Ask Stacy Blackman

Hi Stacy,
I have recently completed engineering from Thapar University, a high ranking Engineering institute in India. I have recently given the GMAT and scored 730( 49-q,40 -v). I have a cgpa of 6.82 (which is roughly converted to 68.2 percent).Good recommendations and a reasonalblyell written SoP. I have no work experience , but I do have 2 internships. One with Airtel, in which I worked with Operations Reaserch tem and a 6 month internship with Nokia Siemens networks, which had a quantitative component. I am planning to apply to all good universities such as Priceton, UC berkely,UCLA, CMU, MIt etc.
I have gone through your blog and I found some really useful stuff. I would really apprecite it if you could answer the following questions:

1)Is my GPA very low?(considering that these universities have an avg GPA of 3.6). Should I not waste my time and money, by applying?

2) The College I studied at, Thapar University is known for it's engineering program(top 20 engg. colleges in India and especially my course was very tough to get into - 99th percentile of those who gave the Engineering Exam) , but I'm not too sure about it's reputation abroad.Should I explain all this or will the admission people understand?

3) How big of a disadvantage is it to not have much experience ? (Though I have about 8 months in internships with about 3 months with the finanace department. )

Hope you'l take out the time to answer these questions

Keep up the good work.
Manik

Hello there! Okay, to begin with - I'm Leon Cardos. I completed my secondary school at St. Fransis and score 88% in 10th. My high school was St. Xaviers, one of the precious colleges in Mumbai. I managed to score about 83.35% in 12th. About 6 months ago, I got done with my graduation in Science, Statistics to be precise. Now! I want to do PG from Singapore mostly, in a field related to Statistics. I'm not willing to wait and gather experience, want to finish off with the education part as soon as possible. Since I would be investing a huge amount I am hoping that the college provides strong placements. Any suggestions?

Ah! Statistics! There are several courses which have tremendous scope internationally. A few to mention would be Corporate and Investment Banking and Logistics - Supply Chain Management. These two are the field where in you dig treasure. The average salary for a person with CIB or Supply chain background is easy double to that of people with other finance related fields. A person like you who has a graduation degree in Statistics, I would definitely recommend these courses. Speaking for you, MBA is not an option for you as 97% of the colleges ask for minimum of 2 years of experience. So, you'd have to settle for MSc or MGB.

Okay, so Masters of Science in CIB or Supply chain? What is MGB ? So which are the universities you would suggest in Singapore for that matter?

MSc in both of these is available. But you'll have to do a research from your end regarding the curriculum and which of these two fit you the best. About universities, you have NUS, Nanyang, S P Jain Global to name a few in Singapore which are really GOOD. Go check their website, for placement part especially. They have really good placements. Going to the MGB part, its just S P Jain I know who offers MGB .I have my sister's best friend doing the same course there. She seems to enjoy a lot! I remember her mentioning that her seniors with Supply Chain as their specialization earning really good. Check out this, maybe you'd know better - https://insideiim.com/what-makes-s-p-jai ... the-crowd/

Thank you sooo much! It was kind of you to reply promptly. I'll go through the list soon. Thank you!!!!!