Profile Evaluation: Indian IT Male with GMAT 710

Question

First off, thank you so much for reading my post. I recently took my second GMat attempt, and my score jumped from a  660 (Q48, V34)  to  710 (Q48, V39).

I really want to apply for INSEAD and Kellogg since they are top notch 1 year MBA programs. I would really appreciate it if some of you can read my profile and background and advice me If I have a fair chance at these universities.

I am an Indian Male, 28 years old. Did my B.E in electronics and communication from local university in south India.

Work experience:  
- 3 years at a global tech company as Senior AI engineer, Incharge of designing, and implenting end-to-end automated AI pipelines for fraud detection and moderation. I have led teams of 4-5 people.
I live and work in Tokyo, Japan. I can speak conversational Japanese, Hindi, English, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.

- Before my stint at the big tech company, I worked for an up and coming startup working on self driving cars for one year.Becuase of this, I have learnt to appreciate the company cultures and difference in both startups as well as big companies.

Extra curriculars: 
- I volunteer for a global suicide hotline on the weekends, I have been doing this for about 1 year, (underwent a 2 month intensive training), spoken to 100s of suicidal people and deescalated the situations.
- During the pandemic, When I was stuck in quarentine in India and couldnt go back to Japan due to border closures, I started a facebook group to share information, personally reached out to embassesies, and fecilitated many people to reunite with their seperated families between India and Japan, the group still has 1000 plus people and active to this day. I coodinated with a few amazing volunteers who helped me with helping people in need.

Extra-curreculars: 
- I do olympic style recurve archery, and a member of the Japan national archery association. 
- I love culture and travel and have travelled all the prefectures of Japan.

As you can see, I have an interest in public service, The main reason I want to do an MBA is because I want to gain connections, learn how to start a profitable sustainable business which can use my knowledge in AI for social causes.

I am mainly aiming for 1 year MBA programs but I at the moment, I am struggling with making a list of colleges which would accept me and suit my goals. I am also looking at Cambridge Judge school of business as well as oxford said business school. Maybe HEC paris?

One more thing I am worried about is my low IR score of 3 in my 710 GMAT. Will that have a huge impact?

I would really appreciate any advice. thank you so much for your time.

Edit 1:

To answer a few questions and provide more details:

My work experience:
I graduated college in 2017 and didnt go for placements since Me and my friends were trying to get an educational workshop startup off the ground, We conducted 20+ workshops on up and coming and technologies like ML and 3D printing. But it wasnt profitable and I exited due to personal differences with my co-founder with regards to the direction of the company end of 2017.
I took the next few months to learn programming and AI and started applying to internships, I finally landed one in a startup, for 3 months in May 2018, then another for 3 months, meanwhile applying for fulltime roles in Japan. I landed a full time role in my current internship and one from Japan. I chose Japan because, It was strange, new language, culture, completly out of my comfort zone. I didnt know a single aquaintacne or the language when I came to Tokyo. I flew to Tokyo to work for a self-driving car startup starting 2019. After a year of working there, the startup faced a lot of funding issues and thats when I joined Match group, My current company.

In the two years I have worked here (and a total of 4 years in japan), I have been promoted thrice and become Senior AI Enginner, I have designed, planned and developed end-to-end AI pipelines, created project charters, and communicate with shareholders. I have pitches a new successful project and will be working on leading a team to build it this year. My want to use these expereinces to showcase my resilience and my desire to constatnly learn new things and adapt to situations.

The archery Experience:

This is an important story foe me because, I have always wanted to learn archery as a kid but I didnt have the means to, I rediscovered my passion for it here in Tokyo, Doing olympic style recurve archery has taught me patience and precise focus because even a milimeter of shift can result in a major inaccuracy during target shooting, Archery has taught me to stay calm and become a more composed person.

My short term and long term goals:

My core values are to help people and add value to uplift them. Working in a feild where I feel like I have a direct impact on people is important to me. I didnt plan to run a facebook group with 1000+ people, but finding myself in the tough situation prompted me to create a space for me and others around me suffereing with the same issue. and it was the more rewarding expereice I have ever had.
I can absolutly say the same thing for volunteering for the suicide hotline, What prompted me to volunteer was loosing a close friend and another family member to suicide. While these things are almost always non-profit, and rely on doners, I want to be able to do it as a for-profit organisation which has more power to expand and help more people.

Keeping that in mind, my short term goal is to join a management consulting firm, possibly work on projects related social and economic sectors. While improving my management skills and connections.

My long term goal is to start a company in the field which can harness my knowledge and connections in AI and to invest in up and coming startups which do the same via venture capital. Atleast thats the jist of it. And I noticed INSEAD greatly alings with what I want.

Thanks again for reading through it. Any advice is much appreciated.
+1

CrackAdmission · Answer

Dear kai3575 , Below is an evaluation of your profile specifically for INSEAD & Kellogg. GMAT: 710 is competitive for INSEAD, SAID, JUDGE & HEC and on the lower side as far as Kellogg is concerned. The fact that you have improved your score by 50 points doesn’t really make a difference to the adcom in their evaluation. Don’t worry about IR. 3 is fair enough. Anyways, it’s a hygiene criterion, trust me, you won’t get rejected based on IR score. Academics: Average; Nothing stands out based on what you have mentioned. If you were part of any research paper publications in the undergrad or high impact internships/projects, do highlight them. Work Experience: Good; International experience in the field of cutting edge technology will definitely pique the interest of INSEAD. However, please note that you are applying for a Business school and not a Masters Program. Hence, the stories you should convey from work should be around how the technology your build / worked on made a positive impact on business and ultimately end customers. A lot of times, adcoms work on a notion that developers / software engineers work in silo capacity and don’t get a lot of chance to lead teams and develop their social skills. Knowing this, you will have to provide stories from work that demonstrate leadership beyond just mentioning in your CV that you have led few people. Extra-Curriculars: Good; try to bring a consistent theme / motivation for the causes you have worked for. Also, extrapolate on how you intend to keep working on similar initiatives aligned with these causes in near and long term future as well. Do note that for Kellogg’s 1 year MBA program, they typically prefer applicants with more than 5 years of experience. So you should ideally apply only for Kellogg’s 2-year MBA program. Here are a few links that will hopefully help you with your MBA applications especially INSEAD: 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1HaIkLR7Cw&t=325s 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHWiSvmjhzM&t=23s Lastly, IE and Richard Ivey are potentially other schools you might want to consider. Feel free to set up a pro bono profile evaluation session with us by registering at http://www.crackadmission.com/contact-us if you seek further professional guidance. Cheers and All the Best!

Suraj0184 · Answer

With a 710 score on the GMAT, coupled with an excellent work resume, the profile gets highlighted to a great degree.

All the Best.

dee1pug1 · Answer

As a generic observation, unless you have something exceptional to offer, 710 for an Indian, Male, Engineer (IME) is just not enough to sway the needle for most b-schools.
What 'exceptional' means is of course subjective and dependent on the minds of the adcom. For example, someone I know with IME profile with multiple relevant certifications and a 710 is also a car racing driver, having built cars for over a decade - it made no difference to any school he applied.
I would definitely encourage you to improve the score by 30-40 points.

MBAGuide · Answer

Hi  kai3575  hope this finds you well

As an INSEAD alumna, I can apprise you of the immense potential that your profile has.

Applicants with sustained international engagement tend to do very well in the selection process, especially at INSEAD, as one of the critical criteria INSEAD looks for in target applicants is "international motivation." How you have made incremental decisions to steer your career towards positions of influence in companies at a global level will be an essential support for your MBA application.

Your career progression will be the most important aspect by which B-schools will evaluate you, so make sure you showcase this excellently in your essay and resume. In what ways have you shown an upward trend in recent years? What new things have you learned, and how have you taken on more responsibility surfing the tech domain in recent years? Think about several experiences where you took the initiative to resolve conflict within teams, motivated employees and subordinates to move projects forward, and made an impact on the business in terms of $$ through cost savings or increased revenue as a result of your technical work.

Your post-MBA goals should be more precise, and you must cite clear examples of the kind of roles you would want to pursue post-MBA and how a particular MBA program fits into the entire scheme of things for you to achieve your long-term aspirations.

Your GMAT score could be better. The Q48 (Less than 70th percentile) and IR 3 can raise some concerns as you would be compared with high performing peers from your industry and demographic pool. A 730+ can provide the edge you need to differentiate yourself further. Oxbridge and HEC Paris are also good programs for your profile; however, you must deliberate on your post MBA direction broadly in order to prepare a target list of schools. I can advise you on this. Feel free to reach out.

Reach out should you need more personalized guidance.

Best wishes

PadmaiSC · Answer

Hi
Your GMAT score and work experience are highlights in your application! Since universities take a holistic review, I can confidently say that you meet the average requirement for Top B- schools. There are 2 tips I can share for a successful application.
1. Apply Early by Round 1
2. Ensure you have your essays are drafted well ahead of time and have them reviewed by editorial experts. Many times, students underestimate this essay component but essays are crucial and are the game changers for a successful application!

Wishing you success!
Thank you
Padma
Senior Counsellor
https://ischoolconnect.com/en/

MBAandBeyond · Answer

Hey kai3575 , Thanks for sharing your profile. Your profile looks good on the surface. Coming to your academics, a shift of 50 marks on the upper end of your GMAT score will be really helpful to your application. Since you belong to an over-represented pool of candidates, it is important for you to showcase additional academic accolades in order to stand out of the crowd. If you have time and energy I suggest you should retake GMAT and aim for 730. It will highly increase your chances. Your professional background appears fascinating. I note that you listed positions with startups and big companies; all you need to do is showcase your roles and responsibilities, skill set, and professional accomplishments. Additionally, your international exposure will be beneficial because Top-B schools prefer applicants with extensive international exposure. AdComs would be curious to hear about your experience, so be sure to emphasize your major learnings. ECs: Your involvement in sport activities and being a member of Japan National archery association seems impressive. EC’s add diversity to your profile. Your social work during pandemic is applaudable. Make sure to highlight it appropriately to the Adcoms. You will need to work on defining your post-MBA goals. It is important to categorize your goals into short and long term. Your goals should also be aligned to the values of the school you are applying to. You may want to read our article on How to get into INSEAD? to get a better understanding of INSEAD. We would like to know your post- MBA goals to align them with the schools you are targeting. All in all you stand a good chance of acceptance at top B-schools like Insead and Kellog’s MBA programs. But I have seen people with great profiles getting complacent in their apps. So, make sure your apps bring a "360-degree view" of your preparedness and willingness to apply to your dream schools

IR score would not have much impact on your overall profile. Hence, If you’d like, we are happy to get on a call with you sometime this week to discuss your profile in length and strengthen your chances further. Feel free to schedule a call with us at your convenience. Join us for the Live Q&A session on Jan 24 intake. . Cheers! Neha Hadke Strategy Manager MBA and Beyond Testimonials Meet our Panel of Consultants. Email: neha@mbaandbeyond.com

TheIvyLeagueEdge · Answer

Excellent International and cultural exposure; great on languages too..

However, Need more details on the finer parts:
Age 28, with 4 years of Experience.
Can't see an explanation of gap years. Another Education? Something else? It will influence your overall profile as well, plus the age factor does too...

Please explain

Excellent extra-curriculars
How you use this to link it to your persona will immensely influence your stories. Someone I am working with this season, has an interview call because she was able to leverage her amateur hobby in singing to talk about how that has improved her persona

Sorry, but you will need to do muchhh more than that; Clarity in your goals is paramount.

INSEAD is definitely challenging, HEC, Cambridge & Oxford should be achievable if your overall story comes out in a compelling way.

3 is not great, but is not an eliminating factor either.

kai3575 · Answer

TheIvyLeagueEdge ,  MBAandBeyond ,  MBAGuide ,  CrackAdmission  and the others, Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.

To answer a few questions and provide more details:

My work experience:  
I graduated college in 2017 and didnt go for placements since Me and my friends were trying to get an educational workshop startup off the ground, We conducted 20+ workshops on up and coming and technologies like ML and 3D printing. But it wasnt profitable and I exited due to personal differences with my co-founder with regards to the direction of the company end of 2017.
I took the next few months to learn programming and AI and started applying to internships, I finally landed one in a startup, for 3 months in May 2018, then another for 3 months, meanwhile applying for fulltime roles in Japan. I landed a full time role in my current internship and one from Japan. I chose Japan because, It was strange, new language, culture, completly out of my comfort zone. I didnt know a single aquaintacne or the language when I came to Tokyo. I flew to Tokyo to work for a self-driving car startup starting 2019. After a year of working there, the startup faced a lot of funding issues and thats when I joined Match group, My current company.

In the two years I have worked here (and a total of 4 years in japan), I have been promoted thrice and become Senior AI Enginner, I have designed, planned and developed end-to-end AI pipelines, created project charters, and communicate with shareholders. I have pitches a new successful project and will be working on leading a team to build it this year. My want to use these expereinces to showcase my resilience and my desire to constatnly learn new things and adapt to situations.

The archery Experience:

This is an important story foe me because, I have always wanted to learn archery as a kid but I didnt have the means to, I rediscovered my passion for it here in Tokyo, Doing olympic style recurve archery has taught me patience and precise focus because even a milimeter of shift can result in a major inaccuracy during target shooting, Archery has taught me to stay calm and become a more composed person.

My short term and long term goals:

My core values are to help people and add value to uplift them. Working in a feild where I feel like I have a direct impact on people is important to me. I didnt plan to run a facebook group with 1000+ people, but finding myself in the tough situation prompted me to create a space for me and others around me suffereing with the same issue. and it was the more rewarding expereice I have ever had. 
I can absolutly say the same thing for volunteering for the suicide hotline, What prompted me to volunteer was loosing a close friend and another family member to suicide. While these things are almost always non-profit, and rely on doners, I want to be able to do it as a for-profit organisation which has more power to expand and help more people.

Keeping that in mind, my short term goal is to join a management consulting firm, possibly work on projects related social and economic sectors. While improving my management skills and connections.

My long term goal is to start a company in the field which can harness my knowledge and connections in AI and to invest in up and coming startups which do the same via venture capital. Atleast thats the jist of it. And I noticed INSEAD greatly alings with what I want.

Thanks again for reading through it. Any advice is much appreciated.

TheIvyLeagueEdge · Answer

Your clarifications are very helpful. 
Quite confident of your chances at some top schools, especially those that favour a balanced individuality, and those that favour a collaborative atmosphere. 
I strongly suggest a 2 year MBA, but happy to discuss more. 
Finally, do start early to get your stories polished well

Feel free to connect via LinkedIn for a 1-to-1 session, and more

MBAGuide · Answer

Hello @kai357 my feedback here will be very specific to your goals since this is the part where applicants most likely falter.

If you intend to work in management consulting after earning your MBA, you must be cautious in selecting your target schools, especially if you have a certain set of consulting firms in mind. MBB, for example, only recruits from selected schools in the EU/UK and the United States (and India, which may be a region of interest eventually). However, you may encounter tough competition for admission to several of these targeted consulting schools. If you are certain about the consulting component, you may want to consider some of the two-year programs in the United States in addition to INSEAD. INSEAD is a very short program with a higher average age of the cohort, and even if you are admitted, you may not have ample time to spread your wings and prepare well for a consulting role.

In the US, Duke and Tuck are other good options. Depending on how well you do on the GMAT, you might also consider some other top schools such as Yale and Haas which have solid social impact focus. I suggest you do your own research on the schools that appeal to you by speaking firsthand with the school officials and alumni. Find out what companies that you wish to work for and have good connections with these schools. Learn about the kind of projects these companies do that align with your interests and long term objectives. The more specific you are in your motivation for a particular company and role, the stronger your application will be. Make the effort to interact with the alums and potential recruiters in the field of your interest and draw the insights into your applications.

Best wishes

MBAandBeyond · Answer

Hey kai3575 , Thanks for providing a detailed profile. On the work front, I can see a lot of accomplishments. It all depends on how adequately you portray it to the AdComs. A lot of applicants fail to deliver despite having amazing work experience. On the Archery part, since it seems very close to you, it should also find adequate space in your essays, make sure to highlight how it helps you be a better individual at large. Coming to your post-MBA goals, I can see INSEAD fits well, you can also target other schools in US. Indians have higher competition, not because of scores, but because they all have identical profiles and are unable to make their application stand out! What is going to matter most in your profile is how you connect the dots and create a compelling narrative. I see a lot of potential in you, If you’d like, feel free to schedule a free profile evaluation call with us at your convenience. Common Post MBA Goals: How to package your story around it?- Let’s here form the Alumns of Top business schools! Join us for a free session. Cheers! Neha Hadke Strategy Manager MBA and Beyond Testimonials Meet our Panel of Consultants. Email: neha@mbaandbeyond.com

MiMEssay · Answer

Hey kai3575, Let me begin by mentioning that you have a good profile, as there are 4 years of credible work experience , including 1 year at a startup. I would suggest you mention your academic scores, as I can't see them here. It is really important for schools to know about your academic background. The major focus will be on your work experience, which adds great value to your profile. The schools want to know the impact you made through certain projects, and maybe you were able to increase the efficiency of the whole process by 30%. You can also mention certain kinds of cost reduction activities , if any. As a result, quantification of the profile is critical. Your international exposure is definitely going to pay off, as schools value that. You must add extracurriculars related to leadership that can boost your profile further. Apart from that, adding volunteer experience will give you brownie points. Your GMAT score of 710 is good , but the schools you are targeting have a low acceptance rate , so if you are keen on getting an admit from them, you can retake the GMAT and aim for a 720 plus. But I will recommend that you look for other schools with the current score: 1. LBS 2. INSEAD 3. ESSEC 4. ESCP If you need more help, we'd be happy to setup a call and give more pointers on how to improve your profile and the right schools you should target. You can setup a call via this link: https://bit.ly/3DSH5km

Angry-Indian-male · Answer

Hey, this seems like a great profile for a top school, but I believe more in-depth review would be required to get an idea of the odds to get into the schools

Kartik2121 · Answer

This 710 guy converted all B schools that he applied to. This is the reason one should not look for GMAT CLUB for profile evaluations.

Posted from my mobile device

dee1pug1 · Answer

Well done to that guy on the multiple admits! Kudos. And yes, you are right. Crowd-sourced profile evaluations should always be taken with a pinch of salt, as no narrative shared by any poster can do justice to what s/he brings. It is also true that each one of us has our perspectives defined by our limited experiences.

Profile Evaluation: Indian IT Male with GMAT 710

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards