Profile Evaluation Request, 28 yo Indian Male, 3+ yr WE

Question

Introduction
I am a 28 year old Indian male working in Canada for last 3 years in a top tier aerospace company. I intend to apply to top 15 schools for MBA in USA.

GMAT Score
650 (Q49, V30, AWA 6, IR 7)
690 (Q49, V34, AWA 5.5, IR 4)
Planning to retake and targeting 720+

Education
- UG GPA: 74.6% (top 10%)
- Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering
- Delhi College of Engineering, Delhi, India
- Won many extra curricular awards
- Master's GPA: 3.53
- Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering (Thesis based), 2 publications.
- McGill University, Canada

Work Experience
3.5 Years in a top tier Aerospace Company (Employs 30,000+ people and has 100 sites across the world)
- Working as Lead Certification Analyst (certify interiors for business jets for their structural integrity), making sure that the products conform to the regulations and industry standards. 
- Manage a team of 5 engineers (for 1 program) and indirectly a team of 10 engineers (for 2 programs)
- Promoted to the above post after only 10 months of experience, pay raises double the usual amount for the past 2 years.
- Led 2 teams of 3 engineers each to oversee update of important company directives, guidelines and manuals that dictate the manufacturing and quality standards of the company.

Strong International Exposure 
- Lived, Studied, Worked and travelled to multiple countries
- Nominated (only engineer) to go to France and USA to represent the facility at intra-company conferences and international symposiums 
- Worked in International teams and leading a team of Engineers (located in UK, USA, France and Germany) to develop next set of methodologies that will save the company a lot of money once implemented.

Extracurriculars
- Tutoring kids at risk subjects such as Maths, Science and English from grades 3 to 12 (been close to 10 months now, 4-6 hours per week, volunteer basis). 
- Team member of company's soccer team
- Teach professional and technical English (related to Aerospace Industry, both written and spoken) to colleagues after work 
- Learning French and Spanish over the weekends
- Member of tennis and squash teams of YMCA and play as a member of Montreal Squash League
- Teach colleagues from work tennis after work
- Leading a team of 15 volunteers since 2013-14 for a community heart and eye checkup camp , held once every year for 3 days. This is a free event for anyone who wants to participate.

Post-MBA Goal
I plan to transition from Engineering based role to a management / strategy role in retail/technology. I wish to leverage my experience of leading diverse teams and apply the vast knowledge, exposure and experience I have gained in managing different product portfolios in retail/technology.

Target Schools

- Columbia (Early Decision)
- Chicago Booth
- Stanford
- UCLA
- UC Berkeley
- Wharton
- Cornell
- NY Stern
- Kellogg
- Duke Fuqua (Early Decision)
- Michigan Ross
- CMU Tepper 
- Yale SOM

All the above schools Round 1 or Round 2 , 2015, Full Time MBA

Questions
1. Do you think I have a decent shot at the school of my choice (listed above). It will be of immense help to me if you can categorize the schools above as
1) Not possible, forget about it!
2) Good Chance
3) Not at all easy but can be given a shot

2. Also please advise which schools I should target in Round 1 and in Round 2?. 
3. Please also advise which other schools (not listed above) will help me achieve my career goals.

mbaMissionJenK · Answer

Hi,

Thanks for your post. The following strengths stand out to me:

-experience managing others/teams, to complement your technical and analytical skills
-solid academics
-extracurricular involvement ( you'd likely be involved in b-school)
-specific accomplishments and impact you can cite
-international experiences
-community commitment and impact

You have a LOT of schools listed there!! I don't know if you are aiming to apply to all (??) but keep in mind each app is quite time consuming and you don't want to sacrifice quality for quantity; plus you want to show a fit with each school if possible. I would say it's tough without knowing the final GMAT score, but likely top 5 ranked schools are going to be close to out of reach, unless the GMAT is exceptional along with extremely compelling essays and recommendations, just due to how selective and competitive admission is. Of your list, Tepper would be your sure-est shot. As for the rest, it depends upon the GMAT and each school's selectivity (indicated on rankings such as US News for reference).

If you'd like to chat in a bit more detail we do offer a free 30 minute consultation, at www.mbamission.com/consult, feel free to sign up at any point ! Good luck with the process!

ENGRTOMBA2018 · Answer

mbaMissionJenK , thank you for the feedback. I will sign up for a free 30 minute consultation to follow up on this conversation. I mentioned the above schools just to see how many of them can still stand with my current GMAT (690) as the worst case scenario. Do you mind providing your inputs on the same considering my profile with the current GMAT? I do plan to retake my GMAT and will be trying for 730+ but just want to keep tthe current scenario in mind. It will be of immense help if you could categorise the list provided in terms of:

"Questions
1. Do you think I have a decent shot at the school of my choice (listed above). It will be of immense help to me if you can categorize the schools above as
1) Not possible, forget about it!
2) Good Chance
3) Not at all easy but can be given a shot
"

Thanks again.

mbaMissionJenK · Answer

Well it's never very exact to categorize in those ways, because at the end of the day I don't have full info here and an entire picture of who you are in terms of how your essays and recommendations and interviews will portray you, and also how you'll stack up against the other applicants in your particular season etc... but that being said, keeping the current GMAT, I would roughly estimate, using your phrasing:

1) Not possible, forget about it! (I wouldn't say ZERO chance but very very tough -JK)
- Stanford 
- Wharton

2) Good Chance
- CMU Tepper
- Michigan Ross
- Cornell

3) Not at all easy but can be given a shot

- Columbia (Early Decision)
- Chicago Booth
- UCLA
- UC Berkeley
- NY Stern
- Kellogg
- Duke Fuqua (Early Decision)
- Yale SOM

(obviously some within this 3rd category will be tougher than others! Look at their average GMAT scores and also selectivity % to get a feel!)

ENGRTOMBA2018 · Answer

Hi  mbaMissionJenK , thank you for the categorization. I do understand the caveats underlining the categorizations. I will schedule the free 30 min consultation for sometime next week.

mbaMissionJenK · Answer

Sounds good!

ENGRTOMBA2018 · Answer

mbaMissionJenK , just to update, I scored 750 today with q,v split of 49,44 . Do you think the chances are better now with the schools that I had mentioned before ?

mbaMissionJenK · Answer

Hiya,

Congrats on the 750, nice job!! Yes I think that will give you a boost for sure, so that helps at the top programs. You'll still of course want to narrow down your list according to your personal preferences and your school research and likely still apply to a few from different categories but this should help! Let us know how we can help further!

ENGRTOMBA2018 · Answer

Hey  mbaMissionJenK , thank you for your reply. Yes, I have narrowed down my list of schools as follows (goal being to go into Engg./Tech Consulting)

Columbia (early decision)
Wharton (R1)
Booth (R1)
Kellogg (R1)

Michigan Ross (R2)
NYU Stern (R2)
Yale (R2)

Let me know what you think of this list.

Thanks

mbaMissionJenK · Answer

Hi there, I think it sounds fairly reasonable; obviously a lot of work to do asap for R1 (?!) if you have not started yet??

I would say your chances will be fairly similar at Columbia, Booth, Wharton, Kellogg, & NYU... so just keep in mind the 'difficulty' so to speak will be similar at that whole group, in case that impacts your choices at all, or in case you wanted to add say one more with slightly higher acceptance rates where you'd be more likely to get a scholarship as well, but just food for thought. Good luck and keep us posted!

ENGRTOMBA2018 · Answer

Hey  mbaMissionJenK  , thank you for your reply. I think I will take a chance with sticking to these schools and I do agree that the level of "difficulty" is similar for atleast Columbia, Booth , Wharton and Kellogg. As my applicant pool is overrepresenetd, I think I will be better served to target all or almost all of these schools in R1. I will see how the applications for Round 1 go and take it from there for the "safer" schools. I will definitely keep you posted.

Profile Evaluation Request, 28 yo Indian Male, 3+ yr WE

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