Profile Evaluation: 29 years old Indian male (over 5.5 years of exp)

Question

Hello,

I am seeking guidance on evaluating my profile and suggestions on schools that I can target in upcoming R1 (or R3 this cycle if I need to).

Background summary: Indian, male, 29 years of age, GMAT score 750 (v42, q49, AWA 6, IR 7)

Academic summary: 
B.Tech in Electronics and Communication from Indraprastha University, Delhi with an aggregate of 78.9%; 
Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM - generally treated as an MBA equivalent in India), majoring in Marketing (with my minors being in IT) from International Management Institute, a top 20 Indian B-School; I scored a CGPA of 3.18 on a scale of 4 (should be in top 15% of the batch).

Work experience summary: 
I had a 6 months stint in the Sales and Channel Development department of a major telecom operator in India. Being a Management Trainee, I was managing a team of around 30 tele-calling, off-rolls employees as a part of my job description. 
I have been working for the last 5 years with a leading business research company (KPO sector) as a Senior Research Lead, and am managing a team of 10+ analysts. I have got two fast-tracked promotions in 2.5 years each (with the averages being about 3 and 3.5 years during the two times). I have been handling multiple projects for international clients. With time, my responsibilities have expanded from just project delivery to now people management, business development, skill development, process improvement, and solution innovation also. I have performed reasonably well in the company and am seen as one of the top performers (with a few awards coming my way consistently). I am currently managing 3 US client accounts and 1 Indian client account and requires me to continuously engage with clients over tele and video conferences and e-mails. I am stationed in Delhi/NCR, India and have been to Switzerland and the US (3 weeks each) for client workshops on difficult projects (would like to highlight in my essays).

Extra curricular and volunteering/community service summary: Overall thin, with most of the activities being intra/inter college competitions, organizing multiple events (school, college, organization levels), being the secretary of my alma mater's marketing club (organizing a host of activities as a part of this), playing table tennis and billiards, and being a casual blogger. Besides, I have a strong passion towards process and product innovation, something that I have been actively exploring for the past 18 months at my current organization.

Long term goals: A little too broad, with interest areas being in Strategy/Analytics consulting (in direct continuation to my current role), Product Marketing (directly aligned to my graduation in Marketing), and Operations in that order. Outright exclusions from my list are Human Resources, Finance and Accounting.

Based on my profile and score, could you please suggest which schools should I be rather focusing on right now (stretch/reach/safety)? My aim is to target top 20, and am also open to strong European brands.

Thanks

burgeoning · Answer

First of all - great score.. congrats! When the hoopla around the score dies down, you'll realise you have a looooonnnngggg way to go and that the GMAT just prevented some doors being shut on you, rather than opening up any (especially as i see you are Indian and an engineer at that!). I saw your PM but felt my responses would be better here, so others can benefit from it as well. Just curious - since you have a PGDBM already, what are you hoping to get from the MBA course? I'm sure there'd be a lot of overlap. The ad-com may have the same question as well. I'd strongly advise that you wait for R1 next year since you dont have much time for R3 deadlines (about a month), which isnt enough time, imho, to brainstorm, put out good essays and interview performances. Plus, you've mentioned about the extra-curriculars not being too strong - now may be a good time for some community involvement and to take up leadership roles at NGOs for example since a lot of schools place emphasis on that these days. Always a good idea to work on any shortcomings in your profile. Finally, to school selection, when you say top 20 do you mean US top 20 or international top 20? The first hurdle is figuring out which ranking you'd like to follow

i used Poets and Quants since its a composite ranking. Next, you need to decide how you want to spend on your MBA. Are you ok with a $100,000 debt when you graduate or do you want to set your sights lower to get $$$ with your admit? Which are the schools that provide internationals the career options you are looking for? Keep in mind, that even if the placement report states 15% of the class picked up exactly the role you are after, that 15% could be all domestic/ PR students. You need to speak to current students/ alumni to understand what opportunities are available to internationals. You have the luxury of time (if you decide to apply R1 next year) so carefully consider these aspects. I'd say dont worry about age for now - on another forum topic, i read about a 33 year Indian - IT - male who has a free ride at Univ of Boston apart from an admit from Oxford Said. Use this forum, b-school websites and interactions with current students/ alumni to find out in detail about your target colleges and see where you fit in best. All the best!

Tazz84 · Answer

Thanks burgeoning! This is very helpful - I am starting off with jotting down the parameters that I need, and your comments are mighty useful for that exercise. PGDM scene in India, as you might be aware, is very different from an international MBA. I definitely have my reasons - hopefully I can position them convincingly. For the rankings, while I meant the global top-20, I would give a slightly higher weightage to US schools for my personal situation. I need to understand the trade-off (which I believe is different for different applicants) between different factors, e.g. how much $$$ debt saved can compensate for matriculating from a rank 14 school as compared to a rank 9 school (wow, that sounded a bit geeky :lol:

). Anyway, for me, international repute is the most criterion for now - let me see how this evolves as I do my research. You mention about the hoopla drying out as the reality hits - I am interested to know your experiences there - could we take this offline? In particular, I have observed that a lot of Indian applicants on this forum with a 740+ score and a decent to good profile are not even applying at the top 10 or 15 international schools. Is that an optimization strategy? While I agree it does no good to come from the dreaded Indian, male, IT background, but is it that strong that one should not dream (with some logical and practical success rate) of applying at the tier 1? What is it that is making people uncompetitive? PS. - That is a generic observation, having read some insightful posts of quite a few applicants, especially from India

Profile Evaluation: 29 years old Indian male (over 5.5 years of exp)

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