Mba in the middle of a successful venture

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Mba in the middle of a successful venture

by rushabhgala » Wed Jul 25, 2012 11:12 am
Hi,

I am a male,Indian, have the usual engineering background ( not iit though) and have worked in technology for couple of years before doing an MBA from India and interning with kpmg. I decided not to join kpmg after college and started my own wealth management desk managing offshore as well as domestic India centric investments. I have one of the known wealth management desks in the industry now and had started an early stage fund a couple of years back. Have done around 16 investments in Indian startups and am one of the first ones to do start up funding in India. At this stage, i have an organisation of 14 people anc run 3 successful verticals which are growing at a rapid pace and we are expanding globally too now.At this stage I am doing pretty well but I intend to do a global MBA again from one of the ivy league schools if ji can get it. Otherwise it wouldnt make a lot of sense to look at programmes beyond that as the opportunity cost is very high too. I did take the GMAT and got a 720. I am confident of getting a higher score if that is needed.

I wanted to know what's your sense on my profile. Does the harvards / stanfords / whartons etc look doable with my profile amongst large pool of Indians applying. I do not have excellent academics - pretty good though. But I do have a lot of extracurricular and social activities up my sleeve.
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by Jon@Admissionado » Mon Jul 30, 2012 1:29 am
Well, at this point, your ability to get accepted at H/S/W will essentially depend on a) the proven success and size of your venture b) how much you are able to convince them this will be big, and I mean BIG.

As an already successful entrepreneur, you are off to a good start, but you do have to time things well. How fast are you growing? When is a good time for you to leave your business? Etc. For example if you are running a fund which is HUGE (in terms of global impact, size, number of employees), you will have much better chances. So it's something to think about when considering what is right for you.
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by rushabhgala » Thu Aug 09, 2012 10:28 am
Hi Jon!

Thanks for your reply, I completely missed it! Sorry! :)

So, in terms of size and pace - On the wealth management bit - we should be managing close to 60mn $ now and growing at a very rapid pace vs the industry which is slowing down overall.
And on the fund size, its a pilot fund in order to demonstrate the performace and its a 2mn$ fund. We have the track record to now raise a 25-30mn$ fund but before taking that, I really feel i need this MBA and some experience with the top global VC firms and gather all the best practices and market dynamics.

Thats my story. Let me know if it makes sense and helps me justify the need of "another" MBA at this stage for me to leapfrog ahead into the next big league.

Also Jon, I would need some help on essays etc to structure these thoughts and articulate it right. Let me know how it works.


Thanks,
Rushabh

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by Jon@Admissionado » Fri Aug 10, 2012 2:55 am
Your story makes sense. Of course you'll have to come up with as many arguments as you can to convince the Adcom that it's really right for you, but essentially just the idea of getting that network from a top school is a good enough argument in itself for your goals (although of course, you should think about presenting more arguments than just that).
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by rushabhgala » Fri Aug 10, 2012 11:46 am
Thanks Jon. Really appreciate it.

Was just curious to know, does the application get reviewed by some students / alums local to that geography before the adcom so that the nuances of undergrad colleges,varying GPA levels in terms of percentages across different places etc are mitigated and everyone is on the same page. or the adcom is well versed with all of it seeing tons of applications every year.

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by Jon@Admissionado » Mon Aug 13, 2012 2:56 am
A very good question. Some schools do try and choose people from the same country to evaluate applications (I can't remember offhand which ones) but most do not. So, in general don't expect them to actually know what things mean. Which means that when you make your application, you need to go out of your way to TELL them what it means. So, for example, let's say you graduated from a small university in your country, that has the best film school in your country. The Adcom will have NO CLUE that they are the best school, until you TELL them. If we are talking about India, chances are the AdCom knows IIT and that's IT! So, do your job of promoting yourself!
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by rushabhgala » Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:07 am
Hi Jon,

You are a rockstar!

Just couple of more queries which I figured after attending the Stanford info session today. veyr shocking!

They strongly discourage 2nd MBA degree and the adcom guy said most of the schools might not say it but they would strongly discourage it even if it was a very strong application. Do you think that's the case with Stanford / other schools too?
Is that such a big deal?

Other thing i wanted to know is the advantage of round 1 over round 2. Do you think applying in round 2 after taking GMAT again (aiming to get 750-760 to better my current score of 720) makes sense or should just apply with 720 in this round. My undergrad acads are average and not IIT!

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by Jon@Admissionado » Thu Aug 16, 2012 4:51 am
Rushabh,
What they said makes sense. I mean the thing is with a school like Stanford which gets only the best applicants, and is the most competitive school, they take who they want, and if they feel no need to be flexible they can afford it (I think their take might be that if you aren't "boy wonder" already, then you won't be). That doesn't mean that if they think you are on the verge of founding the next youtube, they won't think positively about your application, but it is harder, and like I wrote, it is a disadvantage. From what I have seen, schools that aren't the top 3 or 5 are far more reasonable.

As for retaking, honestly, you have your score. There's always people pushing to get a 730, 750, 770. Why not 800? or 8000? or even 80,000?

After a certain point, these things become redundant. And I think your time would be better spent on working on your thoughts, essays, arguments, strategy and school selection, and this will be time far better spent.
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https://admissionado.com/mba/reviews/
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Admis ... 700945.htm

Reach out, and let's gab. Our only requirement is that you don't prefer warm milk over cold milk. Everyone else, 100% welcome.
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Phone: 866-409-4753
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Ping our satellite: 0884#&@-2#101101
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Mostly, email Claudia.