Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Hi,

I have just completed all the examinations and I am planning to apply in round 1 for September 2016 intake. I have a pretty decent work experience. But I am not sure if it is good enough for the colleges I have shortlisted. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

GMAT - 720 Q:51, V:35, IR:5, AWA:5.5
TOEFL - 116
Undergrad - NIT, Rourkela
GPA - 8.36/10
Nationality - Indian

Work Ex
Sony India (Aug 2011 to Jul 2013)
Product Development, Individual contributor

Significant contribution - Went beyond project boundaries to execute and showcase a module due to which we could bag 3 related projects for the next year from Sony Corp. It was presented to the Japanese clients. Handled many solo modules

Awards - 2 division level (500+) and 1 company level (2000+)(Young achiever of the year)

Samsung Research India(Aug 2013 to present)
Joined as Senior Engineer and got an early promotion to Lead engineer (1 to 1.5 years before the average age)

Significant contribution - Joined a project when it was escalated. With 2 yrs of work ex.. took over the complete project in a month's time leading a team of 4 and stabilized it. The person heading the project (a 9 yr experience guy) was eventually removed from the project. I was awarded for successful completion of this project within 5 months of joining Samsung

Led a team of 4 for another project which involved regular communication with 5 engineers at HQ, Korea. Completed it successfully and traveled to Korea for 3 months to conclude the project. This bagged me early promotion.

To Summarize -
Awards - 3 sony, 1 samsung
Before time promotion at Samsung.
Leading projects at Samsung with work ex much less than the average (8-9 yrs)
International work ex of 3 months

Recommendations from my reporting manager at Sony as well as Samsung are going to be pretty good as they have seen me grow.

By the time I join, total work ex will be close to 5 yrs.

Volunteering Activities-
Co-founder of an NGO which is dedicated to children education. Have been running basic courses in a govt. school for children aged 5 to 9 for 2 years now. Designed course curriculum and have achieved promising results.

Though this is not my complete profile, these are the basic highlights.

Short term goal - Project execution for a product (capitalizing on my previous work ex)
Long term goal - Product management

Why MBA - acceleration in career, understand the whole gambit of financial, operational, marketing aspects of product development beyond the technical development, improve/re-fine my leadership skills, and develop a network

Target Schools - INSEAD, MIT sloan, Haas, UCLA Anderson, Tepper

I am keen to know if these b-schools are too ambitious as per my CV. If not, where am I lacking? My GMAT score is not a great one but is it going to be a bottleneck.

Hi Anubhav,

You have decent profile with good GMAT and strong academics. You are at the right stage of your career with 3+ years of work experience. GMAT won't be a bottleneck in your case but still to make your profile more competitive you need to hit minimum 740 to increase your chances for the target schools. From your list I can say INSEAD and Haas are highly ambitious since INSEAD looks for decent amount of international exposure. MIT Sloan, UCLA and Tepper are still realistic if you really come up with solid application and improved GMAT score. Let me know if you have any questions. You can also gauge your chances for top B-school by clicking here, visit https://goo.gl/XV8WeG

Regards
Manish

Thanks for the reply. I do have a 3 month experience at South Korea where I have worked with nationals from Russia, Pakistan and Korea. I don't know if it is good enough for INSEAD though. Can anyone share opinion on that front?

If Haas and Sloan are worth a shot, any estimates at what percentage chances of getting selected considering I put in a decent application.

Could you guys please suggest any good b-schools with decent rankings and post MBA goals in Technology Industry that would suit my application?