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Hello everyone !!

I recently took the GMAT (on 31st Jan 2015) and scored 660 (Q47, V34, AWA4.5, IR4).

This was my 3rd attempt. 1st attempt (Oct 2011) : 460, 2nd attempt (may 2012) : 570.

I have 8.5 years of work experience (6 years in Marketing and 2.5 years in Sales). The 6 years of Marketing experience has been in two companies, one of them being India's top 5 IT companies (includes 1.5 years of international full time posting in Singapore) , and the other one being one of the world's largest hardware and software services company (based at India). For the past 2.5 years, I have been working in as a Sales Manager in one of the world's largest media house, one of America's biggest and oldest, while being based in India.

I am an IT Engineer and had a gpa of 3.5 in Engineering and a gpa of 4 in high school as well (Class XII in India). I have converted my percentage to GPA format using the following link : https://www.easycalculation.com/statist ... ge-gpa.php

I have the following achievements across my career :

1) Promoted very early in my first company to become the youngest Regional Marketing manager - was based at Singapore for 1.5 years overseeing the marketing and communication function for entire APAC.
2) Two awards at my first company
3) Two recognitions at my current company
3) Guest faculty at two colleges in my current city, where I take lectures for MBA Marketing students as well as judge their presentations

I wish to apply in round 1 of the following and need your advice on whether I am right in aiming for these schools , whether I should add or delete some schools in this list and what I should focus on in my applications :

1) INSEAD
2) Tepper
3) Cambridge Judge Business school
4) Haas School of Business (Berkeley)
5) Tuck School of Business
5) Kellogg
6) London Business School
7) HKUST Hong Kong
8) NUS Singapore


Thank you , in advance, for any advice.

- Sambit

Dear Sambit,

A few thoughts on your profile:

1. It appears from your post that you are done with the GMAT. If that is however not the case, I would strongly recommend another shot. So far, you've improved that score consistently. If you've not considered professional help, do that. Schools don't care as to the number of attempts you've put in
2. Your profile is pretty interesting and non-common. You will have to ensure that it does not get clubbed with the competitive pool of applicants in the technology space though. The other thing you'll have to consider is the following. The kind of role you are doing, is usually what people from technology background end up doing after an MBA. So you'll have to think deep about your post-MBA goals story
3. For reasons mentioned here, I will refrain from providing gut-based school recommendations. Though we've seen folks at your score get into those schools, but at a high level, the list looks more on the aggressive side barring a few. So I'd suggest a bit more research and thought on that front too

Hope this gives you a start

Cheers,