Profile Evaluation- Indian/710/4 yrs

Question

Hi everyone,

Kindly evaluate my profile and let me know if my profile is suitable for the schools I'm applying to.

1. Profile : Indian / 25 years / Mechanical engineer
2. Work Experience : 4 year. Currently employed with Daikin (Japanese MNC) as a Sr. Engineer-Project management and leading a team of 6 people to manage 50+ dealer/distributors each having a staff of 10+ engineers.
Associated with 2 Green building projects. Have been promoted once in 1.5 years in my current company.
Previous employer : SEIPL
Was amongst the top 3 employees during the one month training organized by Company. As a result was transferred to the corporate office to be a part of technically most demanding and company's most profitable division, Clean room application of air conditioners(worked for multinationals like Ranbaxy, USV etc)
Promoted once during my stay in SEIPL
3. GMAT score : 710 (Verbal - 35 , Quant - 50 , IR 7)
4. TOEFL scores : awaited
5. Percentage :71.4% (Hold a B.E Honor from Panjab University. Honors degree is generally awarded to only 5-6% of the students in our university)
6. Extra Curricular : President of a club, head of mechanical wing of another during college.
7.Achievements : Stood first in state in National Science Olympiad. Represented state in a national level quiz contest
Social work - Active Member of a NGO

I want to start applying in the early rounds.
Does being a Non IT engineer put me at some advantage(compared to IT guys) or all Indian engineers are considered as same ..

Thanks

Admissionado · Answer

Hey there Shashank8888,

So the best thing I see in your profile is REAL leadership of a team. This is a VERY unique factor and this is something you should be emphasizing a whoooooole lot in your application. You have a very good GMAT as well.

Besides that though, because of your Indian IT origins, you are up against some tough competition (as you know... and yes, I'm afraid Indian Tech is still Indian Tech even if it's mechano-). Your extra curricular activities and social work seem about middle of the road, so taken all together I'd say schools you should be aiming at would be around the 20-50 range. It's a bit rough as far as evaluations go, cause I'd need more info from you, but it's a good place to start.

Shashank8888 · Answer

Hi Jon, I had a broad smile on my face when I read the first 2 line of your comment. I was hoping( against hope) that you will continue this momentum and will end up recommending 3-4 top 15 b schools suitable to my profile to apply to. But sadly your following para shattered all such hopes and brought me face to face with the ground reality. Yes I belong to the highly competitive pool of Indian applicants ( story of most of the Indians through out their life...

) and being a mechanical engineer doesn't help much. But there is question that comes to my mind whenever I see someone posting " Highly Competitive pool of Indian applicants" As per GMAT stats round 30,000 Indians give GMAT in a year and the percentage (and number as well) of scores sent by Indian to US university has gone down by 13%. In comparison, roughly 60,000 Chinese give GMAT and the percentage reporting there scores to US has gone up by more than 20%. Also the average GMAT of Chinese people is 15-20 points higher than that of Indian. But still I haven't yet come across any such post referring to the pool of highly competitive Chinese applicants. If its tough to get into a good b school being an Indian then it should have been almost impossible to get into top b school being a Chinese. Can you please explain this discrepancy... Thanks

Admissionado · Answer

Oh you are actually totally right. This is not a discrepancy at all. It is enormously tough for Chinese applicants to get in because of the numbers, even harder than Indian applicants, but I guess you read about it less here on this forum, because there are so many Indians here (and many Chinese applicants hang out on Chinese forums). But there is maybe one "advantage" to the Chinese applicants, is that even if there are many more, the places they come from (I mean jobs and industries) tend to be more diverse. Yes there are plenty of Chinese Tech applicants, but we see also bankers, small businessmen, entrepreneurs, and so on, whereas the Indian applicant pool seems currently less diverse. (possibly because of the emphasis put on Tech).

Now, I do not want to dash your dreams my friend, but I also think that your best results will come from you being realistic about your dream and how to reach it. Your dream is not after all to "Go to HBS" for that is no dream at all, but rather the question is what will allow you to do what you desire and dream of? And you will likely find that there are other ways to your path than going to a Top 10 school. Like going to a Top 20 school. You know, although I do think people should always go to the best school they can get into, it means the best school they can get into, and not that everyone should go to HBS. There are so many paths towards you fulfilling yourself, so don't get down just because you have tough chances at a school you dreamt of. You have one or two schools in the top 10 you've always adored? Super. Apply anyhow. But be realistic in your expectations, and make sure your overall strategy makes sense! (meaning by applying to lower ranked schools as well).

Profile Evaluation- Indian/710/4 yrs

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