Ask Stacy Blackman

Could someone please evaluate my profile too dear:

General: Indian Male 28 yrs

Education: I completed my mechanical engineering from national institute of technology (NIT) in India. NITs are regarded as one of the premium institutes in the country. I joined civil engineering and based on merit was given the opportunity to slide to mechanical engineering after 1st year. (1st year is common for all branches in our college). I was also awarded merit scholarship in my B.Tech. Ranked in the top 7% in engineering. Passed in 1st class with distinction.

I am a Certified Gas Manager from Indian School of Petroleum. This is a certification course dealing with all aspects of natural gas business from extraction to sales including management functions like HR/Marketing/ Contract management /technical etc.

Experience:
I was selected in one of the British Gas subsidiaries on campus during engineering. Having joined as engineer intern, I was trained in various functions of the company for 6 months. I joined Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) projects after internship and worked in various aspects of project management during my 4 year stint in the department including management of multiple projects simultaneously, contractor management, project planning, capital investment planning and monitoring, compressor design installation and commissioning etc. Our effort in developing CNG market in the city was awarded the British gas Chairman's award in 2007. (Combined effort of projects handled by me, marketing and sales functions)I also have experience of handling statutory authorities and have a good grip of the local laws and requirements for CNG. I also worked briefly with the Operation and maintenance teams to get a full understanding of the business.
I then shifted to process safety function and am presently working as associate manager. (a lower management function in the company)In process safety I handle various critical aspects like change management, management systems, improvement programs, safety case development, integrity assessments, personnel training etc.
I represented my company in the BG asset integrity community meet to discuss various process safety issues all over the world.
I have a total of 7yrs of experience as on July'10. I was nominated for the star employee award 5 times during the 7 years and was rated outstanding for most of the period.

Initiatives:
I was part of a Performance Enhancement Group (PEG) which worked on improving process performance and hence increasing profits. We proposed modifications that resulted in substantial saving for the company.
I lead the green tem within the company and we contributed to improving the environmental performance of the company by way of replacement of inefficient legacy electrical equipment, tree plantation etc.
I developed a game for driving home the importance of process safety to the employees. This game is based on the fact that experiential learning is one of the best forms of learning. This initiative was nominated for the BG chairman's award.
I am a member of the company cricket team. (I somehow feel this might be significant enough to be mentioned here!!)

GMAT: I bombed GMAT Scored 620 48 quant and 28 verbal. AWA 5.
Post MBA goals:
I plan to pursue MBA for career enhancement.
Short term goal: return to the energy industry with enhanced skill set in terms of financial management, organizational behavior, people management and general soft skills. Having had experience on the engineering side of the business, and having gained knowledge of the management side, I am confident of delivering required goods for any organization I the energy sector.
Long term goal: I strongly believe that I am a "CEO in the making". Having completed my MBA, I plan to get experience in various management functions of the organization and hence acquire required skills for leading an organization effectively.

Target schools: I am not very sure if I stand a chance in any of the top 20 schools thanks to my GMAT score. I would still look at London Business School (I somehow assume and hope that my British gas experience will help me here), top 20-30 schools like university of Virginia-USA,Delhousie-Canada etc.

Please suggest which schools I should apply to and if I stand any chance in the top 30 b-schools

Dear Lisa,

Thank you for the prompt response. I have one further query. I found from the net that some colleges within the top 30 accept scores at around 600. I find that colleges in Canada have an average of 620 usually. Colleges like University of Verginia etc in US have avg. scores close to my score. This is the reason why despite having got a terribly low score (considering i used to get scores close to 700 in practice tests of Kaplan) i started thinking of application.

Do you think i should apply or do you feel that I should attempt the test again?

Apologies for sticking onto the topic too long.

Regards,
vijay

Dear Lisa,

I paid heed to your advice and took GMAT again. This time I scored 690 (48Q, 35V). I was scoring about 730 in MGMATs and was positive that this time I will cross the 700 mark but as very well pointed out by you in the response last year, nerves got the better of me on the test day again.

I do not think I will re-attempt the GMAT because I do not think another attempt would get me any further hike in score (at most another 10-20 points). I plan on applying to B-schools. I applied to Darden, Gauzetta, Indian School of business (ISB) last year with the 620 score. ( and did not get a seat obviously he he)

This year, I am planning to re-apply to ISB. (there is an increase in class strength this year by 200 seats and also I have a better score-still lower than their average!!)One major change in my profile (apart form the GMAT that is) is that I have been promoted to the role of Deputy Manager (middle management in the company) and am handling the entire asset integrity (process safety) function. My name has also been proposed for a secondment to our parent company (BG-group, formerly known as British Gas) at UK. If I make it through the proposal, I would be the focal point in the head office for all the BG Transmission and Distribution companies (there are about 5) and would report to BG global T&D operations head. However, there are 5 names proposed (one from each asset) for the role and the results would depend on the decision by the operations head. I am not sure if a mention of this information would add any value.(considering that nothing concrete actually happened) However, the fact that my name has been proposed by our technical director (top management for engineering team in my company) proves that I have been able to build a great amount of trust in them and they see me in high esteem.

Do you have any advice for me on how to go about my applications and whether I should re-apply to the schools I applied to last year...

Thanks in advance and also thank you for encouraging me to take GMAT again...

Regards,
Vijay