Hi All,
Please evaluate my profile for acceptance with scholarship chances in the listed schools. Also, please recommend if I should include any other school to my list.
Nationality: Indian
Age: 29 (at matriculation)
Total Work Ex: 7 Years or 84 Months (at matriculation) in IT
International Ex: 1 Year in UK
Education: Bachelor in Technology - Mechanical Engineering
CGPA : 8.86/10 (top 1% of a state university, not IIT/NIT)
GMAT: 610(sept 2012), 650(may 2014), 770(june 2014)
Career Goal: Work in Consulting or IT Project Management for 3-4 years after MBA, then return India to do PhD in business and join education sector. OR join non-profit organisation (dream World Bank).
I consider large-scale IT project management is something that I should target based on my experience, but I would explore non-profit sector in b-school.
School Choice(preference): Small Class size, Case Study Method, Smaller City, Chances of Scholarship
Target Companies post study : Delloite, IBM, Accenture, (big 4 will be a dream)
Work Exp. Details:
Working in Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) from 2008. Have completed 2 projects till now and continuing the 3rd.
1st Project: I was instrumental in Bank Of America and Merrillynch database merger when I was only 1 and half years experienced. The job involved prolong 1 month co-ordination between 5 different teams (2 client and 3 vendors) of over 30 associates. I got lot of appreciations for this and became offshore lead for a 7 member team with so less experience. My reportees included people with experience 1-8.
2nd Project: I was selected for establishing banking domain account for 1st TCS office in a new city. I started the project from scratch and completed successfully. The new location had faced number of challenges including environment and project set up, shortage of skilled labor(both technical and managerial), quality regulation (absence of intercity disaster recovery setup) etc. This project also had same number of reportees with similar level of experience.
3rd and Continuing Project: Working for an insurance client in UK. Job involved establishing new development centre in new location and currently business analysis and project lead.
Also, I have mentored around 15 people so far.
Personal Background:
From a poor rural India , where I walked barefooted for 5 KM daily to attend school till my secondary education. I have funded my entire education and had additional financial responsibility. I had to leave studies for an year before my engineering for this. I could not get involved in extra curricular activities cause there was no scope in my initial years and later I worked on two jobs(one full time in TCS and part time as private tutor - though its illegal) until I came to UK.
Volunteering:
As I have said I could not do much for lack of time. However, I have participated in various corporate sustainability activities from TCS. From my initial 2 years,each week for 2 hours I tutored english for an underprivileged school. Then for 2 years in a women leadership program for rural india and 1 year for computer and english training for tribal students. The women leadership training was successful by making the participants win ward member election and now 4 of the 15 are representing 3000 villagers each. I got involved in all these activities as these were the causes for my childhood suffering.
Entrepreneurship:
Although I do not consider myself an entrepreneur, I have successfully set up a gym for my friend. After I moved to the new city for my 2nd project, I found the locality had only 1 gym and there was a lot of opportunity. The venture did not demand much involvement, so initially I tried to approach banks for loans, who did not trust me. I gave the idea to my friend and we worked together for the setup. Investment was $100,000, operational expenditure monthly - $3500 and revenue - $8500, with targeted break-even in 2 years.
Recommenders:
Two of my ex-supervisers, who are also aware of my involvement in corporate sustainability.
Schools:
1. Darden Business School, University of Virginia
2. Kennan-Flagger Business School, University of North Carolina
3. Tepper Business School, Carniege Mellon
4. Rotman Business School, Canada
5. Melbourne Business School, Australia
6. Judge Business School, Cambridge, UK
7. Cornel, Johnson
Questions:
1. Should I revise my school list ?
2. What to highlight and what to ignore in my essays ?
3. What are my chances of getting scholarship ?
4. How do I stand against my competitors ?
5. Any advice ?
Regards,
Ahmed
Hi Ahmed,
Thanks for posting. We took the liberty of copying your post from the link that you provided so that all information is available at one place for this brief assessment.
First of all, you do have an outstanding GMAT score. Congratulations for that. There are few people who can jump from 650 to 770 in just one month - you must have quite a story there (or perhaps that was a typo and your 2nd attempt was in May 2013 instead of May 2014....?). No matter, it is 770 that you go with now, which is excellent.
Your career goals, at least the way you define them here, can be improved upon. Are you simply trying to move from development/project management roles in IT to IT consulting or is strategy consulting your goal? You will have close to 8 years of experience when you enter an MBA program, and that is above the median and average of all your target schools. Coming in this late for an MBA, you need to define the need for it well. Taking up a non-profit plank at this stage of your career and professional life is not going to be easy, either from an MBA Admissions or even a personal perspective.
On your specific questions, here is our response:
1. Yes, you should consider revising your school list. There seems to be little here in terms of consistency. Also, those seem to be way too many geographies to target. Don't just go for decent programs across geographies, narrow your focus and attention to select schools that will help you achieve your career objectives.
2. This question has a very detailed answer, and cannot be exhaustively covered in this short post. Some of the things you might consider including are your international experience and your social initiatives. One point you may consider not emphasizing too much is your disadvantaged background - struggle will invite understanding and empathy at best, but not applause, especially for top schools. This does not mean not talking about your struggles at all, but simply understanding that you should not make them the center piece of your candidature.
3. Your chances of scholarship are ok - not too high and not too low. The GMAT score helps, but that is not all there is to it.
4. The answer to this will depend on the school you talk about and the parameter you consider. Not a point for you to focus too much on, though.
5. One piece of advice would be that you should not get swept away with your GMAT score, excellent thought it is. Understand that application success is a result of multiple factors, including choosing the right schools. Also, don't ignore the fact that you are from the IT industry - an over-represented pool of applicants by any measure.
If you want a more detailed (free) profile evaluation, with specific emphasis on other questions you may have, you can contact us through this link:
Free MBA profile evaluation by GyanOne
