Profile Evaluation Request

Hi mohitro,

Thank you for your post. At a high level, your blue-chip professional experience (BCG, VC, Uber), top-tier undergrad, and 760 GMAT score put you in the unique category of being competitive at elite programs. That is a fantastic foundation from which to apply. Here are a few additional points I would highlight:

TARGET ROUND 1 INSTEAD OF ROUND 2

First off, you have a one-year runway between now and Round 1 of next year, so you should definitely target that round for as many schools as possible. I am not sure if your Round 2 comment was a typo, but it would be ill-advised to wait for Round 2 when you're mobilizing on this over one year in advance.

UNDERSTAND YOUR SCHOOL STRATEGY

Second, although you have a very strong baseline and I believe you would be justified in including a few T5/M7 schools in your application strategy, you should be sure to study up on the admissions landscape. [I am semi-quoting myself here from a previous post, but the takeaways are applicable.] The Indian male applicant pool is the most crowded and competitive demographic from which to apply, and according to one GMAT Club study, Indian applicants with a 760 GMAT still have only a 16% acceptance rate across the entirety of the U.S. T20. That acceptance rate figure is naturally going to be much, much lower at T5 schools. The GMAT is only piece of the application puzzle, but against that backdrop, a T5/M7 only strategy is very aggressive for almost anyone. And within that strategy, Harvard and Stanford are Harvard and Stanford, so off the bat 40% of your tentative school strategy is extra hard.

Every applicant has their own threshold in the rankings, above which they would feel justified in investing time and money into a full-time MBA, and below which they would not. (And sometimes other thresholds that might be scholarship-dependent.) With all of that in mind, I would encourage you to consider whether other programs in the T8-16 range might also excite you and propel you to where you want to go professionally. Including a couple would help diversify your strategy. If those schools don't excite you -- and you don't feel they're worth the investment -- then don't apply (or apply and beyond trying to get in, see if you can strike gold with some scholarship funding, then make a decision). Either way, know the landscape, understand its strategic implications (e.g., am I okay with an M7 only strategy if it means that there's a higher chance I don't get in anywhere), and adjust your school strategy accordingly.

UNPACK THE VALUE OF YOUR EXPERIENCES

Your experiences are strong and carry a degree of built-in credibility, but it is also going to be incumbent upon you to articulate your impact (quantified whenever possible), advancement, growth, successes, failures, lessons, leadership, team-building, and the like. This will need to be super strong across all elements of the application (resume, essays, recommendations, etc.).

DEVELOP YOUR GOALS

You're still a year out from applying, so you have plenty of time to develop your goals, but at present, your short- and long-term goals are very abstract. Startup goals are okay, but what industry? What sector? What products? What size company? What actual companies? What team or groups within those companies? Where? What specific role do you seek? Why? What projects do you hope to work on? What impact do you believe you can have? Do those companies recruit MBAs at the programs you're targeting? Do they sponsor internationals? What's the path there via each MBA program? What motivates you toward these goals? How did that interest develop? What knowledge, skills, and experience do you already have that are relevant? What knowledge, skills, and experience are you missing and therefore need to acquire? How exactly will you acquire these things at each program? How exactly will you contribute? For further reading on these topics, please check out this blog post: https://www.avantiprep.com/blog/the-mos ... on-process

[Also, for any school to which you apply (those you've listed / any others) you should validate with certainty what their policy is regarding applicants who already have a PGDM, as nuances can vary from school to school. If they allow for it, then you will need in your applications and essays (possibly via a few sentences in the Optional Essay) to articulate why you now need the second degree.]

OTHER WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR CANDIDACY

You've got a little over a year until R1 of 2020, so here a few additional ways to improve your candidacy: (1) Invest yourself in (or even create!) an impactful extracurricular / leadership activity that positively impacts others and is super meaningful to you. Your current ECs strike me as a bit more college-oriented / your post-college ECs don't jump off the page, so you have an opportunity to build there, which can help to differentiate you. (2) Consider where you can raise your hand for (or again, even create) a new, impactful initiative at work that goes beyond your core job responsibilities and elevates the organization and others around you. (3) Develop the specificity of your career goals through research, coffees and conversations with people who have the jobs you think you might purse post-MBA. (4) Get to know programs very deeply, both through events and info sessions and conversations with current students and alumni from programs that you are considering. Ideally you'd try to chat with students and alumni who share your professional interests, that way you can understand what resources they avail themselves at a given program, how they contribute, and what the job (and visa) landscape is post-MBA for an international applicant with your professional goals.

FREE CONSULTATION

Hope this helps! Please free free to reach out if you have any questions or would like to further the conversation. We can cover a lot more -- more efficiently, with greater nuance, and with follow-up questions -- via a conversation rather than a couple of static posts. You can email me at greg@avantiprep.com or sign up for a Free Consultation via this link: https://www.avantiprep.com/free-consultation.html. I would be happy to help you think through these topics now (to plan ahead), then reconnect next year as you begin to mobilize toward applications.

Best Regards,
Greg