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Dear All,

I wish to apply for MBA programs at Insead, IMD, Cambridge & Oxford for admissions in 2017 and cannot decide if I should rewrite the GMAT or apply with same score i.e. 670 ( Q 49 V 35).

Post MBA Goals :

To crack into Strategy consulting or corporate strategy roles at Industry.

My detailed profile is as follows :

Name : Vivek Pratap Singh
Age : 28
Nationality : Indian
GMAT : 670

Undergrad :->2010 -> Bachelors in Technology ( Computer Science) from a regional engineering college ( Falls under top 15 in India) with 71 % marks. University don't grant GPA, but highest score in my university was 80%.

-> Chairman for IEEE and CSI in successive years .
-> Headed Student placement committee.


Work Experience

2010-2012 : ( Accenture, Consulting , India)

Worked with Accenture as software engineer.
2 promotions in 2 years, awarded best rating one can achieve in Accenture.
Lead the CSR initiative.
Corporate team player for table tennis & badminton.
Worked over domestic and international clients - Sales, Planning & Implementation.

2012- 2016 ( EY, Advisory, India)

Worked with Ernst & Young as Senior Consultant.
Last role was as a Project Manager for largest FMCG firm.
Lead a team of 3-6 Consultants/Sr Cons..
MY role involved Sales, Design & Implementation around SAP Solutions.
Member of corporate team for table tennis & Badminton.
Member of CSR initiative.
Excellent rating of 5/5 for all years at EY.


2016 -Current ( KPMG, Advisory, Uk)
Assistant manager at KPMG Risk consulting practice at London.
Role involved sales and advisory assignments around Risk and Compliance solutions.
On track for promotion by end of this year.



Sports :

Played corporate Table Tennis and Badminton.

CSR :

Contributed to CSR clubs of my Accenture, EY and KPMG.
Family runs an NGo and spend sometime every year doing ground work.

Thanks for sharing.

It would help your chances to score higher. If you are confident that you can still improve on the score, it would be wise to invest the time and effort to do review further and retake the GMAT. Coming from a very competitive pool, aim to score 30 points above the target school's average.

You must also seek ways to distinguish your profile, this could be from your experience at work, outside activities, or personal passions.

Wish you all the best!

Hi Vivek,
Increasing your GMAT score, if time permits, should be an important priority. Given your desire to get in Strategy roles as management consultant, most (not all) management consulting firms consider your GMAT score during recruitment.
In terms of your profile, your undergraduate college pedigree and your extra-curricular leadership activities are strong as is your rapid promotion and involvement in CSR (trust me, it is a big thing for colleges). In addition, you have prior consulting (not sure, if it was management consulting) experience. In my view, your reasons for doing an MBA given that you are already in consulting and your desire to get into more specific consulting might not be strong enough reasons. Pure strategy consulting exists in a handful of organisations and corporate roles generally require some sort of post MBA experience in areas like M&A, go to market, product differentiation and market penetration.
You have a few options -
Looking to explore strategy and operations function within most accounting/IT consulting firms - that will give you some exposure to strategy work.
Consider analyst roles in larger management consulting roles
Move into a corporate role and try and get internal transfers to roles focussed on innovation, process optimisation (lean, six sigma)
Consider some certifications (like those mentioned above)

MBA is a big investment in time and money - make sure your reasons are well founded to the point where MBA is almost the most logical and pertinent next step for you.
Hope this helps.

Consider the following points Vivek:

1. First things first, the GMAT re-take is a bit of a no-brainer really. At your current score, it will be super tough to come within striking distance for most good schools out there. So go for it.
2. The profile itself is pretty interesting but does leave some questions. You seem to have moved from development (what platform?) to SAP and now into risk. At the first look, it is tough to see an underlying theme here - and that is what you will have to do to ensure adcoms do not discount that experience as being more opportunistic. The leadership experience, promotions and good ratings will certainly help you distinguish from the crowd - so will the international experience.
3. Any reason for not considering US/Asian schools? The selection set and profile fitment could be pretty good there and worth a thought.
4. The ECs and CSR involvement will be a good bonus component. But get the basics in place first and take things from there.

Cheers,