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Hi

Could you evaluate my profile?

I took up the GMAT thrice. Got 610 in my first attempt. 660 (47Q 34V) in my second and 650 (46Q 34V) in my third (No power for the entire duration of the test made me lose my focus). My practice test scores were in the range of 710 - 740 and I felt good before my third attempt. But as mentioned the external conditions at the test center dampened my chances of getting a good score. I do not want to take the GMAT again.

Here is a short brief on my profile.

1. GMAT - 660 (Highest)
2. Work ex - 13 months with Cognizant Technolgy Solutions as a developer. 16 months as a Product Evangelist at a software products company.
3. Undergrad CGPA - 3.2 not sure on this (82 % - and finished in top 5% of my class)- Electrical Engineering
4. Have led and formed teams at college and at work. Revamped a dead Entrepreneurship Cell at my college by taking it from a one member team to a 75 member team in one year. Received an award at college recognizing this. Led a team of 50 other training batch captains at Cognizant and conceptualized and conducted a one day fundraising cultural activity. Raised 5000$ (INR 2,50,000) for an orphanage.
5. Received an award and lot of appreciation from clients and peers at Cognizant for developing a tool that reduced testing time by 80% and brought down costs by 70% for my client (An insurance company based in the US)
6. Was more interested in marketing and sales side of a product and hence switched to my current role. Have been involved in creating marketing strategies for 4 different products (2 new products) in my current role. Have worked on getting more customer testimonials for the 4 products, have revamped the product blogs and have drastically improved our social media presence.
7. Have been leading teams of size 4 - 10 for the last 8 months now. Played a key role in expansion of the company and have also helped manage recruiting at all levels. We nearly doubled up our head count in the last one year.
8. Have also helped with operations and described as the "The GOTO Man" by my CEO.
9. Was the campus ambassador for Child Rights and You and worked with them to help create awareness for the Right to Education act. Have also been involved with the CSR arm of Cognizant during my stay there.
10. Worked as the Alumni officer at my Undergrad college for two months before my role at Cognizant. Have helped set up the process for the Alumni Scholarship for meritorious students from difficult background. Have been a board member of the Alum Association and was also part of the Scholarship committee and Election committee which oversees the election process for office bearers.
11. Have finished Level 1 Spanish certification and will be taking up Level 2 soon.
12. Learning to play the flute and the sport of archery for last 6 months.

I would like to pursue a specialization in Marketing. Below are the list of my target schools.

1. Indian School of Business
2. University of Virginia - Darden
3. University of Michigan - Ross
4. Cornell University - Johnson
5. Carnegie Mellon University - Tepper
6. UCLA - Anderson

Hi Aringo,

Thank you in advance for providing your assessment of my profile. I have a somewhat unique work experience and I would greatly appreciate hearing your expert opinion.

Profile:

BA - Small Business Management (2007) from mid 2nd tier state university (University of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, etc.). GPA 3.35 (3.5+ final two years, 3.5+ within major). Graduated cum laude (top 20%).

GMAT: 720 (48 Quant, 41 Verbal - still waiting for AQA, but it will be at least a 5.5). First and only attempt.

Community Involvement:
Almost my entire career has been spent in the non-profit space. I have regularly volunteered at a number of charity events, although I have no on-going commitments.

-1 year marketing assistant in small, private law firm
-3 years in mental health human services - no previous experience. Promoted to youngest manager within company of 1000. Managed 2 direct reports, residential home and outreach team.

-Almost two years as Recruiter for prestigious global non-profit (Gates, Clinton Foundation, etc.). I contribute to evolution of processes and systems, have become the team's expert on Excel, data analysis and process flows. I've created new systems and protocols for a variety of ongoing tasks. I am moving towards a team lead role and am in line to be become manager of global team of 5 in one year.

As you can see, I have not followed the typical path (consulting, analyst, etc.). My career has involved a focus on collaboration, interpersonal communication and interpersonal management, and problem solving.

My career goals are to continue to advance within human resources/human capital strategy or organizational behavior.

My school preferences are:

-Darden
-Kellog
-INSEAD
-Columbia
-Duke
-UNC
-Chicago


Do I have a chance at these schools? Thank you!

Hey Brian ,

Thanks for your reply ! One quick question - My verbal percentile on the GMAT is 74% , do you think that will be an issue because it is below the 80% percentile ? Should I retake the GMAT to improve my verbal score or is it fine ?

Hi,
Thanks in advance for evaluating my profile. I am unsure of which universities I could target with my below par GMAT score. I am aiming for Manchester & Warwick Business schools within the UK and a few top 20 universities in the USA.

GMAT : 640 ( 44Q,34V) ( 4th Attempt)
3rd Attempt: 30V 44Q 610
2nd Attempt 29V 47Q 630
1st Attempt 25V 39Q 550

Education: 2.1 MEng in Electronic and Communications Engineering from one of the top 10 universities in the UK and top 30 in the world.

Work Experience : 3 Years experience working as an Engineer in a well reputed engineering design consultancy in the UK.During my career I have managed teams within the UK and India. I have devised solutions to improve the methods utilized by my organisation.I have full support from the senior management who are more than willing to recommend me to a business school and offer me a job when I graduate from management school.

Nationality & Age: Indian Male, 27

I am unsure whether I should attempt the GMAT for the 5th time in order to get a higher score.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks!

BrianW@Aringo wrote:

Hi Brian,

I have a question regarding low GMAT score - my first test was bad and I'm sure I can improve. I know that when submitting the score report to the school they see all my past scores, so my question is if I should cancel the low GMAT score so it would not hurt me if I score much higher later on? do I have anything to lose if I do that?

prnd7748,

Thank you for your question. Some schools (such as INSEAD) take a look at the lower scores. Therefore, if you're convinced that the score is low and that you can get a better score (or had a better score) it may behoove your candidacy not to report that score.

Best of luck,

Dear Brian,

Some MBA programs ask the recommender to rank the candidate through a ranking table (grid) based on their abilities compared to their peers. One of my recommenders told me that he will rank me in the highest category (truly exceptional - top 1%) on everything!
Although this is flattering, isn't it too much? I know the point is to present a highly positive image, but would it be better to balance the rankings with some lower grades to gain more credibility?

Hi Brian,

I'm an Indian female interested in doing an MBA in either the US or UK. I am very interested in strategic planning and business development. I just wrote my GMAT a week ago and got 660 (Q44 V37), had expected at least 700, so it is a bit of a disappointment but I'm not sure how much I can improve in such a short time period so I've decided to not write it again. I come from a engineering background having done my grad in Telecom from a top engineering college of my State. I'm not sure what my GPA would be but I graduated with First Class lying in the top 30% of my class. I work in a small product company that focus on video quality monitoring. I wouldn't term myself as an IT person mainly because my job has nothing to do with IT (at least that's how i see it). I have 2 yrs of work experience, by the time i start my MBA it would be 3.

Here's what I'm worried about, i had a job offer from a reputed company in India with a good pay, but I declined that offer to join the company I am working with presently. My dad founded the company and is the CEO, but I mainly joined cause I would be applying everything i learnt about in 4 yrs of college to do my job and i loved the technology they were working with. My designation is Product Manager - now I know ppl automatically conclude that I was given this because of who I am, I thought so too when I joined, but after two years I think I can confidently say I haven't let down my superiors who saw the potential in me and entrusted with such a big responsibility. I was dead set on not doing a job that 90% of engineers do, I wanted to learn, explore and do something different. And I got to do exactly that, I did a lot of research on upcoming strategies that the company should move towards, analysis on the pros and cons of that and helped implement this move as well. I was also responsible for a particular patent pending facet of our product that is our Intellectual Property and a big USP with our clients. The second year I spent a lot of time marketing our products in the US. I have had the opportunity to present and demo our product to our clients like Ericsson. I have also spent close to 5 months training our clients on how to use our products.

I guess what I wanna ask is, do I have a chance at some good schools with my score and work experience. The schools that I would wanna apply are:
Harvard
ISB
Yale
Cornell
Oxford: Said
Cambridge: Judge
Tuck
Tepper
Ross

I understand that some of the above schools may be too much of a stretch, but if so I would like some advice on where to apply and where not to apply. I would love to apply to Booth and Kellogg as well but is it worth it? Am I unique enough for them, do I stand a chance? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Also should I talk about working in a company founded by my dad or not. I understand that some of the opportunities i have been given may have been cause of who I am but I also know that I have gone above and beyond every expectation my superiors have had of me. Due to that I think I was given a lot of assignments well beyond my age and experience, not because of my surname but because I had proved myself before.

Please let me know what I should do in terms of what schools to apply to and what strategy to use.

Many Thanks in advance..