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GMAT Preparation: GMAT Verbal reading vs everyday reading

GMAT verbal questions involve English. And you've been reading books, magazines and newspapers in English since you were a child. But is that sufficient to assume that all that reading has made you an expert at GMAT English?

This post explains why the two are different and how you can approach it to get into the GMAT club of 700+ scorers...Read More

Hi Sameer,

Hoping to receive an initial assessment on my MBA candidacy.

Academics :-
Institute : RGPV University
Degree : B.Engg (I.T.)
Secured 78.6% - First Class with Distinction (Among top 10% of my class)

GMAT - 730 (Q:50, V:38, AWA: 5.5)

Work Experience -
4+ Years with a leading IT Solutions company of India.
Extensive international experience (2+ Yrs).
Work as an ERP consultant for a global pharma-giant in Corp. Financials delivering systems that result in significant financial benefit for the organization.

Why MBA:
Post MBA I want to break into the field of Strategy Consulting.
In the longer run, I would use this experience to become part of Corp. Exe. Team for a global organisation.

Targeting amongst listed below:
Wharton
Tuck
Yale SoM
NYU Stern
Chicago Booth
UCLA Anderson
Ross
Cornell

Extra Curricular Activities -
Career mentor for college juniors and colleagues
Event Management (Team building / College Cultural Events / State-level IT Symposium)

Feedback on my profile and target schools will be greatly appreciated.

georgepaul0071987 wrote:Computer Engineering Degree at NIT Trichy.
Overall GPA of 8.4/10 - First Class with Distinction ( The highest possible class that can be achieved ) . I was in the top 5-10% of my class.

Well done, buddy!

GMAT - 710 ( Q50,v35 ,AWA 5.5)

Just curious if you were doing better than this in your prep tests? Can this go up before your Round 1 application deadlines?

Work Experience -
1.5 years as Business Analyst at Credit Suisse.
:
1.5 years as a Sales and Marketing Manager at my family business.

Your career graph has taken off on a completely different trajectory since you've joined your family business.

The best case scenario would've been the entire 3 years in this role, giving you one consistent and far more impressive story.

Right now, you've taken a knife and cut that overall experience in two (arguably) completely unrelated industries and roles.

My main aim is to do an MBA and then come back and take over the family business...Once I take over the business I would need to be in a position to lead a team of about 100-200 people.

In case you had started off with your family business (instead of joining the IT role), you might've reached your goal (as you've described in your post) of leading 100 people before the MBA, right?

Why then do you see the need for an MBA at a stage where the real world learning and growth is happening exponentially?

My target Schools - HBS ( Leadership ) , Wharton ( Finance ) or Kellog ( For Marketing ) . Although I feel HBS would be the best fit because I would be taking a leadership role once I return to the family business after my MBA.

Most of the top schools excel in multiple departments. So beyond the initial impressions about bschool strength, the labels don't mean much specially when you are joining back your family business.

If you decide to apply with the current GMAT score, you might want to expand the list of schools to include a few more where the GMAT wouldn't be a constraint.

Mays Business School Texas A&M University with scholarship

Mays business school is the Best value for money school in the US (and 4th in the world) according to Financial Times 2012 MBA rankings. FT also gives it a thumbs up for other aspects such as 'Salary Percentage Increase' (2nd in US), 'Employment at Three Months' (7th in US) and 'Aims Achieved' (6th in US).

The Mays MBA program has a strong technology management concentration and ties with the industry which translates to the strong placement statistics.

These were a few reasons why Samim Riaz chose the Mays MBA program at Texas A&M University (TAMU)...Read More

GMAT Preparation: GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) - Necessary vs Sufficient

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) questions test the test-takers ability to read complex (sometimes intentionally tricky) paragraphs and derive rational conclusions from it. In this post we take on another topic from the GMAT verbal syllabus that non-English speakers often find confusing. And yup, do expect sample GMAT questions to test out your newly gained knowledge...Read More

xxc

Hi Sameer,

Do you also do profile analysis for MPA programs as well? I am looking for a career change to MPA with focus on non profit and public management.I am indian ,female with 7 years of experience in IT industry.Do let me know if crystalball helps for MPA programs too..
Thanks

Hi Sameer,

Any thoughts on my profile submitted earlier??

Hi Sameer,

Please have a look at my profile and evaluate my chances for the schools mentioned below.

GMAT: 680 (Q: 48, V:35)

X: 81.5 %
XII: 89 %
Undergrad Major: B.E - Electronics and Communication and Engineering
Undergrad College: Anna University, Chennai
GPA: 75% (3.0/4)
Country: India

Overall experience 5 years (60 months) by the time I join.

3 years (36 months) of full time work experience as a Software Engineer in Infosys.

1 year of full time experience so far (2 years by the time I join) managing our family business, an open air restaurant, which provides different services - an exclusive veg/non veg restaurant, a gaming arena for kids, a ice cream/juice shop and 2 party halls making an overall revenue of 3.5 crore a year. My work involves resource allocation of 70+ employees, supervision, inventory management and organizing parties. Apart from that I try to look over the finances and had come with some new ideas/improvisations to boost our revenue.

ECs & Accomplishments:
1. Improved one of the vendor's revenue by 63% in our restaurant.
2. Reduced customer waiting time and pilferage to minimal.
3. Been a member of core member of infosys food committee, cloud9 - an initiative to arrange events/project parties and Powersave - a tool designed to turn off PCs automatically to save power.
4. Got individual excellence award and Unit level appreciation for developing a tool
5. Have quite a number of awards working with Infosys.
6. Event organizer of State level technical symposium.
7. Served as the Cultural secretary in college


Goals:

MBA - Entrepreneurship & Consulting.

Post MBA - Work for 4 to 5 years as management consultant to gain industry experience.

Long term goal - Start my own consulting firm - Primary focus to assist startups and management consulting for SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in India - Food and Beverage, Retail sector.

Target schools:

ISB
Ross
Babson College - Olin
HAAS
McCombs
Marshall

Kellogg, Wharton, Darden were in my list as I was expecting a 720+ in my GMAT score, but unfortunately got a low score . This was my third GMAT attempt. All these schools are good for entrepreneurship and will help me land in consulting job that's why I came up with this list. If you have any other schools where I will fit in, kindly suggest.

Three questions.

I feel that my score lies in the lower end of middle 80% gmat range of these schools, so where do I stand and what are my chances with my current score ?

Since I have almost two months time for apps what are the odds in going for a retake, how much should I target ?

How will the adcoms consider the number of GMAT attempts ?

Management Consulting 101: Introduction - What is management consulting?

Management consultant Amit (better known as MBA Dropout on MBA Crystal Ball) has been addressing queries on this blog as well as on our careers discussion forum, from folks interested in getting management consulting jobs.

We've had a few one-off posts and a mini-series on consulting careers earlier. But we weren't able to cover a lot of ground earlier in those short posts. So Amit has offered to help out by starting this guest series to throw some light on the Management Consulting industry...Read More

georgepaul0071987 wrote:Thanks for your reply ! So based on what you're saying my 710 GMAT would actually be a perceived as a weakness ? What would be an ideal score - 740 ?

Not really. In absolute terms, a 710 is not a bad score. It's just that the schools that you have on your list get applications from Indians who'd have very competitive GMAT scores, strong essays And impressive resumes.

In such a situation, when you want every single component of your application to push the case further, the GMAT might turn out to be a neutral factor (neither too strong or too weak). So it may not pull the profile down, but it's also not really wow-ing them either.

If you are confident about the other components, then you don't need to worry too much about the GMAT.

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC): Most Common Modification Errors

GMAT Sentence Correction (SC) questions can seem difficult for non-native English speakers. But with the right practice, they are the easiest to fix to get a high GMAT score.

The GMAT test preparation series on MBA Crystal Ball moves on to a dreaded topic on the GMAT verbal syllabus. With the examples used you'll find it easier to understand GMAT SC questions...Read More

greatsaint wrote:33 Male Indian (currently working in USA)
:
GMAT
Attempt 1: 650
Attempt 2: 650
Attempt 3: 700 (q50\v34), 5 AWA

Aah! The big shevan-jheero-jheero reached. Good work.

Total 9 years in IT Consultant (ERP).

Though you've mentioned techno-functional, you haven't specified which xdomain you are working in (FICO, SD, MM etc).

I had set up a small company with a friend right after college and did small IT projects for local companies in Bangalore, India.

Though you've down-played this part, there could be some interesting maal-masala here as well.

If you are keen on taking the discussion offline, I'd be interested to hear about how that went. Why was it folded up? How did it influence your subsequent career decisions? etc etc.

Interested in Strategy and Decision Making as well as General Management. Long term goal is to get into Entrepreneurship.

Need to tread a little carefully here. Would you get into a General Management role in the natural course of time? How does the MBA fit in here?

INSEAD (both Singapore and France)
Nanyang- Singapore
NUS, Singapore
AGSM, Australia.
IIM
ISB

Decent mix. But you've completed left out 2 big regions (Europe, US - the former being a better fit) and a 3rd smaller one (Canada). Reasons?

While you are making your school choice Asia-friendly (I'm guessing this has more to the state of the economy than anything else), you might also want to diversiy into other regions.

akhilsuhag wrote:I would like to know my chances at business schools in the USA. It would help me decide if I should try applying thr or find something in India. If I go abroad I would want to go for a Top 10-15 program.

Akhil bhai, as the story I know about you goes beyond what you've shared here, let's skip the sugar-coated, feel-good parts and jump right into the crux.

If you've decided it's the US top-15 or Indian schools only, then chances gaye tel lagane. Focus on putting your best foot forward and wow-ing the pre-selected list of Adcoms with your profile. Then sit back and see how many open their doors.

MBAGuru asked me to join them and implement ADAPTIVE learning. It has been a very entrepreneurial experience where I handle a lot of things including (2 years with them):

If you decide to apply next year, you'll have to go beyond what you handle and talk about what you accomplished. Big difference there. And you have enough time over the coming months to do that.

Right now I think you've got your fingers in too many pies. And in a startup that is expected. But you'd have to choose 1-2 target areas and focus on getting some impressive success stories before you apply.

Jack of all trades wali strategy nahi chalegi.

I sit with cofounders and discuss strategy and get a holistic view of a business. I think 2 years in a small start up are worth 4 anywhere else.

Need to show evidence of why those 2 years were worth 4. Links back to the results wala point mentioned earlier.

Post-MBA (Short term) - Work for a few years in a top consulting firm. Will again help in networking/learning and paying back my loan.

Not sure I see the connect here. Startup experience se top consulting firm ka kya link hai? Even if you accomplish a lot in the startup field, you'd still need to show a strong connection between what you've done and what you want to do. Some work required here too.

Hopefully I will get a decent response.

Hopefully the response lived up to your decency expectations.

Baaki sab kushal mangal?

Thanks Sameer sirji.

Lets see how things move forward from now.