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Hi,

Please help evaluate my profile. My target schools are Stanford, Harvard and Kellogg
Age: 26
Nationality - Indian
GMAT score: 680 (V36,M47)
GPA - 3.5
Education:

- B.COM, Bharathiyar University, India
- PGDM, Marketing, Insead Business school, Singapore (part time)
- Advanced project management degree, Stanford University (part time)

Work Experience:

- 6 years with one of the top internet companies in the world
- One of the fastest growing employees with 4 promotions in 6 years
- Currently managing sales teams across multiple locations in APAC
- One of the youngest ever people managers at my company
- Won the prestigious founder's award
- Consistently rated in top 5% percentile of performers

Extra curricular:

- Captain the school, college and district cricket team
- Represented the state and south zone (best cricketers from 6 states) cricket team at the junior level
- 4 time district badminton champion

Community work

- Vice-chairman of the board for a charity trust in india which runs two non-profit schools for nearly 2000 students

International experience:

- Currently in singapore but my job requires managing people across different geographies and I have team members from 5 different nationalities reporting to me

Reccos:

- I can manage recommendations from senior executives from my company who are alumni's from stanford/Harvard

The other thing I want to mention is that my salary right now is higher than the median salaries at any of the top b-schools. Will this affect my chances considering b-schools tend to look at % increase in salaries quite a lot?

Overall, I want to know whether my profile will make up for the low gmat score. I really want to be sure whether I will get a call with this gmat score. Please let me know.

Retake the GMAT. You're not getting into any top school with that score given your profile. I think you may be underestimating your competition for these schools -- even with a 740+, you'll still be a big stretch for schools like HBS, Stanford or Kellogg.

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your reply. Can you please throw more light on why you feel my profile will be a stretch even with a 740 score?

For one, you're already doing business related certificate programs part-time, so it makes it even more transparent that you're applying for an MBA purely for the brand name (and whether that is 100% true or not, adcoms will be assuming that). Secondly, you're underestimating your competition. You are a solid candidate, but you're also up against so many other folks whom adcoms will prefer (and dare I say, non-Indian; I hate to bring in the race card, but the fact is, schools get so many Indian applicants that they are trying to limit the numbers especially at H/S -- yes it's old-fashioned discrimination, and it sucks, but too many people dance around the issue rather than saying it out loud). Again, you have a solid profile, but not something that really stands out compared to so many other applicants with corporate experience (i.e. you did better than your peers, you make good money, etc.).

Again, all of this is moot without a stronger GMAT. Retake the GMAT. And by all means apply to these schools, but you need to go in with a more realistic perspective about where you stand. You are a solid candidate, but not that special. And if that is hard to hear, you will experience a dose of humble pie should you actually get into these schools and find out who your classmates are: yes, they aren't all superstars, but many of them are exceptionally strong (and also, knowing that there are other folks you knew who were hugely impressive and did *not* get in).