Beat The GMAT a GMAT & MBA community

anantsch, congrats on the strong score! A GMAT in this range qualifies you for trying for any of the top programs. The schools on your list all look suitable, particularly given the solar energy business. Many programs are also open to family business (we assume that you will return to the family business when you're done?). Except for Cornell, this is the same list we typically recommend for anyone who's interested in energy. Ross in particular has a strong alternative energy program. You might also want to consider UT-Austin (not sure if they're focused as much on alt energy or just "energy").

The next step is to tackle your essays! Most people underestimate how much work needs to go into them. The first set of essays is the toughest - there's a pretty steep learning curve involved. You might want to focus exclusively on one school and move all the way through your process with that before even thinking about any of the others. This will help you build your skills. Of the schools on this list, probably MIT or Ross have the most straightforward essays - though theirs are a little wacky too each in their own way. But, either of them would probably be a good first school project for you, since the work you do on those would be more readily reworked for questions that the other schools ask. You can never reuse an essay exact from school to school, but some of them have similar-enough or somewhat overlapping question themes, where you can repurpose a single story developed for one over to the the next.

Congrats again on your strong GMAT! Great job on getting that out of the way early - you'll be able to move through the essays with relatively less stress now.

Let us know how we can help!
EssaySnark

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Hi anantsch -- sure thing! Let's see what else we can say about this.

For "regular" energy (oil & gas), UT-Austin McCombs is strong, as is Rice, both in Texas. These MBA programs with strength in this part of energy are now expanding to alternative energy too, so if you want to stick with solar in general (even if not going back to your family business) then we'd add them to your list. First choice though is probably Ross and Haas for cleantech stuff. Be sure to check out reports from Beyond Grey Pinstripes and NetImpact's Business Unusual which talk about environmentalism in MBA programs.

As to marketing - any MBA program will have plenty of resources for marketing. MEDIA, however, is a very different thing - not quite sure on what your interests are here, if you really mean that you want to combine solar with media somehow...? But you'll be able to take lots of great courses in marketing at any good school. You probably will be best served by focusing on the solar/alt energy angle in choosing which schools are strongest for your goals.

On scholarships - it's impossible to predict, unfortunately. Different schools award scholarships in different ways. For merit-based scholarships, we're pretty sure they focus on the academic record much more than the GMAT. You could ask the specific schools about what options they have available (but it's unrealistic to count on any scholarship money at any top program - they do offer such awards but the MBA degree has such a great ROI that "free money" isn't nearly as plentiful for bschool as it is for other types of educational programs).

Let us know if you have other questions we can tackle for you!
EssaySnark

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Hi Suchit - so sorry for the delayed response!

First off -- totally agree with MBACrystalBall - things might be tougher for candidates like you but be easy on yourself!! You should be proud of all the amazing things that you have done to get in the position of being able to target a top-tier school in the U.S.! Not everyone can claim a solid GMAT score, good academics, etc. - you are clearly doing something right!

You're also doing something right if you're thinking about this process now. Not to punt on this answer, but the "what do I do now?" question is one we'll be covering in the coming weeks and months on the EssaySnark blahg - if you haven't checked us out, you should! http://essaysnark.blogspot.com

The standard answer we offer is, look for ways to have an impact at work. See if you can volunteer to lead an important project - or better yet, think of something that will improve processes, reduce costs, or otherwise help the team out, and implement it. Do the same with your extracurriculars. The toughest thing with the bschool essays is figuring out how to present your full profile, and the best way to do that is through stories. Most schools want to hear about your professional achievements and accomplishments, so adding to the roster of stories to tell and examples you'll be able to pull from later will help you out immensely.

The other big area to focus on is researching schools -- which, if you're asking us that point-blank question of "which schools?" means you have more to do! It's much easier for us to react to a list of possible targets and let someone know if they're looking at ideal candidates, than to just pull a couple of names out of thin air. Choosing a school is a VERY personal thing, a lot needs to go into it, and someone who doesn't know you (like EssaySnark) will not be doing you a service in naming names without sufficient background. Most important of course are your career goals. Why do you want an MBA in the first place? Once you've nailed down your answer to that, you'll be able to figure out which schools are strongest in those areas, and you can start to narrow your choices.

Here's a couple of posts about how to choose a bschool to get you started:

http://essaysnark.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-to-choose-bschool.html
http://essaysnark.blogspot.com/2011/10/reliance-on-bschool-rankings-is-trap.html

We're honored you asked us about your profile - if you have more specifics on your goals and a list of schools you're considering, feel free to post additional details and we can continue the conversation!

EssaySnark

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