Please evaluate my profile. It seems to be very long, so thanks in advance for your time and patience.
Profile:
1. Indian Male, 25 yrs, quantitative financial analyst (investment banking)
2. Targeting MBA Fall-2009 joining batch; also considering Fall-2008 (need some help deciding)
Education:
1. B. Tech, Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology: GPA 3.2 (graduated 2003)
2. MS, Engineering, Univ. of Maryland College Park: GPA 3.9 (graduated 2005)
3. CFA Level 1 passed in 2007 (hope to clear level 2 and 3 by June-2009)
GMAT:
1. 720, 95th percentile (Q50, V 38 )
2. I feel that this under-represents my capability. I know that I am capable of a score of 750 (this I say with humility).
Work experience:
1. Quantitative Analyst, Commodities and Hedge Funds, Investment Management Group, Top tier bank, investment banking division in NY, NY. (Joined in 2005, promoted in 2006)
2. never worked in IT (information technology) – I’m not sure if it distinguishes me from the applicant pool.
3. As part of university collaboration research projects I worked with NASA and Atomic Energy Agency (for a total of 3.5 years while I was doing BS in India and MS in USA)
4. I would like to continue in my current career line albeit with an accelerated growth (the whole purpose of my MBA and the reason I'm not too keen on full-time MBA)
Extracurricular: (focus on leadership)
1. President of student organization in graduate school: I was awarded the distinguished student leader award by Univ. of Maryland.
2. Team leader for a social service organization (chapter based in NY).
3. Executive member of alumni association.
4. Social activities chair (at work, for helping organize after-work events)
5. Team captain for graduate student soccer team
Awards/publications:
1. Math Olympiad, Chemistry Olympiad, National Talent Scholar apart from a huge list of other scholarships, awards and special mention items.
2. I published 3 top tier research publications in engineering research journals (with considerably high impact factor).
Major concerns:
1. Should I target 2008 joining batch or 2009 batch: I think I am ready right now for the MBA program but my target programs require certain things that I currently lack (pls. see below).
2. relatively low GMAT and GPA: knowing that I will have to compete with top of the class candidates from across the globe (about 10,000 applicants representing about 5% of the global applicant pool - can't help but quantify things being a quant myself
).3. I belong to the high talent pool: coming from India and belonging to the financial industry (both being the oversubscribed groups although I'm not sure how much overlap there is - thinking of Venn-diagrams and sets - can't help it again
)4. Target programs in the order of priority:
a. Columbia-LBS EMBA Global (Exec MBA): I believe work-exp cut off is 5 years (please throw some light); even if I apply for the Fall-2009 joining class, I will be short of work-exp although I'm not sure if my MS degree and CFA charter (if I get it before joining MBA) can bolster me in this lack of work-exp.
b. Columbia EMBA NY Evening/Weekend (Exec-MBA): exec MBA not sure which criteria will weigh against me (including lack of sufficient work-exp for exec MBA)
c. Chicago GSB Weekend MBA (part time MBA): best suited program but logistically difficult considering the commute from NY to Chicago every Saturday for 2-3 years.
d. Wharton (full time MBA): full time MBA will set me back in terms of work-exp and lost compensation (which is considerable)
e. Harvard (full time MBA): same concern as with Wharton.
f. If there are any other programs that skipped my attention, please suggest some (preferably part time or exec-MBA)
Thanks for all your time and patience.
