Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Hi,

I would greatly appreciate if you could evaluate my application:

Term: Fall 2009
Target Schools: Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Sloan, Columbia and Stern


Age/GMAT: 27 years (by Fall 2009), Male
Nationality: India

Background: Engineering/Technology

GMAT: 770 (Q50, V46), AWA: 6.0

Undergraduate: Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, GPA 9.1/10 (Ranked 3 in the class).

Masters: Electrical Engineering, Georgia Tech (Top 5 school), GPA: 4.0/4.0 and full-time research assistant which payed in complete for my masters.

Experience:

3 Years (by Fall 2009) in a high-tech wireless communication company. Systems Engineer working on research and development of advanced wireless communication systems. Embedded SW/HW design and development. Promoted after just 1.5 years. I am not in a managerial position, but work with multiple groups and have developed a good reputation as a good communicator. I think I can get a strong recommendation from my manager.

2 summer internships in Europe in the telecommunications industry during my undergraduate years. IAESTE research fellow for one of these internships.

2 years as research assistant at Georgia Tech working on a project for NASA and Georgia Tech. Featured in the school magazine.

Publications/Patents:
7 Pending Patent Applications filed in my current job.
4 research papers (wireless comm) in reputed international conferences

Recommendations:
Supervisors at my current job, my professor at grad school and supervisor in my European internships. (Most of these I think would be strong)

Extra-curricular:
Founded and managed to date the tennis and cricket clubs at my current company.Unfortunately do not have a lot of community experience. This I think is a weak point of my resume.

Also, do you think I am a little late for the first round? I have a month to go but it might be difficult to get everything together. Do I stand a chance if I apply in the second round?

Am I being overly ambitious with the school choices? What do you think should be my "safe" school?

You have a very strong profile. You definitely have cleared all the hurdles in terms of GMAT, GPA, and work experience. It also sounds like you have good extracurriculars and can obtain strong LORs. Community involvement does not have to be formal. Think about any contributions that support your core beliefs that you have made to the community.

If you have been reading other posts here then you probably already know that your demographic group (Indian males with IT background) is overwhelmingly represented in the current applicant pool. Therefore, your challenge will be to show your unique characteristics in your application essays. Basically, you need to make the adcom want to meet you. Your schools choices look reasonable. It wouldn't hurt to choose a safety school from the top 25 however make sure it is a school that you would actually attend.

Finally, you should apply to round 1 if you can dedicate the time to creating essays that are well written and market your strongest characteristics. Round 2 is definitely feasible and not too late. After that, most schools have less slots available and the process becomes more competitive.

Hi

I have been told by a particular admissions consultant that Columbia looks for people with very good numbers (GPA, GMAT). His contention was that Columbia is trying to improve its rankings. Is this an opinion you share? Are there any schools which place a high importance on numbers?

Thanks,
Vikram