I am targeting enrolling into an MBA program in the fall of 2012 (full-time). I have already applied last year to Stanford, Harvard, and MIT and did not even get an interview call, though I also have to admit that I wrote the essays in a week and modified one college's essays for another. Please forgive the naivete
I intend to choose from the following pool for this year's app:
- Tuck
- Booth
- Wharton
- Kellogg
- Haas
- Columbia
- Yale
- Stern
- Duke
- Darden (U VA)
- Johnson (Cornell)- Safe school
- Tepper (Carnegie-Mellon) - Safe school
- INSEAD
- LBS (London)
Who am I?
- Indian male, 25 years old, background in the oil industry for the last four years - very mobile internationally
- GMAT - 730 (Q-50, V-42), AWA 5.5 (Is this good enough or do you think I should retake with a target of 750+)
Why an MBA?
I want to use the technical skills and first-hand experiences from my sweat and blood on the oilfield to become a killer consultant in the energy sector for major strategy consultants. I see a lot of scope in the industry for making business processes smarter thus saving a lot of money and tweaking the industry's efficiency in general. In the long term I see myself transferring all these lessons into government policy making in energy back in India to address the energy crisis we have here.
My story -
High-School -- Excellent academic record and a couple of projects that were aligned with the energy industry.
College - IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) grad, CGPA of 8.5/10.0 in engineering (rank 3/68). A couple of small academic awards in this period. I won a major nationwide award in a competition hosted by a Fortune 10 company. Saw participation from all the IITs and IIMs. Came up with an innovative technical solution and supporting business plan for solving drinking water problems in rural India using renewable energy.
- Led a college magazine, a couple of student councils, and was into sports. National level debates were my forte.
Post-college - Research work wrapping up a project I started in college in Spain. The field was sustainability in the polymer industry. (Two months)
Work - Major oilfield service provider. Worked in 4 different countries in very off-beat locations that you would be hard pressed to find on a map. Opportunities to work in teams that had members of different nationalities and mindsets. Very unique work experience that I am proud of.
- For the first two years I worked as a field engineer leading teams of three-four providing services to oil majors on all kinds of oil rigs (the more expensive one's costing upwards of $500k/day) in 4 countries. I also took initiatives to sit in for my manager and get exposure in diff. fields.
- Previous two years - operations management and sales where I have performed really well with some key accomplishments.
- I have a couple of intra-company awards in my career and a paper publication, but nothing stellar that you would find on Google.
Recommenders - One client rep (to speak for my sales work) and my direct supervisor. The client rep was someone with whom I have interacted closely for over an year now.
A footnote -
I have seen many of my college seniors and industry peers make it into the holy trinity (Stanford, Harvard, and MIT) with seemingly less credentials than me (in my opinion of course). I feel that post the Macondo blowout and the consequences it had on the oil industry coupled with the recession, a lot of oil hands are applying for MBAs these days. Thus, the 'diversity' factor which I was hoping would give me a boost over the scores of other Indian candidates seems to be on the wane. In fact, I know someone from the industry who was asked - "How come many people from this company are suddenly applying to MBAs?" in his interview. Would appreciate your views on this and the chances of a reapplicant succeeding in these universities.
Thank you for your time and energies spent,
Forever in your debt ~ Eloquent Gent
