Ask Clear Admit

Hi,

I would like to get a profile evaluation based on my GMAT scores, academic background, work experience and career goals. It would help me confirm the choices of schools I have made and establish a realistic expectation from the MBA admissions endeavor.

Profile: Indian, HCL Technologies (IT Consultancy) - I know you get hordes of applicants from this profile; it just shows how smart and ambitious we IT people are!

GMAT - 690 (Q49, V45, AWA 6.0, IR 7)
IELTS - 7.5
Academics - 93.2% in 10th, 88.4% in 12th, 81% in B.Tech (Top ranks in all of them)
Extra Curricular - Greenpeace member and financial supporter, major contributor to online social media events
Interests - Reading (Shakespeare, Philosophy and Science), Martial Arts and hip-hop dancing.

Work Experience - 26 months till date

• US Client - Internet Security Company - Out job is to develop and manage their e-Commerce platforms
  Cross-functional role - working in different teams and solving complex issues related to process improvement and optimizations (different from the usual IT programmer role)
  Managing a group of 5 people with the same level of experience
  Promoted to Lead Engineer from Software Engineer in 18 months on the job

Career Goals
Work as a Management Consultant in a company such as McKinsey, Accenture or Arthur D.Little, helping clients in various geographies address their key strategic business issues. With an education in science and mathematics at high school, a rigorous engineering degree in computer science and 3 yrs (till matriculation) in a technology consulting company, an MBA at this point of my career is the perfect tool that would help me build a set of consulting skills to complement my technical skills.

Schools shortlisted

• Kelley School of Business - Indiana University - Applied
  Mays School of Business - Texas A&M University
  INSEAD - France
  HEC - Paris
  ISB

Tentative

• Illinois MBA
  Smeal - Penn State
  Tepper - CMU
  NUS - Singapore

I implore you to please give me a sense of direction based on your vast experience.

Best,
Eeshan

Hi eeshan89,

Thanks for your post.

I recommend targeting approximately 5 schools to apply to in Round 2. This allows for a breadth of schools (so increased chances of acceptance), while also ensuring enough time for you and your recommendation writers to submit high-quality applications. From the five schools, I suggest applying to a mix of 'reach', 'target', and 'safety' schools (depending on how aggressive or conservative you want to be this year).

Based on the information you have provided and assuming you submit high-quality applicants, I would put the schools you've listed in the following buckets:
Reach: Indiana University, INSEAD, HEC-Paris, ISB, Carnegie Mellon
Target: Texas A&M, University of IL
Safety: Penn State

While your academics are strong, your work experience would be below the average of 5 years for most schools and will be a disadvantage in your application. In addition, leadership in extracurricular activities is an important dimension as well.

Hope this helps and best of luck with your applications!

Best,
Heidi
_________________
Heidi Granner
Clear Admit, LLC
[email protected]
215.568.2590

Is your score really 690 at Q 49 and V 45 ?

It's V35. That was a typo! Thanks for pointing out.