Please evaluate my profile and list

Launched September 22, 2008
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Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
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Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:37 am
Location: Hyderabad
GMAT Score:710

Please evaluate my profile and list

by iRebel » Sun Nov 30, 2008 8:37 pm
My Profile:

27 / Male / India / Entrepreneur
- B. Tech with CGPA of 8.45/10
- Worked with an Insurance software company for 2 years as analyst
programer and then with a MNC as development/project manager for 4
years.

- Quit to launch a startup that I've been running for the last 8 moths.
- Active Extra curriculars - Mostly into education of underprivileged.
Headed the community-related initiatives at the last company. (for 2+
years), ACM liaison at college
- 2 published papers.
- GMAT score of 710

Career direction post-MBA: to get into strategy consulting. And to
start my own company 3-4 years after that.

Last year with same score, I got rejects from all 5 schools i applied:
London Business School
UCLA Anderson
Columbia Business School
Duke - Fuqua
GSB - chicago



This year, I have shorted below 3 categories: i am planning to choose 2/3 schools from each category. Please comment on below schools with respect to my profile:
Long shots:
London Business School
Columbia Business School
Insead - France
MIT: Sloan
University of Cambridge: Judge - UK

Medium:
IESE Business School
IMD
HEC Paris - France
Esade Business School
Yale School of Mgmt

Shots:
U. Mich: Ross
UC Berkeley: Haas
Virginia: Darden
Dartmouth College: Tuck
New York University: Stern

Please help me!!
Thanks in advance

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by Eliot » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:02 am
iRebel,

Thanks for your note. Academically, you should be a competitive candidate to top schools. My concern is how your career goals relate to your work experience. For your first 6 years, you moved up from a software programmer to Project Manager - so far so good as long as you can quantify your impact and explain why you left. Now you are working at a start up, which is also fine as long as you can show the impact that you have made over the past 6 months.

My confusion regards why you want to go back to business school in order to do strategy consulting followed by launching a start up. This raises a number of issues:
1) Why are you leaving your start up so soon? What will happen to this venture when you leave?
2) Since you left a big company to join a start up, why do you want to do strategy consulting to big firms? And then do a start up after that?

It would be great if you could provide more information about your rationale for this career path before I comment on which schools are the right fit for you.

In addition, did you receive any feedback from the schools that you applied to last year? Have you taken steps to address this feedback?

Sincerely,

Eliot Ingram
Clear Admit LLC
Eliot Ingram
Clear Admit, LLC
[email protected]
215 568 2590

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Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:37 am
Location: Hyderabad
GMAT Score:710

by iRebel » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:14 am
Hi Eliot!

Apologies for the delay in my response!

I would like to re-state my goals. I quit the MNC to get experience in fields other than software development and project management.

So far, the startup has been a very good learning ground/experience and we are expected to turn profitable by March, 2009.

Frankly speaking, the company also gave me an idea of the areas where I need to gain more skills. I could acquire them by either continuing with the startup + experimenting OR through an MBA. I chose to go with the latter. When I leave for an MBA, the current company will continue to be run by my partner. Depending on how it works out, I will be more like an adviser in the future.

After my MBA, I intend to start a company in the same field/domain (security). My work experience at MNC and at the current startup are all in this domain. So, I believe it puts me in a position where I technically understand the field. In the long term, I plan to be part of a Venture Capital firm. I will continue to be associated with startups but more in a guiding role from a technology and operations/business standpoint. (from my earlier experiences with startups).

(Pls. ignore my earlier post about strategy consulting)

Unfortunately, I haven't got any feedback from any of the schools I have applied.

Pls. let me know if you need any additional information.
Thanks a ton for your support! :)

Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:37 am
Location: Hyderabad
GMAT Score:710

by iRebel » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:24 am
I thought this additional info might help:

Verbal: 38/83%
Quant: 49/88%
Total: 710/92%
Analytical: 6.0/87%

TOEFL: (iBT)
Reading: 29
Listening: 27
Speaking: 27
Writing: 30
Total: 113/120
---

Managed/worked with teams in countries such as China(support/post-sales team), Japan(sales/marketing teams), Israel(development team), Australia and US(stakeholders, executive mgmt, program managers).

Worked with customers like Citi, Daiwa, Toyota etc.

I have initiated and played a key role in starting the Project Management function at the India centre (of the MNC).

Have addl. 6 month work experience at Sydney.