Ask Veritas Prep Admissions Consulting

Dear Veritas,

I recently gave the GMAT exam and scored -
Q47 (70th percentile)
V40 (92nd perecentile)
AWA 6
IR 4
Overall 710 (90th percentile)

This score breakup has put me in a worried state of mind. I am contemplating whether to take the test again or to go with this score.

Target year - 2015 admissions
Target schools - HBS, Standford GSB, Booth, Tuck, Insead Singapore, Sloan, Kellog, Berkely, NYU Stern
(ie top 20)

I am putting in a brief write up of my profile. It would be very helpful if you could give me your views on my profile's suitability for the mentioned schools in the light of the GMAT score i attained (specially the combined not so good show in IR and quant)

Educational Background -
1. Schooling - Consistently achieved a Top 5 position in school in each year starting 8th grade
2. 10th Grade - (something like the national education board exams) - 89% (not percentile. 89% was my score)
2. 12th grade - 95% (not percentile) (again national board exams, which form the basis for admission to prestigious undergrad colleges in india)
3. Undergrad - Bachelors in commerce (accounting, taxation, cost accounting). Obtained admission in Sriram College of Commerece in Delhi university. This college is the number 1 college for undergrad commerce studies in India and also rate in the top 4-5 in asia.
4. Professional education (after graduation) - Chartered Accountancy. The Indian chartered accountancy program is probably the toughest in the world. It has 3 successive levels of examination. I cleared all 3 in one attempt with the following All India ranking -
Level 1 (PE1) - All India Rank 19 (approx 50000 examinees)
Level 2 (PE2) - All India Rank 35 (approx 50000 examinees)
Level 3 (PE3) - All India Rank 14 (approx 30000 examinees)
Only about 2-3% people are able to clear the level 3 in any particular attempt. Further this professional course entails a mandatory 3 year stint with and accounting and auditing firm. So one works for 12 hours a day and then studies to prepare for level 3.

Work experience -
1. 3 years of articleship (mandatory work ex under Chartered accountancy) with PricewaterhousCoopers
in financial auditing
2. Moved to ITC limited (5bn USD cigarettes to Hotels conglomerate in India - ITC hotels, Classic brand of cigarettes. also a big player in personal care and foods and snacks business.) Worked for 1 year as Assistant manager in the Internal audit team.

3. Reckitt Benckiser India - Management Trainee (1 yr)
Eventually wanted to move out of auditing and into operations so took a decision to join the Reckitt Benckiser India management trainee program. For 1 year worked in various functions - sales, supply, commercial, factory finance, corporate supply finance. Did a major gross margin improvement project

4. Reckitt Benckiser Singapore - Assistant Manager Finance (6 months)
First finance management trainee in the history of RB India, to be given an international posting on completion of traineeship. Worked with the latin america and asia pac supply director and supply finance controller
Was offered extension of anothr 18 months in the singapore office and additional responsibility with the area marketing innovation finance team.

5. Reckitt Benckiser India - Assistant manager supply finance (current)
Chose to return to the India business and work at the grass root level to learn day to day operations, problems and solutions.

In summary total work ex
3 yrs PwC
1 yr ITC
1 yr RB India and 6 months RB singapore
5 and a half years.

I am clear that i do not want to do Ibanking or PE or consulting since number crunching is not what i want to do all my life and i am not the most quantitatively gifted person. I have a tilt towards general management, marketing, brand management.

Regards
Saurabh Malhotra

Saurabh-

Thanks for your post. As you likely know, your applicant pool is quite large, and standing out is always a challenge. You can't really stand out in your pool with GMAT scores, since it's expected that Indian applicants will have a good GMAT score. Translation: your GMAT score is good enough, and I would focus on my application instead. Even with the lower quant score, your work experience will end up mattering more, since you have five years and a good international stint as well. Your high school record and achievements won't come into play, but your good marks in undergrad will help. I would emphasize my leadership, what you like about the things you have done and why it has helped prepare you for what's next. Sounds like you know more about what you don't want to do than what you do, so I would spend some time honing my post MBA vision down to something you are passionate about and that makes sense in light of your past achievements. With five years logged in the real world, these schools will want to hear a strong and clear vision of what you see yourself doing right after business school as well as down the road. Let us know if we can help. We have specialists who graduated from most of the schools on your target list.