Pls evaluate my profile for Ivy League MBA

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Junior | Next Rank: 30 Posts
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Hi,

Pls evaluate my profile. My first preference of schools include Ivy League B-schools.

Bio -
Indian female 28yrs

Acads -
Xth - 81.8%
XIIth - 85.3%
Bachelor of Engg. (Electronics & Communications) - 67% (Non-IIT)
GMAT practice tests average - 760
Yet to give the real thing

Work Experience - 6+ years
Indian IT experience - 4 years
US IT experience - 2 yr
Started and launched a website, however, due to time constraints and personal commitments, could not work on marketing or promoting the site. - 6 months

Extra Cs -
Won medals for skating competitions - District level.
Participated in Swimming competitions, dance, debate - school level.
Significant part of my company's social service initiative.
Gathering funds for college meets.
Various charitable campaigns
Volunteer work in USA for NGO.
Struggled with weight issues, lost weight and became a marathon runner.
Husband and I involved in healthcare charity events conducted by me.

Other points -
Constantly rated among the best in the company. Hopefully should get good references.
Funding should not be an issue.
Affluent family background.
I wasn't a good undergrad student, never understood electronics, understood my thing was Computers once I started working in IT companies. I excelled in my field and am a pro at what I do.


My questions -
Pls let me know my chances of an MBA at Ivy league schools.
If not, which are my best bets?
I think my negative is undergrad GPA, how do I work on compensating it with something else?
I am looking for 2015 intake.
Should I even mention my website startup, I never promoted or marketed it as I think it needs more finishing.
I am interested in Retail Operations. However, I know its not related to my work experience, I do not mind IT management either, I would eventually want to set up my own company, be it related to IT or healthcare due to the family of doctors I have.

Thank you for going through my thread.
Your inputs are much appreciated.

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by Heidi Granner » Tue Dec 10, 2013 9:59 am
Minniemouse,

Thanks for your post.

Regarding your concern about your GPA, here are a couple suggestions to help offset this weakness:
1. A high GMAT score will help mitigate any concerns about your academic abilities. I suggest targeting a 750+, so it is great that you testing in the target area.
2. Enroll in a couple quantitative business courses and earn an "A" in those courses. With the academic ability question mark checked off with your GMAT score, the open item will be your interest in academics and maturity level. Taking these courses will show to the admissions officers that you are serious about your business studies and ready to succeed academically. You can enroll in a distance learning course (UCLA extension has great online options) or a local college.

Regarding schools, I suggest thinking of Booth, Kellogg, Columbia, and Tuck as great "reach" options (about 1 in 4 chance of acceptance), Fuqua, Ross, Darden, and Anderson as great "target" options (about 1 in 3 chance of acceptance), and Tepper, Goizueta, Kenan-Flagler, and Marshall as great "safety" options (1 in 2 chance of acceptance). I suggest targeting 5 schools overall (usually 2 reach + 2 target + 1 safety or 2 reach + 3 target). Also, given your financial flexibility, I highly recommend targeting schools that do not offer the option of non-US loan co-signers (like Ross).

Hope that helps and good luck!

Best,
Heidi
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by Minniemouse » Fri Dec 27, 2013 11:34 am
Thank you Heidi. Considering my profile, in which category do you think Cornell will fall in?

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by Heidi Granner » Thu Jan 16, 2014 10:18 am
Cornell would be borderline between Target and Safety.

Good luck!
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by chandu31 » Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:11 am
Dear Heidi Ma'm,

I'm from India. Kindly look into my profile below and kindly answer my question in the end:

10th exam 86.4% (state board)
12th exam 77.8% (state board)
B.Tech in computer science & engineering 8.86 GPA (state university)

work experience:
administrative officer (specialist IT) in a government owned insurance organization for 5 years, then promoted to assistant manager (IT) in the same organization after that (continuing over here till date). Total work exp = 8 years (almost) in reinsurance and allied actuarial field.

professional qualifications:
licentiate (LIII), associate (AIII), fellow (FIII) of general insurance from Insurance Institute of India
student member of Faculty of Actuaries, UK [cleared CT1 (financial mathematics), CT3 (mathematical statistics), CT5 (contingencies) each one at first attempt]
student member of Institute of Actuaries, India

achievements:
qualified GATE exam with 94.62 percentile, all India rank 2251 (category - general)
received certificates of merit from Indian Insurance Society for scoring distinction marks in 6 papers of fellowship exam
nominated delegate to attend Global Insurance Rendezvous 2015 on SAARC perspective
secured 5th rank in all India essay competition organized by Asia Insurance Review and GIC Re, essay got published in their book

publications:
wrote an essay on 'India - on the way to emerge as a potential Reinsurance Hub' in Insurance Blog, Asia
wrote a paper on 'Evolving customer centric strategy in general insurance' in a journal (ISSN 2455-1627)
wrote an article on 'Replacing Dollar as reserve currency' in Ideas Make Market

certifications:
Undergone several certifications on R and Python to do data analysis, cleaning, student's t-test, ANOVA

volunteering:
helped an entrepreneural venture named 'Klathrate' on developing reinsurance portal through Micromentor

hobbies:
maintain a photography blog encouraging solo-travelling for women

expected GMAT score:
680-720 (not taken yet)

N.B:- I am a woman

Question : which b-schools should I apply with this kind of background? (My focus: budget around 30 lacs, dominating insurance and data science domain, acceptability of greater age because my age is already 31)