Hello
palodarpitISB (or any other top B School for that matter) is going to asses your profile on primarily 4 factors-
1) Academic Potential- you have decent past scores, but the GMAT does not help stand out especially among the highly competitive pool of Indian Male Engineer applicant pool. Which means academic potential is not the reason you'll get an admit to a top school and will need a spike in at least one of the areas below.
2) Work Ex- Definitely shows potential. Unlike academics, work ex is subjective and what matters is the depth of your work ex (career progression, conscious decision making towards a long term goal, accomplishments). However, more than a check list what matters is how you choose to present your journey in the application (essays, LOR and interviews). Your work ex surely shows potential of good story telling.
3) Diversity- What do you bring to the batch that will add to the experience of your batch mates inside and outside the classroom? We tend to look at extracurricular as a check list that will help us get in, but we have to work equally hard to showcase how are these activities relevant to the B-School application. (Yes you played table tennis and traveled, but how are these important or relevant for the B School- if you can prove that, then these can add diversity, else not).
4) Career Goals- B Schools are looking at leaders that have a Clear and Realistic vision of their career. As long as you can show A) the long term trajectory of your career (and why do you have this long term goal), B) the short term plan (say 3 to 5 years from now what role you must work in to be able to gain enough learning and experience to transition into your long term goal) and C) how the B School will act as a stepping stone to help you land the said role and what companies are you targeting (yes that specific). The goals must be realistic too (considering your profile, background and what the school can help you achieve). You seem to have some sense of the goals, but these need to be made more specific from here, but that shouldn't be a very tough task. Curious to know- what happens to your venture during or after MBA?
Your essays, LOR and interviews will have to bring out relevant spikes in each of the areas above. (except academics, which you cannot change now except retake the GMAT and improve the score by at least 20-30 points)
As you rightly said, time is really tight. Not sure how far you have progressed in your application to give a full recommendation. But as a thumb rule I'd say 4 weeks is a decent time for ISB application from Brainstorming to Essays to submitting the application.
If you haven't gone through the brainstorming stage I'd highly recommend applying next year with better preparation and use this time to improve your GMAT and extracurricular activities.
You may want to read
here on what factors work in a profile and
here to add to your research on career goals.
Best
Varun Sharma+971586404529 (WA)
MBAkarma.cominfo@mbakarma.compalodarpit wrote:
Hi All,
I am Arpit and planning to Apply for ‘23 Round 3 intake for ISB. I know I am very late in the process but working on multiple fronts to make my application count.
Here is my profile
27 year old Male, Indian
GMAT : Not given yet. Expected score 690 based on the mocks. Online GMAT exam scheduled on 20th Jan
Undergraduate degree : B. Tech in Metallurgical Engineering and Material Sciences from IIT Bombay(premium engineering college in India)
10th: 9.4/10
12th: 86.4/100
UG: 6.9/10(I didn't focus much on studies but have got many internship experiences)
Work Ex : 5.5 years in 3 different jobs
1. Analyst at a UAE based micro VC firm - 1 Yr
I was interning here during college and then joined the firm full time right out of UG college. Worked there for almost an year(including college time) learning about startups and interacting with many founders. After an year, I realised that I'll need some real industry experience and hard skills, hence moved on to work in data science field
2. Data Scientist in Revenue Management Dept at a LCC airline based out of India- 3Yrs
RM is a field in Operations Research and involves both commercial and technical acumen. Here I worked with a lot of data, learnt python, did some good amount of coding and built a lot of automation tools for the airline. In the first year of my 3 year stint here, I built a dynamic pricing algorithm which manages the complete pricing of airline's tickets leading to 15% increase in the cash flows. The covid stuck during my second year here and all the projects got stalled and the airline went into cost-cutting mode. That's when I went on to work at my startup in stealth mode
3. Co-Founder and Technical Lead at a startup(an impact oriented IT and Data Science consultancy firm serving govt and private clients)- 1.5 Yr:
This experience has been the most challenging and I learnt a lot of things encountered by entrepreneurs. Developed 3 innovative products from scratch and managed the IT infra and tech team budget. Oversaw a team of 10 engineers and data analysts along with multiple IT and data science projects while maneuvering the company through the challenges posed by government clients(delayed payments, mismanaged client expectations, low understanding of tech). Managed the flagship product of the company. Went through all ups and downs of the startup where we had to do salary cuts and even let go some of the team members due to performance issues.
Co curriculars:
1. An avid player of table tennis having played and won state level tournaments
2. Travelled across lengths and breadths of India(thanks to my free airline tickets)
Spikes that can distinguish this profile from others:
1. Aviation operations research experience where I developed something affecting the top line of business directly
2. Humbling startup co-founder experience
3. Experience working in the impact sector with multiple govt officials(IAS, IPS officials)
4. Premium institute UG degree(if that counts at all)
5. Varied experience of finance(VC and CFA L1 attempted), aviation and Govt IT consulting
Post MBA Goals -
A career that remains relevant to consumer psychology while staying in touch with technology world, work for a b2c company in mid-management/leadership position in the short term and eventually start a company some day
Please share your analysis. Also, I am open to any questions you might have
Suggestions also required on:
1. Whether this is the best college suited for my profile. If there's any other college that would suit more(I'll be posting the same profile for analysis in some other univs thread too)
2. Given my current level of preparation(No GMAT, no essays, short Round 3 deadlines), can I still apply for a top college and get an admit OR should I opt for next year(2024 intake) with full preparation. Although I don't want to delay MBA by 1 year, this will be my last resort in case I don't get a top college
3. Any suggestions for essays are most welcome
Thanks in advance
_________________
Varun SharmaMBAkarma.cominfo (at) MBAkarma (dot) com
28 Dec 2022, 13:37
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