Ask Stacy Blackman

Hi,

I am from family business and have a wide range of responsibilities which honestly, I am finding difficult to compress in the essays. Details of the profile-

Citizen : India
Age: 24
Graduated in: Electronics and Telecom 2007
GPA : 7.0/10 (Cannot be converted to 4 point scale)
GMAT : 640 (Q-41, V-38)
Work ex- 3 yrs at the time of joining

Work Experience: Joined my family business in 2007. Have exposure to fields of steel fabrication, import export and real estate and all are registered firms in the respective countries.

International Exposure- Instrumental in establishing a private company in Qatar. Researched Oman and UAE as prospective locations for the company but decided on Qatar for variety of reasons.

Short Term Career Interest: Joining a Private equity/ Venture capital firm to understand both sides of the capital raising- (VC point of view) How to invest in start up/ small companies and how to evaluate them and (entrepreneur point of view) What needs to be done for raising finance and how to present the projects.


Long Term Career Interest:Return to family business, expand the export company and raise structured financing for the real estate company.

What I want from a B School MBA:

Academic : More hands on experience will be preferred along with good international exposure.

Social : Want to experience a great student life. Looking for a school with cooperative and team oriented environment where a young entrepreneur will be accepted. Would ideally like to interact with a lot of intl. students.

Repute: More than ranking, good professors and good alumni network which can be tapped later on.

Network : A well knit alumni network is essential as it will help my existing business a great deal.


Leadership: Wide range of responsibilities- developing company brand, interacting with foreign delegates, market research etc. In general more than day to day operations I implement the changes that my father has wanted to make for years. Good results achieved. Am being groomed as a future leader.

Recommendations: A problem area. I do not have an immediate supervisor. I work with 2 other directors (dad and another partner). Whose recommendations can I get?

Extra-curricular: Since highschool I work for the non profit trust that my family runs. Active in the fields of free health care, education, yoga and cultural outreach.(It has a history of 300 years and almost entire immediate family is involved)

I am also learning French as a fourth language.

Colleges: Suggestions for target schools will be welcome. Programs of USC, Marshall and Duke have attracted me though.

Will my low GMAT be a problem for the above programs? Please tell me what you think.

Thanks,

Thanks Lisa for the prompt reply. Really appreciate it. Can a different work profile make up for a low GMAT score? Assuming that I can differentiate myself in the essays, can I target schools that have an average GMAT score of say 670-680?

I apologize if we are not allowed to bump old topics! But I just wanted to post an update. I took the GMAT again and scored 680. How does this score stand? I have also been researching schools and would appreciate ur inputs on them.

Target- USC Marshall, Emory Goizeuta, Kelley Indiana
Second priority- UCI, Irvine and Boston University

Would my profile be competitive for UCLA Anderson? Their international business and entrepreneurship focus is perfect for my background and what I want to do.

Looking forward to your inputs.

Thank you Lisa...Good to know that the score is competitive. I was disappointed as I did not touch the 700 mark!I am starting with the applications immediately.

Regarding recommendations, will it be okay to take a recommendation from a senior partner in the firm? He is not a family member.The company is a partnership and I directly report to him.

Lisa,

Here I am again posting after the entire grill of the admission process. I applied to USC, Kelley, UCI Irvine, Emory and Purdue (as a safety school). I am waitlisted on UCI and have rejects from all the other schools without interview. My GMAT score is close to or greater than the avg scores of this schools.

The result is surprising to say the least. I applied in R2 and have started a review to understand which parameters in the application can be improved. From the look of things, 700 GMAT seems to be the cut off for Indian students- atleast the forums seem to indicate so. I thought that only for the Indian IT demographic, the score of 700 was considered essential.

The essays were (supposedly) strong and were reviewed by people familiar with the application process. What would you suggest? Should I give the GMAT again? I am sure that I won't be able to do exceedingly better - can score 710 max.

I plan to apply in r1 or early round this year. USC and Emory were my target schools. Will my current score (680) and better experience + application in R1 improve my chances at these schools this year?

Looking forward to hear your suggestions.

Thanks,

Thanks again for the prompt reply. Almost all schools do not provide any kind of feedback. Is there any way I can approach them for feedback?

The big decision to make is whether to give GMAT again. Given my time restrictions, scoring beyond 710 would be difficult. Would an increase of 20-30 points make a whole lot of difference? Or will the time be better spent on preparing an application for R1?

What concerns me is that as an Indian applicant, I may be compared with the Indian IT demographic which makes my score less than the average.

Thanks,