Profile eval -Is too many months of work-ex a disadvantage?

Question

Hi all, I am interested in applying this fall. Below is my profile. 1. Age - 29 by year end. Gender - Female Nationality - Indian (how i wish it was Burkina faso instead! Then the diversity would be great for any college

) 2. GMAT - 700 (Q - 50, V - 35) (Yes, it's totally off balanced and i am retaking it on Oct 1st ) Undergrad major - Bachelor of Engineering from Top 10 Engineering colleges in India (one of the top NITs) GPA - 3.6 12th/10th % - 92% in both the exams (was in the 99% percentile category to get into the Engineering college) 3. Work experience - Total 8 years (as of now) in the Research & Development team of Telecommunication firms. First 6 years in one of the US Multinational Companies. (2.5 years was in US and remaining in India) 1 year stint in a startup. (In India) Currently with an European Multinational Company. (In India) I have had 3 promotions so far .I have started as a software engineer and grown to a Team Leader managing a team of 10 people.(Unfortunately, MNCs are all in the process of reducing the ladder levels across the company and hence quite stringent in giving away fancy role names) If the brand names of the companies in one's resume carries any weightage, then it would be a great advantage for me. 4. Extracurriculars - Have been part of an UN Club at college level and worked on a few welfare initiatives. In the first company, volunteered as part of the Social Initiatives Group to coordinate the company contributions to the NGOs and adid a few volunteering activities. This volunteer role was for 2 years. 5. Short/Long term goals - I would like to become a Technology consultant in the telecom domain. Based on my previous experience, a MBA would help me in achieving this short term goal. I donot have any geographic preference. My long term goal is to become a general consultant with an emphasis on strategy in the telecom domain. 5. Schools - Chicago, Columbia, Duke, LBS (and yet to analyze.) Also, another concern is, if i look at the number of months of workex for all the colleges, it all falls under 7 years. So, i am concerned as whether 9 years of work ex by 2010 will be a negative for my profile. Somehow i am so reluctant to look beyond top 15 colleges and i truly wonder whether the reality is very off the base from my aspirations. Hence, it would be great if you could evaluate my profile and let me know whether it's worth applying to the above schools. Also if you have any school suggestion for my profile/aspirations, please do let me know. Will take a look at the same. Thanks in advance.

Class2012 · Answer

Maggi

Your acads look good.I doubt retaking GMAT would be worth.You should instead spend that time on essays.

Since you came out of college long back,your work experience matters a lot.You don't really need titles to show that but you need to show that you took more responsilbities at both work and outside.

Coming to goals,what does this Technology consultant do?

Duke would be a target school.Booth and Columbia would be long shots.Put in a safety also.

gmaggi · Answer

Hi Class2012, Thanks for the reply. Actually, the only 2 reasons why i am taking GMAT again is, 1. There is scope for improvement and if i don't give it and if i get a ding from my dream schools, i would definitely regret and wonder maybe a better score would've helped. So, i have decided to attempt it. In the worst case, i can fall back to Old score. 2. The score is too skewed towards Quant and if i were in Adcom, i would be concerned with such a candidate

Regarding technology consultants, i meant the Consultants in Consultancy firms in a specific practice related to technology. (In the current scenario, I am pretty sure that a consultant with an excellent telecom expertise would be great asset to a firm

) Regarding safe schools, will NYU Stern fall under that category? Honestly, i am unable to figure out how to categorize the types. I searched for posts, if any, which explains a bit and couldn't find one. Thanks,

Class2012 · Answer

I don't think Stern would be a safety for you.Schools ranked 6-15 would be targets(schools where you have a reasonable chance of admission).

Can you be more specific about the goals? What consulting firms are you targetting and what practices?

gmaggi · Answer

Class2012, Even though my dream target is the top 3 Consulting firms, i would be perfectly fine in joining any small Consulting firms. An MBA combined with previous experience would help me in taking a 360 degree view of the Telecom & related industries. From that perspective, i would be interested in working for a Consulting position in Telecom & Technology practices. For ex, below Industry vertical in Diamond Consulting would be a perfect choice for me after MBA. https://www.diamondconsultants.com/Publi ... 26+Hi-Tech btw, I did read a few posts here which mention that Consulting firms do recruit Grad students only for Generalist role. Still, my pitch/attempt would be for an above mentioned Industry(vertical) specific Consulting role.

Regarding the target schools, the concern about ranking is, i have analyzed both BusinessWeek & FT rankings. And it's quite confusing to identify what are the top 15 schools. Would you suggest me to take a look at any other MBA school rankings? Also, may i know the factors based on which you suggested that Booth is a stretch school? Is it because of the lack of differentiating factor from other applicants or not excellent acads or not excellent extra-cur activities? The reason for asking such a specific question is, i really would like to understand the factors and see what i can do to overcome the same. Infact, this is exactly the reason why i am retaking GMAT with the thought that a 750+ would boost my profile. Thanks in advance,

Class2012 · Answer

USNews is considered as somewhat standard and most follow that.You can also see the below link which lists out school by cluster.

ultra-elite-list-13282.html

The reason I said Booth is a stretch because there is nothing unique in your profile.Most Indian females applying to top b-schools come from IT.And if you have 8+ yrs of experience working in India,they expect you to be something like Project Manager,because people from Infy/Wipro/Cognizant would be at the PM level if they have 8 yrs of exp.

Also post for feedback on your profile in Admission Consultants forum.

gmaggi · Answer

Hi Class 2012,

Thanks for the reply. Will surely check it out.

GMAT888 · Answer

If you improve your GMAT score, I think you'll have good chances for top 10-15 schools. Also being a female will work to your advantage as well.

11MBA · Answer

A 700 on the GMAT is a decent score. If you have nothing else to do and really think you can improve you might want to take it again. However, I don't think you should focus on it. I know someone with a very similar profile who got into Chicago a year ago so you definitely have a shot.

Profile eval -Is too many months of work-ex a disadvantage?

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