Veritas Prep Admissions Consultant
Joined: 25 Jul 2010
Affiliations: Veritas Prep
Posts: 1910
Given Kudos: 3
Re: Profile evaluation-Indian Female /GMAT 700
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27 Apr 2014, 07:12
There are several components of your profile which will position you well for a run at a top tier business school (top 25). I even think you should have a shot at a top 10 if you have a well crafted application, one which tells your story in a compelling way. For starters, you are female, which automatically places you at an advantage purely because of the application pool size. Granted, being Indian puts you at a bit of a disadvantage for the same reason, but far fewer females apply from India than males and your high GMAT score will be attractive in the female pool. Schools generally evaluate applicants compared to others with similar profiles. So the average female applicant does not have a 700. You need to stand out in the female pool as well as in the Indian female pool, and what I like about your profile from that perspective is your work experience. You not only have the 5 years, which is fast becoming the requisite amount of work experience for top schools, but you also have it in an area which is not as common for females--oil/gas/energy. Coupled with this is your post MBA vision which ties nicely into your work experience, which makes for a nice, believable goal for the adcoms to swallow. Yes, it's ok for applicants to change fields, but I find more often it's the stories that connect dots well from what you have done before to what you want to do in the future which have the most impact in the admissions process. Make sure you can articulate why you like this field, how you have made an impact, and why you want to do it going forward. The secret sauce is in the why and is often missed by the average applicant, who defaults to detailed and mind-numbing descriptions of their achievements without ever going into any detail about why they did what they did. Don't make that mistake. Another thing I really like about your application is your international assignments and leadership. These two things are very difficult to artificially manufacture and will therefore leave the average applicant without the advantage and perspective that you have by having worked outside of you home country.
Now, as for HBS, this is always a tough call to make. Do you have the core requirements for an HBS MBA? Yes. Will you stand out from the pack? No way to tell at this point. HBS rejects so many perfectly qualified applicants every year, and there is no magic bullet. Veritas is great at what we do, but no legitimate consultant will ever try to tell you they have the secret to getting you noticed. Assemble your best possible application, tell your story convincingly and from the heart, and you will be as well positioned as anyone can be.