Please Evaluate my Profile

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Please Evaluate my Profile

by Go750 » Wed Aug 01, 2012 5:55 am
Hi,

Could you please evaluate my profile? I could use the help

Background: I'm an Indian, female, 22 years old
I have done my bachelors in Finance Accounting and Management from a UK university with a 2.1 which is pretty decent there but nothing great. I went to school in India and finished my high school board exams with a 91%.

Work Experience: I am working in Singapore at a Top tier Investment bank as a Credit Risk Analyst its my first job out of university and I've been there for a year now. I know its pretty early for an MBA as compared to other applicants so I'm a bit worried about this it it will be 2 years by the time I start my program. They have given me a lot of responsibility and my performance is evaluated well so I should be able to get some good recommendations. Other than that I've done internships at an hedge fund, in economic research, a brokerage firm and one of the Big 4 in auditing.

Other: I took a gap year after I graduated from university where I went travelling for 6 months around Western Europe, East Coast of the US, parts on India and Malaysia. For the rest of the year I volunteered with the Red Cross in organising Blood Drives and the World Wildlife fund to increase awareness about reef conservation in the coral triangle amongst scuba divers as I'm one myself. I studied mandarin and can now speak intermediate conversational mandarin. I also speak English(obviously), Hindi and Spanish.

Sports: I was the Captain of the Swim team of my School in India and part of the Football team. In university I was part of the Sailing team.

Volunteer experience: I have been involved with various non-profit organisations all my life. In India I took part in various volunteering activities and was part of the School nature Club. In university, I was a member of a charity which collected school textbooks and helped ship them to schools in Tanzania.

Why MBA: I am looking to switch from Investment banking to Private Equity.

GMAT: I have taken the GMAT test once but I'm giving it at the end of this month again to better my score to above 700.
August 2009 : 670 (Q 40, V 42)

I'm thinking of applying to Columbia, INSEAD, Wharton, NYU, Haas and HEC Paris. Does this make sense?

I'm worried my work experience is too less and that my university grades are not too great. Could you evaluate my profile?
Thanks for reading my rather lengthy post
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by milimbamission » Thu Aug 02, 2012 6:09 pm
Hello! Thanks for the detailed profile information.

I do think some of your concerns are valid - while your professional experience is solid, it is limited in terms of # of years of experience and your ability to display leadership potential may therefore be slightly less than other applicants with more experience. I would also agree that given your current GMAT score and low undergraduate scores, your academic profile may not be competitive for some of these schools. Even with a higher GMAT, it may be difficult to overcome your low GPA. Your college extracurricular activities are very strong, but the fact that you haven't had any extracurricular leadership thereafter will also be a bit of a flag. Finally, your community experience sounds consistent (you'll have good stories, I think), but do not really demonstrate leadership. All this said, I think you'll have some interesting personal stories from your gap year, but I'm not sure that will be enough for these schools.

I would recommend that you take another year or so to build up your leadership profile (professional, community and extracurricular) and to improve your GMAT score (maybe even enroll is supplementary quantitative courses to help offset your GPA). If you definitely want to apply this year, I would suggest that Columbia, Wharton and Haas may be too aggressive with your current profile. Perhaps you only keep one of these schools on your list as a reach, and then augment the list with more realistic targets such as Darden, UCLA, Cornell. I think INSEAD and NYU are possibilities, as is HEC.

I hope this is helpful! I know it may not be what you wanted to hear, but hopefully it gives you a better understanding of where you can improve and where to target.

Good luck!

Mili
Mili Mittal

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