Profile Evaluation | Indian, M, 740GMAT, 10years Entrepreneurship WE

Congratulations on your 740 GMAT score! That is a stumbling block for many applicants, and it seems that you’ve really risen to the challenge, which is especially important for Indian males given the higher averages associated with your demo. You are correct in identifying that your age is higher than the median age (~27) for your target M7 schools.

Older candidates need to be able to demonstrate that their enhanced professional profile is a feature (more leadership experience, well-honed technical abilities) rather than a bug (burned out middle-management type who couldn’t hack it without grad school and now wants a break or is failing out of their current path). You don’t want to play into any preconceived notions that you’d be an old dog who couldn’t learn new tricks or who couldn’t report to a potentially younger manager fresh out of MBA, especially if you’d be targeting a US-based Associate Consultant role at MBB where many of your freshly-minted MBA peers would be 5 years younger than you (and where Engagement Managers who would be making hiring decisions may also be younger than you). Still, many older MBAs are very successful at MBB consulting recruiting, so you’ll just need to signal that you will be, too. Like MBA adcoms, MBB cares about prestige signaling (it’s a big part of their brand that they sell to their own clients), so where you went to school for undergrad will matter (not disclosed here). MBB also cares about GMAT and you should be able to confidently check that box with your score.

Every successful applicant needs to make a strong case for “why MBA” and “why MBA right now,” but as an older applicant you’ll especially need to nail these questions in your application and during your interviews.

As an older applicant, you might do well to expand your MBA focus outside of the U.S. Similarly prestigious international schools like INSEAD, Cambridge and Oxford will have average ages closer to yours and they will be more likely to view your enhanced leadership profile more favorably. Check out our piece here on non-US top tier MBAs: https://www.mbaexchange.com/top-business-schools-europe/Note that INSEAD in particular is one of the strongest MBA programs for management consulting AND the average age is meaningfully higher than US M7. Your hypothetical MBB placement would be more likely to be non-US post INSEAD than if you had attended M7, but that may not matter to you given your ultimate global focus. The Wharton-INSEAD alliance would also allow you to spend time at Wharton in Philadelphia, Fontainebleau in France and Singapore during your MBA, which might add value to a globally-oriented family business headquartered in India.

Your family business background could be a feather in your cap or your achilles heel: it all depends on how you play it. Well-written essays that subtly show rather than tell your passion for your business can signal social and financial capital (as well as ultimately complete job security!), which every adcom wants, but there are many, many common pitfalls that you’ll need to avoid. You especially want to avoid coming across as a braggadocious spoiled heir apparent who didn’t earn his leadership opportunity or overselling the current reach and size of your family business in its current state. Not every Indian applicant can write about a family business, so this is indeed differentiating, but you’d be surprised how many SEA candidates with amazing scores do have a family business background. It’s probably best to talk to peers in the family business world who have gained M7 acceptance since these guys would probably be helpful regarding how to best position yourself and a consultant who works with these kinds of candidates about the red flags you’ll need to avoid in your essays and interviews.