theleopride wrote:
Hello,
Could someone please evaluate my profile too?
Demographics (nationality, gender): Indian, male, will be 30 years old, this July.
· Education (undergraduate institution, GPA, major - high school/entrance exams not needed): Visvesvaraya Technological University, (India), Bachelor's in Electrical and Electronics engineering, GPA : 2.78
· GMAT or GRE (include section breakdown): 730 (Q49, VA 45 )
.Work experience (highlight amount of work experience, industries, roles, promotions, special accomplishments, international exposure):
- Started with IBM as an IT analyst and moved to Deloitte as an IT consultant. Was an individual contributor, and received a 'stellar performer of the year' award. Planned three
different platforms to address client issues. Worked with the development teams to outline a ticketing tool, curated for my team needs.
- Joined British Telecommunications as a network engineer, and later got promoted as a manager - workforce management consulting ( Individual contributor) . Designed a sharepoint
site for global clients to analyse their project data. Brainstormed different versions to come up with something closer to their operational goals. Received 4 quarterly awards for
process improvement, and 5 (senior) client recommendations. Massively improved operational performances for 3 different projects which was performing pathetically poor, leveraging
the benefits of the dashboard I designed. I have also been involved with several business transformational projects.
- Have a brief ( failed) entrepreneurship journey after bachelor's. I brought together a team from few of the best IITs to build a product, however, failed to gain clients. Learnt a lot from the experience.
IBM : January 2014 – August 2015
Deloitte : September 2015 – December 2016
British Telecom : December 2016 – Present.
· Extracurricular activities (highlight notable undergraduate and post-undergraduate ones):
- School :
- Was the cultural captain : Was responsible to host cultural events and collaborate with other schools on cultural fests. Received 4 gold medals in school level athletics.
-Was the captain of the school's cricket team, for two years. (captaincy rotated every two years.
- Undergraduate:
o Founded the college's first heavy metal band
o Started the college's first Music club with a separate brick and mortar house.
o Received several gold/silver medals for different inter-college sports/game/music competitions.
o Founded a poetry club.
. Post-MBA goals: I want to get into management consulting or finance.
· Other information relevant to your profile: I have no international experience, but most of my clients have been from diverse nationalities.
Regards,
theleopride
Posted from my mobile device
Thanks for the opportunity to evaluate your profile! The thing that sticks out the most here is that you are 30 but almost all the ECs listed are from college. That’s going to be a big red flag to the adcom. Before you apply, you need to get some good community-oriented IMPACTFUL leadership experience outside of work on your resume. I read in a subsequent post that you are also a weight-lifting aficionado. This is great but you need to find a way to turn this into an impactful activity that benefits others -- like it would be great if you could share this passion with others as a pro bono fitness coach or women’s self-defense coach, etc. I wouldn’t mention your extracurricular accolades from undergrad in your Ross application -- it’s going to make you look like a “faded glory.” It’s one thing when a Yale Silver Scholar or a HBS 2+2 or a Booth Scholars application has a bunch of college stuff because these kids are applying to b-school when they are still college students, but a 30 year old applicant already faces headwinds of being “too tenured” and potentially seeming “passed up,” so they don’t want to compound that potential problem with far backward-looking ECs. That would be seen as a major problem. One thing we’ve found is that oftentimes people have better ECs than they think they do. For instance, some people don’t realize that their musical or dance hobby can be great material for an EC essay. Ross has a great dance culture and dance team and frequently uses dances as fundraisers. Bollywood style dances are especially popular. Lots of YouTube videos out there of impressively choreographed Ross dances. Similarly, a potential musical hobby can be used for “follies”-type performances on campus that many schools have. You just need to use what you have. How do you like to spend time outside of work now?
Your GMAT is solid for Ross but a bit low for you demo so it will probably neither hurt you or help you. For higher ranked schools that are still in the Ross peer group, it may be seen as a bit low. Did you try the GRE? Since most top b-schools accept both and are agnostic between them, it might make sense to take a GRE practice test to see if you favor that exam.
The IT-emphasis in your background isn’t disqualifying, but it is representative of an very crowded demo. Being a male Indian electrical engineer working in IT is a very, very common profile. Many people with this background are successful in the b-school journey, but success requires really good strategic positioning in order to make our profile stand out from the horde. You’ve worked for some large, multinational corporations (Deloitte, IBM). In these roles, did you work with international teams? Either on the client side or at your company? Did you travel for work or talk to people in other countries often? If so, this is definitely something you’ll want to emphasize. Any top U.S. b-school will expect some international experience, and that’s one area where you can potentially stand out from your peers.
Without knowing more about your “failed” entrepreneurial venture, it’s unclear whether you should be using that as part of your strategic positioning. With the right spin, this could actually also help you, even if the company failed. The reason is bc other members of your demo are often extremely risk-adverse in their professional journey, so it could help you stand out to showcase your risk tolerance. Also, to the extent that you write about management consulting as a goal, having the perspective of a business owner/founder is helpful and worth expanding on if you can tell the story persuasively.
You might benefit from hashing out your strategy with an admissions consultant during a free consultation. If that sounds like it might be helpful, free free to sign up for a free consultation here:
https://admissionado.com/free-consultat ... sultation/