Profile Evaluation: MBA Fall 2016

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Profile Evaluation: MBA Fall 2016

by yashthakar1 » Tue Oct 21, 2014 11:47 am
Hi Everyone,
This is for application to MBA programs in fall 2016. I'm trying to understand my weaknesses so that I can plan the year ahead.

I'm an Indian national living and working in NY. Below is a high level overview of my background. I understand that my chances are depended on good execution but at a high level I want to gauge where I stand based on everyone's understanding.

Please note that even though I graduated from an engineering background my experience since graduating from grad school has been in non-technical consulting roles. I was an engineer by accident. While I say this, please note that I have some financial technical knowledge from course work/auditing of classes in graduate school. I have also developed deep capital markets and financial regulatory understanding from my job responsibilities since they have all been focused towards the same industry.

Undergrad: Computer Engineering, University of Pune (54%), Class Highest: 73%)
Grad Program: Master in IS from NYU (Joint program between Math and Stern Business school: GPA 3.56). Course work focused on Finance including corporate finance and capital markets.

Work Experience:

FYI, I went to grad school straight after undergrad.
Starting working with a big 4 firm in the advisory practice focused on high pressured regulatory risk projects. Moved to a competitor firm and promoted to Senior Associate. The group was new and expanded from 5 to 150 people in a year (senior management team moved from my old to new firm and gave me the opportunity to join them in the new venture, hence had lots of responsibility outside of my projects(recruiting campus hires, experience professionals, etc)). Received top performer rating at both places

After 1 year at both firms moved to a role with a Tier 1 bank (Goldman, Morgan, JP) in the Wealth Management group and have been working there since the past summer. (Will have 2 years with the firm by the time I enter business school)

Summary, total experience when I enter business school: 4 years (1+1+2)

Leadership during professional career:
Managed large project teams during my experience with the big 4 (7-18 team members in difference projects across multiple countries (London, Singapore and Hong Kong)). Delivered client presentations to regional and global heads of business. All my work dealt with extreme regulatory fines and clients in extreme trouble, hence requiring 100 hours/week for both years.

I now work within the bank in a fast paced market oriented role. Scope of the projects involves global interaction with various functional and regional teams (most people I work with everyday are based out of NYC, London, India, Singapore and Hong Kong)

References: 1 from 2nd Big 4 firm and 1 from current manager (should be very good references)

GMAT: 670 (q:46, v:37)

I know I bombed the quant but studying again and will retake the test in 2 months. For now want to understand the implications if score doesn't improve

Extra-Curricular:
Working with a children's nonprofit to design their curriculum for about 3 years. The curriculum is focused on helping provide under privileged children with an education so that they may attain sufficient knowledge to effectively succeed academically when they join public schools.
Captain of college basketball team for 2 years and helped organize the first sports festival in the college's history
Cultural and technical events co-lead coordinator
Led the school specific recruitment team to hire undergraduate and graduate students from NYU during my time with the big 4.

Short term career goal:
Leveraging past experience and transitioning to a role in Investment Banking. An MBA will help me gain the technical skills that I don't have. It will also help me cross the Chinese wall within banks (corssing from public side (market trading)to private side (deal making) and also help move from middle office to front client facing role

Long term career goal:
Internal Transaction & Execution group in a fortune 500 firm

Target schools: I have already visited information sessions for some school and reached out/spoken to some alumni. I have an affair understand of the pros and cons of each school. Will be visiting each school over the next year and hope to apply round 1 to the following schools. I'm not looking to stay in a big city (ps: I loved the Georgetown campus). Also, im not sure about my how I would stand at Columbia
"¢ Yale School of Management
"¢ Duke University: Fuqua
"¢ Dartmouth College: Tuck
"¢ University of Michigan: Ross
"¢ Cornell University: Johnson
"¢ Georgetown: McDonough

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by CriticalSquareMBA » Thu Oct 23, 2014 5:18 am
Hey there,

Thanks for posting so much awesome detail! Let me start by saying you've got a really interesting profile. Here's what I'm liking:

1) "Intrapreneurship" experience at the 2nd firm you worked for
2) The fact that you leveraged that to shift into WM
3) That you're Indian and already working in the US with a graduate degree from NYU
4) You're involved both within the community and your firms

So that all said, you have most of the building blocks for a really successful MBA run. You have a lot to offer! But, that said, your GMAT puts you in a tough spot for almost all those programs with some more than others. It's great that you have a retake planned. That'll be attempt #2? Given you're starting early, you have time for a 3rd one too before you hit R1 applications next year.

Over the next year, just take the WM role by the horns and knock it out of the park. The rest of your profile will continue to shape up nicely (e.g. involvement). With a strong GMAT you're in for a good run my friend!

Bhavik
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by yashthakar1 » Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:49 pm
@CriticalSquareMBA Thanks a lot for your feedback. I gave the GMAT in 2009 (score was 680 with a high quant score with which I applied to grad school) but that now expired. The score I listed was my second attempt a year ago. Currently I'm focused on trying to get that the score up and making sure everything is in place with my current job to make a successful MBA application run next year. Interesting times ahead, I guess. :)

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by CriticalSquareMBA » Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:59 pm
You're very welcome! Good luck with the retake - if the first expired, you're on #2 so you still have another attempt if you need it. But I know you won't need it because you're going to crush it! :)

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by yashthakar1 » Thu Oct 23, 2014 1:24 pm
Gracias....will post when I get out of the horrid test room :)