Profile Evaluation Please !! - Indian IT / Re-applicant

Question

Hi ,

It would be helpful if you could give some feedback regarding my profile and choice of target schools. Sorry for the long post!!

Indian/IT Male /28/ 6.5 Years exp in TCS (will be 8 by the time I start my MBA)

International Work Experience – 1 Year in UK, Will be moving to Munich soon.

Academics:

• GMAT: 740 (Q51, V39)

• Engineering- 77.10% from one of the best engineering schools in India (Non-IIT)

• 12th - 92.5% (Top 2% of the class) , 10th - 95.2% (Ranked 14th for the state out of 80,000 students that year)

I had applied in 2011 and was rejected by Haas, ISB, Tuck w/o Interview and Tepper, UT Austin after interview. (Yes! I messed up the interviews)

Professional Experience:

Presales and Consulting (past 2 years and added to the profile compared to the past exp):

• Won 7 deals (out of 9) totalling over 8 M USD/year competing with three other vendors (Accenture, IBM and Infosys)
• Added over 100 new positions through these 7 deals covering all aspects of IT (Development, Testing, Infrastructure and Maintenance services)
• Developed an applications consolidation strategy to streamline business processes with a possibility of saving over 2M USD/Year
• Developed a strategy to roll out application maintenance support to geographies such as APAC, Russia and Brazil, Netherlands
• Currently working on a Global Business Intelligence Strategy for an Insurance Major involving 'Big Data' analysis and Data warehousing, with a potential business opportunity of over 50M USD

Project Management (past 2 years and added to the profile compared to the past exp):

• Currently managing a project of over 1 M USD with 32 associates reporting to me, one of the youngest PMs in TCS handling a portfolio of over 1M
• Handling a global team working parallel in US, UK , Germany, SG, SA and India
• Conceptualized and implemented 'Value Delivery Framework' that would enable associates to generate ideas for process improvements - achieved over 100,000 USD Savings in the first year

Other Experience before moving into Project Management: (Used for the previous apps)

• Lead a team for eight analysts in London, Munich & Bangalore to develop technology solutions; investigating problems and performing business analysis for TCS’s first Corporate and Specialty Insurance client with an annual revenue of € 4Million
• More than 5 years of experience in working the Insurance domain (both life and non-life)
• Saved over $3 million for the client partner by resolving one of the critical issues related to a German marine insurance claim
• Analysed client’s global application landscape and developed a strategy to improve their Financial Reconciliation process leading to ~20% reduction in processing times
• Led a team of 6 members to successfully implement the complete IT infrastructure for a client. The project was worth around 500,000 USD

Extracurricular:

• Band Manager for a Hindi Rock Band (New) - Managed to get over 10 shows for the band in the past year
• External Consultant to an event management company helping them in improving their business (New)
• Maitree Champion TCS –
- Led a CSR Activity in TCS through adopting a school and educating the kids on English, Computers and Mathematics (New)
- 10 K Marathon - One of the volunteers and made sure to register over 50 participants for the run (New)
- Organized fund raising events to raise over INR 60,000 ($1,500) for orphanages and schools for the underprivileged
- Worked with Stepney FC in London to return disaffected young people to mainstream of society through Football
• Faculty, Foreign Language Initiatives (Bangalore) - Trained more than 120 associates in ‘Business Communications’ and continuously received 100% faculty rating from the participants
• Director and Stage Manager – For a Japanese play performed by a 12 member team during TCS induction
• Core Coordinator - QFest - Quality Awareness Fest in TCS - Led team of 10 associates to conceptualize, plan and execute 20 events over 5 days catering to 500
• Part of the recruitment team - Visited many campuses and conducted off campus events to recruit people into the organization.

Professional Certifications:

• Associate, Life Management Institute (ALMI) designation in Insurance - Pursued on my own interest.
• Completed Level 1 of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) offered by the CFA Institute, USA. Currently a Level 2 candidate. - Pursued my own because of my personal interest in Finance.
• ITIL Certification in IT Service Management.
• National Stock Exchange (NSE) certification in Derivatives and NSE certification in Financial Markets. - my personal interest in Finance.
• German language level 1 (A1) offered by the Goethe Institute. -

Additional things:

• Know 7 languages including basic German and Japanese
• Hobbies - Avid Traveler - Visited more than 10 countries, Huge Man U fan, Excellent Cook

Short Term Goal:

Technology Strategy Consulting: To get into a consulting firm into their Information Technology practice (MBB / Booz Allen / Accenture Bus. Consulting / Delloitte). Main interest is in the IT of Global Financial and Insurance firms.

Long Term Goal:

CIO/CTO of a big financial / insurance / technology firm

Target Schools:

Dream : Haas, Kelloggs, INSEAD
Realistic : Duke, UCLA, Ross, Tepper, UT Austin, ISB , NUS

I have a few questions:
• Is my experience of 8 years a major challenge?
• Can you please let me know whether my target schools are actually on target based on my profile
• Should I reapply to Haas? Considering that, it’s tough to get in and they have already rejected me?
• Are there any other schools that I need to consider?

Thanks a lot for your patience and for the response

Regards
TheRedDevil

Regards TheRedDevil

Admissionado · Answer

RedDevil,
I think you have a great profile, and from reading what you have here, honestly I'm a little stumped as to why you didn't do better! I've seen people with less good profiles get into some of the schools you mention. Messing up your interview can for sure influence that decision, but often messing up the application is more common, and I wonder what may have not gone well in your applications. I mean, your numbers, your experience, your internationalism, your interests, these should all be putting you ahead of the game. You know what, maybe are you aiming too low??? Most of the schools on your list are Tier 2 schools (other than Duke), and maybe you can get into an even better school?

Stange strange. I don't even see any negatives in your profile. You know dude, you gotta send us your applications for a Ding review. (well not gotta.. but you are invited to

) https://admissionado.com/mba/packages/a- ... -analysis/

Schools I would recommend? Depends a bit on your goals, but honestly, with your numbers, stay within the Top 10 (and maybe add one or two favorite schools out of the Top 10 for "Safe" schools) I get the feeling you got a little scare from your negative results, but my feeling is that first let's figure out what went wrong and then how to fix it.

) https://admissionado.com/mba/packages/a- ... -analysis/ Schools I would recommend? Depends a bit on your goals, but honestly, with your numbers, stay within the Top 10 (and maybe add one or two favorite schools out of the Top 10 for "Safe" schools) I get the feeling you got a little scare from your negative results, but my feeling is that first let's figure out what went wrong and then how to fix it.

thereddevil · Answer

Hi Jon, Thanks a lot for an encouraging feedback. I am thinking of getting a ding analysis done from Admissionado and will get back to you on it. However, the experience about Pre-sales/Consulting and also the Project Management is added only in the past two years, after my previous application attempts. Before that, I feel that my profile was quite ordinary (not that its extra-ordinary now

). I feel I have made quite a progress in the past two years, which I would like to highlight in the apps this time around. Which other schools do you suggest me to look at? , considering that my goals will be tied to Technology/Consulting and Innovation. Being an international student, I am also a bit concerned about applying to schools that do not offer loans without US Co-signor (Ex; Ross - otherwise I would have surely applied there). I feel that I am under-qualified to apply to schools like MIT (also applying from an Indian IT Male Pool doesn't make it any better) . Any feedback on this would be really great! Thanks a lot for your time!! Regards TheRedDevil

Admissionado · Answer

To be honest, I don't think that you are under-qualified at all to apply to a program like MIT. It does not mean that it is not difficult to get in (it is) and that it is not more difficult for Indian/Male/IT people (it is). But you have everything you need on your profile in order to make it into any school (except maybe the fact of being non IIT). Your only real negative is your applicant pool, and in order to deal with that, there are three solutions, and you should be applying all of them simultaneously.

1. Standing out in your essays and recommendations - this is the single most important thing that will get you accepted or not. Statistically, everything you have is in place, and you have the background you need. The question now is: what are you doing with it? Are you using it to make a passionate, fascinating original, personal application? Or are you using it to say the same thing as everyone else?

2. Applying to lots of schools - even though you have the numbers, given the size of your large applicant pool, the numbers can work against you. so you need to make them work FOR you? How??? whereas for an American candidate 4-5 schools might me enough, for an Indian candidate 7-8 schools is more reasonable (and more if you can swing it). It's like betting with in more numbers on the roulette table, and is a great way to increase your chances.

3. Coving yourself with safety schools - Make sure you have at least one or two safety schools THAT YOU WANT TO ATTEND. This is important. Don't choose safety schools just because your chances are better, but because you would be happy going there (because they would also help you reach your goals)

Do these three things (and make sure someone restrategizes with you based on last years results, and you should see some better results this time around)

And most importantly: believe in yourself!!!! You can do this. (and no I don't tell this to everyone)

I would suggest you reapply to Tepper, Haas and Austin. Add Kellogg, Stanford, UCLA, MIT, and maybe one more. If you can make six in round one, you are doing very well.

thereddevil · Answer

Hi Jon, Thanks a lot for your feedback again and it has cheered me up

. I am currently planning for - Kelloggs, INSEAD, one of Stanford / MIT / Booth (Dream) - Duke, UCLA, Tepper and probably two of Ross/Darden/NYU. (more realistic ones) I want to ensure sure that I have a good spread of schools with a few Dream ones and some realistic ones and still not very sure about my candidacy in Booth, NYU and Tuck. I may still sound pessimistic, but I don't want to be too optimistic as well.

Please let me know your thoughts! Thank you!!

Admissionado · Answer

Good stuff. I think your school selection is a proper mix between ambitious and realistic.

The only other thing I can add is that you should try and hit as many (all???) of these schools by R1. The main advantage is that if things don't go well, you will know earlier and have time to tweak your strategy (even though I believe you have an excellent profile, it never ever hurts to play it safe).

Good luck to you!
and if you got anything else, you know where to find me

Profile Evaluation Please !! - Indian IT / Re-applicant

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