Futuristic wrote:
Hi,
I'm an Indian male, 30 years of age. My background is in Electronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai. I earned a First Class with Honors from there. I followed that up with an MS in Computer Science from the Univ. of Southern California (GPA: 3.6). I have gainted about 5 years of work experience since then, of which the first 3 were spent in software development, and the last two in project management and leadership. I've been informed that I will 'formally' be promoted to Management in a few months.
In the last 2 years, I've managed a team of 7-8 people, though more from a project resource point of view.
I'm in Silicon Valley (as may be guessed from the above profile) and I plan to apply for a part time program this year, hopefully local. I expect to be able to crack a 700+ on the GMAT with some luck.
In addition to the above, I'm also singlehandedly managing a home business (we own a couple of tea estates) back in India, which requires me to visit every few months for a week or two at a time. The business involves an employee base of 500 - 1000 tea pluckers year round, an office staff of about 10 people, and a factory staff of another 20.
The past few years have been very tough on this industry, and I feel my biggest achievement has been to grow the revenue by 25% over the past 3 years, while most tea estates have seen a slide of about 13-15% in revenue during the same period.
My evenutal goal is to successfully run a company specializing in software for agriculture, since I have some experience in both worlds. I have a small group of people in India that are working on this software, but its too small to be called a company yet.
Q1. As of now, my formal education and pure engineering career are running a path parallel to the other one, and the paths have not crossed, though I plan to make them in the future, as explained above. What should be my stance when applying for my MBA? I understand that my formal skillset and career profile are quite common, and will not help me stand out..
Q2. Will an official 'Manager' tag make a difference to my application?
Q3: Target schools: Haas, Tepper, Andersen. (looking only at part time programs in the Bay Area). Your opinion?
Sorry for the rant, and thanks for reading so far. Your opinion is most valuable.
Futuristic,
You are correct that your
Indian IT profile will be a very familiar one to the top B-schools. The best ways around that fact are (a) doing what you can to be at the top end of that familiar profile (which is where a high GMAT and your managerial credentials can help you) and (b) positioning yourself as distinctively as possible in every other aspect of your application. This is where your second profession and your long-term goals can really help you--that is, they are quite distinctive and I recommend that you make the most of that fact. I have not encountered the Tea Mogul profile before so run with it! You should have a decent shot at the schools you mentioned.
If you have a semi-unusual community involvement side with leadership that would also help, as would distinctive stories on the personal side (this could include but not necessarily be limited to 'growing up on an Indian tea estate' stories, etc.).
Good luck!