Ask mbaMission

Hi there,

Congrats on the excellent GMAT! Very impressive. So you've only had 6 months of full-time work experience if I'm understanding correctly? And the start-up you describe is an ambition, not something that you have done?

Your strengths as I see it here, are your GMAT and strong academics, quant ability, IBM experience, some other personal involvements/interests, and yes potentially start up experience can be a plus. Weaknesses would be: limited work experience (again if I'm understanding correctly), as the average b-school admit has 5 years of work experience to bring to classroom discussions and projects. And I don't know about your quality of work experience, such as leadership and teamwork opportunities, results you've contributed to, impact you've made, etc.

Sounds like you'd be applying in 1-2 years so in that case you'd gain more experience to strengthen your profile. Be sure to focus on making an impact and demonstrating leadership and initiative in the coming years. In terms of schools, top 8-10 will always be challenging given all the strong applicants out there, but you can always give it a shot and see, with a super strong application and essays it's not impossible, but you may want to aim just outside the top 10 for best chances. ISB should be within reach, WITH a very strong application and more experience/leadership. Admissions decisions are not based on scholarship/financial need, they are independent, so that won't affect the decision, but you should research your loan options in advance as scholarships are more limited.

Keep us posted and good luck on your decisions and upcoming career!