Profile Evaluation

Question

Hi

Please provide profile evaluation for details below:

Introduction
I am a 28 year old Indian male working in Canada for last 3 years in a top tier aerospace company. I intend to apply to top 15 schools for MBA in USA.

GMAT Score
650 (Q49, V30, AWA 6, IR 7)
690 (Q49, V34, AWA 5.5, IR 4)
Planning to retake and targeting 720+

Education
- UG GPA: 74.6% (top 10%)
- Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering
- Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi, India
- Won many extra curricular awards
- Master's GPA: 3.53
- Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering (Thesis based), 2 publications.
- McGill University, Canada
- Awarded fee waiver for the last year of my studies at McGill (awarded only to top 15% of the students in the department)

Work Experience
3.5 Years in a top tier Aerospace Company (Employs 30,000+ people and has 100 sites across the world)
- Working as Lead Certification Analyst (certify interiors for business jets for their structural integrity), making sure that the products conform to the regulations and industry standards. 
- Manage a team of 5 engineers (for 1 program) and indirectly a team of 10 engineers (for 2 programs)
- Promoted to the above post after only 10 months of experience, pay raises double the usual amount for the past 2 years.
- Led 2 teams of 3 engineers each to oversee update of important company directives, guidelines and manuals that dictate the manufacturing and quality standards of the company.

Strong International Exposure 
- Lived, Studied, Worked and travelled to multiple countries
- Nominated (only engineer) to go to France and USA to represent the facility at intra-company conferences and international symposiums 
- Worked in International teams and leading a team of Engineers (located in UK, USA, France and Germany) to develop next set of methodologies that will save the company a lot of money once implemented.

Extracurriculars
- Tutoring kids at risk subjects such as Maths, Science and English from grades 3 to 12 (been close to 10 months now, 4-6 hours per week, volunteer basis). 
- Team member of company's soccer team
- Teach professional and technical english (related to Aerospace Industry, both written and spoken) to colleagues after work 
- Learning French and Spanish over the weekends
- Member of tennis and squash teams of YMCA and play as a member of Montreal Squash League
- Teach colleagues from work tennis after work
- Leading a team of 15 volunteers since 2013-14 for a community heart and eye checkup camp , held once every year for 3 days. This is a free event for anyone who wants to participate.

Post-MBA Goal
I plan to transition from Engineering based role to a management / strategy role in retail/technology. I wish to leverage my experience of leading diverse teams and apply the vast knowledge, exposure and experience I have gained in managing different product portfolios in retail/technology.

Target Schools

- Columbia (Early Decision)
- Chicago Booth
- Stanford
- UCLA
- UC Berkeley
- Wharton
- Cornell
- NY Stern
- Kellogg
- Duke Fuqua (Early Decision)
- Michigan Ross
- CMU Tepper 
- Yale SOM

All the above schools Round 1 or Round 2 , 2015, Full Time MBA

Questions
1. Do you think I have a decent shot at the school of my choice (listed above). It will be of immense help to me if you can categorize the schools above as
 1) Not possible, forget about it!
 2) Good Chance
 3) Not at all easy but can be given a shot
 
2. Also please advise which schools I should target in Round 1 and in Round 2?. 
3. Please also advise which other schools (not listed above) will help me achieve my career goals.
4. Do you think my goals follow properly from my experience or whether I should tweak it?

Thanks for the help. Feel free to ask anything more that will help you in evaluating my profile.

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PersonalMBACoach · Answer

Engr2012,
Thank you for the detailed post and congrats on your accomplishments. You have done some great things outside of work which will certainly help your MBA candidacy. One key for you will be creating a strong and cohesive story, since I see multiple directions you could go and you would want to appear focused.

Your GMAT score will drive some of the school categorization since right now your undergrad and GMAT combination are good but not the best for the top tier schools. That said, your work experience, promotions and above average salary increases will help a lot! Thanks for the info also as I usually ask folks these details.
1) While a detailed discussion with you could change these recommendations slightly, but here is the categorization assuming a very strong application.

1-Stanford. (Unless GMAT jumps quite a bit)
2-CMU, Ross, Fuqua, Stern, Cornell, Berkeley, UCLA, Kellogg
3-Wharton, Booth, Columbia

2) I'd like to discuss your profile and goals in more detail and set up a plan but picking some reach and some easier ones for each round is wise. Go for the ED schools in round one of course.

3) look at Yale SOM. It fits well with your goals, is a great program that is rising in the ranks and there is less competition for the jobs you are targeting than at Wharton, Columbia and some others

4) this is logical and while I would modify it slightly with you, no red flags. Basically the transition needs to be a bit clearer than what you wrote but that's doable.

Reach out to discuss further and hear how I can help you get into your target programs.

[email protected]

Good luck!

ENGRTOMBA2018 · Answer

PersonalMBACoach  , thank you for the evaluation. You have given me a slightly more encouraging picture of my chances witha few schools that I had mentioned. For my retake GMAT, I am hoping to reach 720+ so that I can move some schools from 3) to 2) in my listings above.

Additionally, can you elaborate a bit more on    "Your GMAT score will drive some of the school categorization since right now your undergrad and GMAT combination are good but not the best for the top tier schools."   Are you refering to my existing scores or my target score for GMAT?

Yale, yes I will definitely take a look. I do plan to apply for the ED terms for both Fuqua and Columbia.

Finally, as for the goals mentioned, I am sure they will need to be updated. As MBA will be a career change for me, I am still trying to find that sweet spot as far as goals and transition to that goal are concerned.

Thank you for your time and comments.

I will schedule a one on one with your firm soon to discuss further.

AugustAcademy · Answer

Engr2012,

This is what I see in your profile: Decent undergrad. Good Masters. Decent GPA. Weak GMAT (for now). (Possibility of) Good work experience - in a blue chip company that is not consulting or investment banking. (Possibility of) good extracurriculars with hopefully a strong motivation. Goals that are not yet very clear.

In order of importance - work on your GMAT. Bring out your success stories to life, through your essays. Work really really hard on your goals.

Unless you can display strong motivation, I would ask you to chuck out retail. I might even ask you to clarify what exactly you mean by technology - do you want to move to high tech/software - or do you want to stay in Aerospace/Automotive/Manufacturing. The high tech/software space is going to be a tough sell if you don't have background in the industry, or find it difficult to display competence in the required skill set otherwise - but they need MBAs for their PM roles. The Aero/Auto/Manufacturing industries will be an easy sell - but do these industries really care about MBAs?

Feel free to set up an appointment with us, and we can chat more.

About your schools question: You might have a good shot at UCLA, UC Berkeley, Cornell, Tepper, Stern, Kellogg, Duke and Ross.

Best wishes.

ENGRTOMBA2018 · Answer

AugustAcademy , thanks for the evaluation and the school recommendations. I do plan to retake my GMAT in a couple of weeks and will update the post. I almost knew that I need to retake my GMAT for the schools I have mentioned but just wanted a second opinion.

As I mentioned in my post above, I am still modifying my goals so as to make them flow from my experience.

Thanks. I will get in touch after my GMAT.

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