Hi Alok,
Thanks for your queries. They are indeed very relevant and it is refreshing to see you get started early.
In terms of answering your questions, these are quite generic. However, having been in your shoes not that long ago and having worked with many students having similar doubts, I have answered below:
a. The most important qualities would be leadership potential (as demonstrated by extra curricular activities and involvement in social work), teamwork demonstration, academic performance, demonstration of career progression and probably the most important, your unique reasons for why MBA, why a certain college, post MBA career aspirations and how an MBA fits in your short, medium and long term career goals
b. Rule of thumb is 3 aspirational, 3 where you stand 50% chance of getting in and 2 sure shot. If you are at a stage in your career where you can wait (another year) till you improve your credentials or if you are on leadership track, then you could do 4-3-1 too. Remember, the more you do, the more $ it is going to cost you
c. Shortlist based on your individual style, preference and reasons - do you want to stay in a certain location, work in a certain industry, have family or work connections as well as how specialised your MBA is going to be, whether you want to work there or come back, what type of study environment suits you best - collaborative, egalitarian or competitive, how would you learn best - case study driven or lecture driven to name a few. In general, for most candidates, to make the ROI work, you should consider work arrangements, i.e. permanent residence, work visa. Weather also adds another complexity to this as does size of the school, university within which it sits if any and association with industry or companies
d. Scholarship options are definitely there if you are able to differentiate yourself sufficiently, give strong reasons, prove academic and professional experience (and others I have mentioned above) and demonstrate that all 3 parties involved will benefit from this decision of yours - you, your cohort and the school. Having said that, MBA is an expensive career option as you have to also consider opportunity cost, breakeven years and more strategic value add for the program
e. GMAT score is extremely important - particularly, as you go down in the rankings (ranked about 20 to 150). Universities higher in ranking, GMAT is easily a deal breaker than a determinant of admissions. However, GMAT is a single common element across diverse applications - scholarships depend really heavily on GMAT (among other factors but surely extremely important). I have also seen, as a matter of fact, GMAT scores relate strongly to scholarship to the point where a score of 750 has secured 50%, 740 a 40% and 710 a 10% scholarship. Of course, there is no proof of the same but empirically, I have seen this pattern among quite a few of my past students.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any further questions.
Thanks,
Indradeep
