. Have worked on several key optimization projects, resulting in $$$ value to the firm. My division is one of the hottest areas in banking industry worldwide now and I get to be at the forefront of it. I work 12-13hours/day on a average with full focus and I recently got promoted. I expect to continue to be part of top projects and add strength to my experience for the next 1.5 years. I also have a 3month stint in one of the firm’s international offices. Prior to this I also interned for 6 months in a top European investment bank in their equity research division
School: High school (88%), Higher secondary (91%)
College Education: 1) Bachelors in Engineering - 72% (non IIT/NIT), 2) Masters in Management (One of India’s top15 management schools) – GPA 7.9 (10-pt scale)
Certifications: 1) Completed all levels of the CFA program(hopefully will get my charter in 1.5years), 2) Coursera Machine Learning course by Andrew Ng(Stanford University)
Extra-curricular: Guitarist-won several competitions during engineering and I also have a few leadership roles in engineering college events. Won 2 business strategy competitions during masters. No leadership roles during masters as I was fully focused on building my finance skills to compete with other students from commerce background. And nothing major after masters as I focused more on my work, CFA, GMAT
Other: Permanent member of Mensa. I love technologies and financial markets – always updated on the latest there. Learning Spanish at present.
Goal/Aim: To get into one of Top-10 B school programs in the US (of course Harvard, Stanford and Wharton are the dream
). Booth, Columbia, Stern, Yale, Sloan and Anderson are in my radar
Why MBA? Don’t have a crystal clear responses to be written in essays yet, but here goes : Have always been average performer till engineering, until I stumbled upon something that interests me – Finance. My interest and efforts combined made me realize that I could be (am now) the top performers. I continued down that path -> finished masters in management -> all 3 levels of the CFA program. In my further pursuit of knowledge, I recently stumbled upon data sciences, machine learning and I hope to integrate both my interests: finance and machine learning someday (very soon hopefully
). I expect that MBA in a top school will open my mind more, unlock more opportunities (that otherwise would be denied /very hard to come by just because I am not from an elite grad school). With my current mindset, I am hungry for more knowledge, to interact with people from diverse backgrounds and learn to think in different ways from them. After MBA, I look to go back to Finance industry-specifically into area where I get to model/manage a team of financial modelers (or) explore opportunities for management/finance roles in Technology firms
Current plan for the next 8months before I apply in Round 1: 1) Write TOEFL, 2) Continue with my weekend adventures on data sciences, R (programming language), Big data technologies, etc. But this plan is subject to answers/opinions for the below questions
Questions1. I have 8 months before I start applying and want to know the things I should focus on (or) skillsets that I could develop over this time that would really help my cause (Apart from talking to current students and learning more about schools, and their programs, etc)
2. How important is community service for admissions? I have nothing to showcase here and I am worried that if I start now, admissions officers will see me as being fake and doing community service just before applying to B schools. Is it okay if I don’t have anything here? Will I be perceived negatively if I have zero experience here?
3. GPA (72%) is average in engineering, but my GPA (7.9) in masters in management is in the good to very good category. How will the adcoms know that I have performed well in my masters, because the direct conversion to a 4-point scale might not give an attractive GPA? How much weight will my engineering score carry for my profile, considering that is not the last college I attended?
4. How will adcoms perceive my masters in management? I did the course realizing that it wasn’t a pure MBA course, but something that will help me switch careers from engineering into Finance
5. And obviously, the open ended question on profile evaluation: How strong is my profile/candidature for fall 2017 admissions?
It is good that you are starting early. Answers to your questions below.
1. I have 8 months before I start applying and want to know the things I should focus on (or) skillsets that I could develop over this time that would really help my cause (Apart from talking to current students and learning more about schools, and their programs, etc)
2. How important is community service for admissions? I have nothing to showcase here and I am worried that if I start now, admissions officers will see me as being fake and doing community service just before applying to B schools. Is it okay if I don’t have anything here? Will I be perceived negatively if I have zero experience here?
3. GPA (72%) is average in engineering, but my GPA (7.9) in masters in management is in the good to very good category. How will the adcoms know that I have performed well in my masters, because the direct conversion to a 4-point scale might not give an attractive GPA? How much weight will my engineering score carry for my profile, considering that is not the last college I attended?
4. How will adcoms perceive my masters in management? I did the course realizing that it wasn’t a pure MBA course, but something that will help me switch careers from engineering into Finance
5. And obviously, the open ended question on profile evaluation: How strong is my profile/candidature for fall 2017 admissions?
close
Updated on: 29 Oct 2016, 08:53
