Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Age: 25 years (as of this post)
GMAT: Male
Nationality: Indian

Education:

B.Tech in Electronics and telcom from UPTU, india

Cum. GPA: 3.4

GMAT: 730-750 expected

Work-ex:

Completed 3 years full-time in IT Domain ( Unix system admin ) consultant and project management role

Brief Details:

1) Aug. 2007 to Present - ST Microelectronics, India

● Part of a 25 member team, responsible for managing the world wide data center activities.
● Providing IT consulting to various design groups, understanding their requirement and providing them the solution. Active member of the consulting team for setting up the data center for a new company Numonyx.
● Part of project management team for two projects... one completed and one in transition
● leading an internal project of incident management with 14 people under me and got appreciation from higher management
● ITIL foundations certified
● Working with various applications team for problem management
● Managing various data center projects and troubleshooting
- Trainer and supervisor of the 2 new joiners in my group

2) July 06' - Aug 07' - HCL Technologies

- System analyst for the client teradyne
- Best performer of the quarter memento and appreciation certificate from the client
- Part of change management and capacity management team
- Working with various teams for problem management
- Managing various data center projects and troubleshooting

Extra Curricular Activities

- Started a trekking club name Rangers in college to help students break their jinx and explore the unpredictabilty of wilderness
- College captain leading college to 4th position in ALL INDIA sports meet in IT BHU
- Gold medalist in volleyball in ALL INDIA sports meet
- Strated a social welfare cell in the society to teach the slum children
- Study and practise spirituality.
- Various singing and dramatics prizes
- School sports captain and prefect
- Did a modeling assignment for a clothing store during college
- Organized various cultural and technical fests at inter collegiate level
- Active member of the training and placement cell

Interests

Making Music, volleyball and cricket, Travelling (have travelled to a majority of Indian states)

Why MBA: I want to leverage and combine the experience I have gained in IT Consulting and assume higher roles like management consulting. MBA school would allow me to exploit networking opportunities with the many peers expected to be in top programs.


Questions:-

1. Based on my profile which US or canadian colleges do you refer..
2. Whether its possible for me to switch to sales and marketing domain during my MBA and get a reasonable job?
3. What do you suggest about General management?
4. Is it worth to spend a huge amount on B schools ranging from 15-30 in rank
5. Being an IT profile ( most common ) what do you refer, should i do to boost my chances ( apart from score and applications )

Thanks.
Rahul Sareen

Hello, Rahul,

Thank you for presenting your profile. Here are the answers to your questions:

1. It seems that schools with strong marketing and management programs would be a good fit, and you could target top-25 schools, with some of the more competitive ones as reasonable reaches, and others as on-par. Reaches would be schools such as Haas, Kellogg, Darden, Michigan. On-pars would be schools such as Indiana, Texas, maybe UNC, with Rochester (Simon) closer to a safety.
2. It is possible to make the switch if you make a compelling case for it in your essays. I can’t comment on the recruiting prospects – for that I suggest researching recent years’ hiring for the specific programs you’re interested in.
3. This question isn’t clear to me.
4. “Worth it” is a subjective matter. It depends on many things: your resources to start, how badly you want to make the change and what other means might be available to do so, etc. I suggest going through a rigorous decision process laying out the factors and assigning weight to each, then you should be able to determine whether it is worth it for you.
5. Since as an Indian in IT you’re not differentiated in an obvious way, reflect on your experiences (work and non-work) and bring the insight from your experiences into your essays – that insight is a distinctive aspect of you, and also insightfulness is a quality adcoms value. Identify and write about specific aspects of your experience that are engaging and interesting, i.e., any unusual clients/industries, unusual work culture/structure, etc. Basically, without a readily identifiable “differentiator,” you will have to shape/form one out of your unique perspective, perception, insight. It’s not easy, but it’s doable, and many people in a similar situation do so successfully.

Best regards,
Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
www.Accepted.com