Profile Evaluation Request and School selection help

Question

Hello everyone.

I'm looking for advice after appearing for my 3rd(!) GMAT today. Here goes my profile -

- 23 year old Indian male.
- 4.9 CGPA (bad I know, any tips on overcoming this?) in Bachelors of Business Administration, from a regionally great university. I'm thinking of taking up a couple of MOOCs.
- Completed a diploma course in Sports management (68%)
- 38 months work ex currently (will be over 4 years upon matriculation), in a medium scale enterprise, a couple of promotions, worked mostly in business developement and General Management. Have led teams of 10-15 people, and managed to bag some major deals in the industry, overall impressive performance, almost guaranteed to get excellent recommendations. 
- Started my own successful entrepreneurship venture during my work, not too huge but in a pretty unique and nascent industry.
- Not a lot of community/volunteer work, about a couple of events per year (for eg. helping out in blood donation camps)
- GMAT : 730 (Q48, V42, AWA : not yet received, IR : 8). Really disappointed with this as my past 4 GMATPrep exams were 740, 750, 760 and 750 respectively. Especially with my quant score, only 71 %ile there. Would my past score of Q49 (78%ile) be useful in any way?

I would like to work in consulting or strategy in the future, not necessarily the Big 3. Long term, probably self-employed back in India. The schools I was targetting when I was expecting 750 were Cambridge (Dream) Cornell, Duke (super stretch), Emory, Vanderbilt and Mccombs. Would the last 3 still be possible with my current profile? What would be my ceiling and what schools would you suggest I should look at. Also, I would be attending an admissions event next week in Mumbai where Cornell and the last 3 would be visiting, any advice on how I could take maximum advantage of that event and improve my chances?

Any advice would be appreciated, Thanks.

MBAPrepCoach · Answer

Hello deadraizer (are you into zombie movies?) The grade situation in indeed bad, do you have a good story for the optional essays/addl information section? It might not be a bad idea to hit up coursera or develop an alternative transcript of some time. But do consider the investment and relative payoff here in light of the whole application strategy. If you can bump up the GMAT 20 points, I think it wouldn't even be necessary, as you have developed a track record of hard work and progression since leaving college. Did you do OK in the quant courses - how did that go? If you did poorly in those, should you decide to develop an alternative transcript, do those over again. You just need to give the adcom reasonable assurance that you will not flunk out of the math-related classes. It would be best to take quant related courses at a reputable institution if time permits however, I think they would look the other way if you bumped up your GMAT a few points. It's a good score, however, and you should advance confidently. Your verbal score will likely be higher than your competition. (those with similar profile) With regards to combining scores, on most applications you can include information for several scores but I do believe they just consider the highest overall for each candidate for sake of making it easy to compare apples to apples. They aren't going to Frankenstein together a score cherry picking the best stuff from each unfortunately. You have a lot of work experience for someone who is 23. Is this the reason your GPA was low?? :wink:

That is great. The fact that you have already managed a large team and worked in general management is great news and will set you apart from other Indians to some degree. Make sure to lay the groundwork for those recommendations, you might ask what they think about you getting an MBA to see who responds enthusiastically. Successful entrepreneurship is good. Especially for strat consulting. However it's a real missed opportunity that you don't have any community involvement (some days I want to stand on a table and yell out attention all Indians do community service, don't just focus on the GMAT, GMAT is necessary but not sufficient for top MBA.) Do you have any interesting hobbies? The goal is to show you are well-rounded at this point. I do think you are a viable applicant to the last 3 schools mentioned and Cornell as well. Your GMAT is on track for Cornell, but not the grades obviously - so you really need to skillfully sell and package your story, and the value you would bring to the class, the unique contribution factor. I would strongly recommend that you work with an admissions consultant (even if you improve the GMAT - because I really think the ROI will be there for you.) At the Cornell event, talk to people and gather names with a meaningful piece of information that you can include in your essays ie at the Cornell admissions event in Mumbai I spoke with Julie ('12) who mentioned XYZ about Cornell that i really like and would make me a fit at your school/help me with my consulting career goals. And don't mention collaborative culture because 99.99% of applicants go that route. It is played out. If you do mention it, get specific about how it is collaborative, have a clear example. I would try to attend as many events as possible in Mumbai for top 20 schools - if you have the ability to attend. Same for online admissions events. They will provide good essay material and also help you get clear about what is a fit for you. Hope this helps, feel free to send me your resume @ farrell@mbaprepcoach.com for additional feedback. Thanks, Farrell

deadraizer · Answer

Hello Farrel, Thanks for the reply. Not really, just an old gaming nickname, use it for most of my accounts, makes my life just a tiny bit easier.

I have a story, it's not pathetic but it's not great either. I'm definitely thinking of taking up at least a couple of quant-heavy Coursera/EDX courses. I understand that 20 points would make a world of difference to my profile. But the problem is I've already given GMAT 3 times, and multiple times I've seen in online webinars or videos by adcom directors that they think 3 times is pretty much the limit. And what if I've a bad day again on the main exam, and end up without improvement, that might look even worse. Plus I think my time might be better spent interacting with alumni/current students plus working on my essay and taking a couple of MOOCs, though I know that they aren't valued highly, but something's better than nothing right? Unfortunately, no. I started working immediately after completing my undergraduation (3 year degree, hence the amount of work ex). Yes, already doing that, have pretty much decided who my 2 recommendations are going to be. Yes! Actually my venture was heavily related to my hobby, which I monetized with the help of some huge names in the industry. Apart from that, I still have quite a few interesting stuff to share, so I think I should be able to use this. Will look into it after the event. That is excellent advice, thank you! I've been attending some online events. Unfortunately, I'm not from Mumbai, or from a city where MBA events happen regularly. Hence it's really difficult to attend them. It did. Will do that after the event, thanks again!

MBAPrepCoach · Answer

Hi deadraizer , I wanted to mention a few other things about the event. Before going, do some research that will lead into some juicy questions. Don’t ask them about stats but rather questions that demonstrate you’ve researched the program and have a targeted interest because it seems to be a fit. O n the back of their business card write their name and what you discussed and when you leave the event, email them ASAP and reference that information. Kind of like a thank you letter after an interview You can also ask them to set you up with a student mentor and I highly recommend that. Keep in mind, showing a specific interest in Cornell will help a lot because the biggest headache for schools (outside of Stanford) is extending offers to people who choose another school. So the more confident they are you will pick them, they more likely they will pick you (all other factors being equal) Regarding the GMAT, I'm not pushing you either way but you can always cancel your score. Some schools ask for you to reveal all your sittings for the GMAT but only some, and it's an honor system. https://www.mba.com/us/the-gmat-exam/gma ... cores.aspx Good luck and I'll be interested in hearing about how it goes. :wink:

Farrell

deadraizer · Answer

MBAPrepCoach

Hey Farrel,

Thanks for the advice. I read it before the event, but couldn't respond as I was travelling. The fair went pretty great, though there were a lot of people so it was really difficult to have one-on-one interactions. Still, my discussions with Cornell and UT Austin were pretty great, Vanderbilt and Emory slightly less so, still no harm done. I did feel I had some great questions and received a good response from Ms. Szpiro (Cornell). Have already emailed all the directors, referencing the information and requesting mentors, all of them redirected me to the website link for mentors/ambassadors.

I talked to them about my low GPA, and they all recommended me to take more courses, and were not too high on Coursera/edx MOOCs in general (though some were more comfortable with MOOCs than others.). They recommended me to take some online courses from HBX/UCLA etc., but I checked them out and found them to be pretty expensive. MBAMath was also mentioned, and I checked it out and I really like it. I'm thinking of buying its subscription, as it would cover several quant topics (stats, economics, finance, accounting). Would MBAmath have a similar impact as the HBX/UCLA courses? I saw that Emory and Cornell both purchsed this course for their incoming classes, so I believe they must rate it. Maybe I could add a MOOC along with the MBAMath transcript?

Appreciate your help.

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