Profile evaluation request for Booth, ucla, ross

Question

I would appreciate an evaluation for Chicago Booth, UCLA, Ross (all in round-3)

1)Female Software Engineer (May 2013- May 2016) in Healthcare IT company, Mumbai, India. headqarter-USA. held a few informal leadership positions. "Emerging Star" award, top 5 percentile rating(recommendations will reflect those)
Age 24(will be 25 by May). 
2)Current GMAT-710. planning to retake in march.Expected score-750-760
3)Sardar Patel Institute of Technology(S.P.I.T), University of Mumbai(This is among the top engineering colleges in Mumbai but I don't know if adcom will know this?).GPA-4
Major - IT engineering (2009-13)
4)Elected member of placement committee, General Secretary of Student Council, (I come from a small town)Founder of literacy program in my town and led the team of 18 volunteers, volunteer-Maths and English tutor at NGO, Lions club Young Leaders- Gold award for 100+ hours of community service.During engineering days I, along with a team of 4 members ran weekend coaching classes in my town.
5)goal-Social entrepreneurship
However I quit the job in may 2016. prepared for gmat and was involved in volunteer work in my town.
WIth strong essays and very solid recommendations from previous supervisors, do I stand a chance at Booth( attended info session)? also at ucla/ross? (all in Round3). 
I have also applied to stern(R-3)(attended info session).Could you please evaluate my odds of getting an interview call from stern as well?

Thanks.

tugbuck · Answer

Hello!

Greetings from TugBuck!

Your strong point is your score and if you can score 750, like you say you expect, then there will be nothing like it.

However, round 3 is a very fearful place for Indian applicants as most of the seats have been occupied and schools tend to prefer local candidates. Why is it so? If they take you in as an International Candidate, you may not get the required visa in time. This is just one of the many cases.

Nevertheless, we would suggest that with a splendid score like yours, you wait till round one which start in August 2017 and apply in all the schools you please, not just UCLA or Ross.

You can get in touch with us regarding further evaluation on the email address given below.

All the best for your GMAT!

VeritasPrepDozie · Answer

Hey you have a really nice profile with your expected GMAT and GPA. R3 is really tough tho even for someone like you. You are also a young candidate from a competitive pool so you usually don't want any question marks in your profile when you're applying R3. I would probably avoid Booth R3 but UCLA and maybe Ross might be worth exploring otherwise I would wait till R3. I'm assuming not working is driving this?

rulez161 · Answer

Thank you VeritasPrepDozie . appreciate your inputs. I can't wait till R1 due to personal reasons. 1)Somewhere on blogs it was mentioned that booth had 15% acceptance rate in R3. wondering how? :roll:

2)quitting a good job n not having it at the time of applying.. is it a 'deal breaker' thing?

VantagePointMelody · Answer

Hi there,

I have to agree with the feedback above that R3 is going to be tough at the top programs, even for a great profile like yours. We've seen acceptance rates drop by over two-thirds between R1 and R3 at the top 10-15 schools (and that's from already low acceptance rates in R1). Anyways, if you're committed to R3, I would suggest applying to 1 or 2 less competitive programs (in addition to UCLA and Ross) to reduce your risk. Booth is probably more of a stretch and I would prioritize it last (i.e. if you have the time).

Your GPA and expected GMAT are great, it sounds like you were a star performer at your job, excellent leadership through your ECs - so there's a lot to like in your profile. As you start crafting your story, I would encourage you to really focus on the "how" and the "why" of decisions you've made, actions you've taken, etc. and less on your technical skills and hard outputs. That's something that I see a lot of applicants with engineering/IT backgrounds do and it's really not the best way to differentiate yourself in your highly competitive demographic. I would also suggest explicitly explaining why you waited until R3 to apply. That will help eliminate any question of whether you simply "didn't get your act together in time to apply earlier".

To answer your question directly, not having a job is not an automatic deal-breaker but you will want to show what you've been doing with your time and how you've continued to further your professional development. If your volunteering work for the past year is directly related to your post-MBA goals, that's even better! Just make sure you explain that and how it all makes sense in your career path.

Best of luck to you! Keep us posted on how it all works out!

Kindly,
Melody

VeritasPrepDozie · Answer

I can't wait till R1 due to personal reasons. --Totally understand I figured it was something
1)Somewhere on blogs it was mentioned that booth had 15% acceptance rate in R3. wondering how? --I've never seen that metric so can't speak to it, but they may be a function of an overall smaller admitted applicants number from the reduced applications that will be submitted during R3
2)quitting a good job n not having it at the time of applying.. is it a 'deal breaker' thing? -- School's don't like seeing big employment gaps, so if you are out of work for an extended period of time, that is not a deal breaker but not a strong sign for you

StratusDonna · Answer

Profile evaluation request for Booth, ucla, ross

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