Ask Veritas Prep Admissions Consulting

27 year old, Indian Female

1) Brief description of experience :
- 5 years experience in the largest steel producer in India. Positions ranging from core operations management to corporate strategy, business development to corporate communication. Worked on medium-term & long-term corporate strategy of a $8 million(in annual revenues) government owned company, further I work on the assessment and action-plan for strategic alliances/JVs/M&A. In addition to all this I'm also part of group which handles investor relations and enables corporate level interface with government of India and world steel association(WSA).

2) GRE : 311 ; GMAT: 600 (3 attempts same score; don't intend to take another shot)

3) GPA : 3.7; top 10% of the class , majored in Manufacturing Science & Engineering

4)Additional:
- youngest person in the organization(with 1 lac employees) to win the best younger manager award
- exposure to steel industry in Japan & China
- founding member of rotary club chapter
- recognized as child scientist, represented India in Indo-Germany exchange program

5)Short-term & Long-term Goals: Post MBA, I'm inclined to pursue management consulting at one of the Big 3 companies and seek assignments in the manufacturing sector.Consulting will build upon my present experience of business development in a government owned metals & mining company and MBA learnings, by providing diverse exposure and a structured approach to tackle cases. In the long-run, I plan to specialize in growth and go-to-market strategies in the manufacturing sector with regards to international business development, playing an integral role in corporate strategy and leading the sustainable expansion of the organization in the emerging economies.

Thanks for sharing your profile. You have accomplished many great things in your professional and academic career thus far which you should be very proud of. These aspects will be positive aspects of your profile as admissions teams review your application. However, I don't know what schools you are targeting but your GMAT will be a problem area if you are targeting the elite programs.

I would focus on targeting programs where your GMAT score fits comfortably into that school's GMAT range. Outside of the GMAT you seemingly have a strong profile and if you continue to accentuate your positives in your profile that should go a long way.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Dozie,

I appreciate your feedback, and completely understand the fact that my score is low for US top 10-20 full-time programs.
I was hoping to get a perspective about - if my positives can outweigh my score?
Being an International Student, I believe you would know targeting beyond top 25 doesn't make sense.

Regards

You have many great positives within your profile but the challenges you will face even with all of these great attributes will still make it tough:

1)Competitiveness
-There will be many other students who also have similarly great backgrounds and these students will ALSO have strong GMAT scores so its not as simple as just having a great background
-You can continue to help counteract this with really showcasing unique aspects of your candidacy and experiences you have gone through. This will serve to humanize your profile and can potentially show the admissions team a different side of you

2)Career Focus
-Part of the admissions team's job is to gauge whether they can help you reach your career goals. With a low GMAT it will be tough for you to have a realistic shot at the top 3 consultant companies particularly the school lower on the top 20 list

Now you have a background so some of the lower schools in the top 20 may be an option but your low GMAT score will remain a red flag

Hope this helps!