Profile Evaluation

Hi anhy123,

Thank you for your note, and congratulations on the strong academic performance and 760 GMAT score! There's not a ton of information to work with here, but my impression is that you are more than justified in applying to the T20. Here are a few thoughts and considerations to keep in mind:

GENERAL ADMISSIONS CONTEXT

For context, Indian applicants with a 760 GMAT have around a 16% acceptance rate across the T20 (the U.S. T20, in this study's case), so things are still very competitive even with a high GMAT score. (Two small caveats I'd add are that those figures are depressed by the even-more-hyper-competitive field for Indian male engineers, and that the study is now a couple of years old. With the decline in international applicants to U.S. schools, those results have likely softened a little bit -- not a ton, but a little bit -- while at the same time, leading Canadian, European, and international programs have become more competitive.)

TIMING AND WORK EXPERIENCE

As far as timing goes, if you were choosing between 2021 intake and 2022 intake, I would strongly encourage you to pursue 2022 intake. In the U.S. T20, you will often see average work experience levels of five years, with a middle 80% range of around 3 to 7, 3.5 to 7, or 3 to 8 years. (European programs often trend about a year older than this.) If you applied in 2020 to enroll in 2021, you'd be applying with one year of experience to enroll with two years of experience. That's really not much, and as this data shows, it would make you an outlier on the front end of the work-experience curve.

I would say that applying with two years of experience to enroll with three is really the first year you're in a normal range, and even then, you're on the early end of it and will have to "overcome" the fact that many of the applicants you're up against will have more promotions, more job impact, more leadership, etc. If you were really looking for a sweet spot from a work experience perspective, my belief is that you'd have stronger application results if you pursued 2023 or even 2024 intake (relative to 2022). I would not pursue 2021 intake personally. With a 760, you might secure some admits from the back end of the T20 (even with very little work experience), but you would definitely be leaving school quality / upside on the table.

SCHOOL STRATEGY

Data science is interesting, and the 760 gives you a strong foundation. So once you've been able to gain real work experience, have real impact, and further develop your professional and community leadership, I think that you can put together a diversified school strategy that aligns with your interests and goals, and can include at the more aggressive end of the strategy pretty much any school you'd like. That doesn't mean you're going to get in -- far from it... remember, Indian applicants with a 760 GMAT still have only a 16% admit rate across the entirety of the U.S. T20 -- but it does mean that you can build a smart school strategy that pushes the envelope on the top end, has some hard but realistic schools in the middle, and then some schools where you feel better about your chances and might even have potential scholarship upside beyond that.

THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS

Until then, I think you'll want to spend at least a couple of years really building your professional and personal experience. On both of those fronts, really think about how you can spend the next couple of years immersing yourself / dedicating yourself in meaningful and impactful activities. How can you become a leader at work? What initiatives can you raise your hand to lead? If your job is highly technical, what can you do at work to complement this with human, team, and leadership activities (so you aren't viewed as overly technical)?

Outside of work, what can you commit yourself to deeply? What are you passionate about? (Deep / leadership experience in one or two things is better than superficial or sporadic involvement in many things.) You've got a nice foundation right now, so consider how you can build it even further over the next couple of years.

FREE CONSULTATION

Please feel free to reach out if a Free Consultation would be helpful. I would be more than happy to chat: https://www.avantiprep.com/free-consultation.html

In the meantime, I wish you the best of luck!

Kind Regards,
Greg