Profile evaluation/Admissions consult

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Profile evaluation/Admissions consult

by daddyv » Tue Jul 30, 2013 6:52 am
I'm looking at applying to 6-7 schools in R1 this fall(bit ambitious?), and was hoping to get some input from you about both my profile...
I'm male, 25 y.o, from Adelaide, Australia (Indian background) and have 4 years exp in Tech Consulting, Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise. My GMAT was 720(50q, 38v) and GPA 4.5/7 (not sure what that equates to in the 4.0 scale but it was middle of the pack in my class - I moved to a new country by myself at 16, worked a full-time job while in college, played varsity sport(volleyball -- was the only foreign national on the team- and was the captain my senior year), and started a social enterprise organization that has now grown significantly--- those were some of the distractions apart from drinking and going out for my average grades. I'm enrolling in a finance and stats course thru the UC berkeley distance program and hope to ace them which I'm hoping might mitigate my average GPA to some degree?
Work exp - I had two job opportunities post college - one at Intel as a product analyst doing back end IT work and requirements gathering/analysis etc, and the second was to work with a start up in India in the mobile tech area where my role would be much more cross functional. So I took that path (stupid maybe, but i didnt wanna be a back end IT guy and always had entrepreneurial inclinations) and had a pretty significant role/promotions in their company and worked on a product which now has over 95% of India's mobile streaming market share. Upon completion of the project, I moved back to Australia and worked with another IT startup(50 employees) as a consultant. Around 15 months ago, the Principal Consultant at the firm I worked at and I founded enCloud which is a startup specializing in cloud computing working primarily with small-medium sized enterprises but we've had some big-name clients lately. We are a team of 40 now and I directly manage a team of 6 developers and 2 sales consultants.
EC- I played cricket and volleyball for my university during undergrad, and still play for a local Grade A cricket club every season (weekends, Oct- Jan). I also play basketball in a social league twice a week. I am also a published sports columnist for givemesport.com, which is the biggest online sports news website in UK and Australia. I'm a regular contributor for them and I mainly cover weekly NFL and NBA stories.
I started an organization, GTNBZY, n we organize exhibits or concerts or hybrids to provide a platform for local artists (both musical and visual) to showcase their talent. We have 36 artists and 12 musicians on our team and organise events every quarter. We started this in 2008, and it has grown tremendously since. We now get over 200 guests (a pretty big number for Adelaide) and raise over $6000 every event on average. We have also sourced local sponsors and made connections with a couple of recording companies and one of our musicians was signed by one of them last year.
I do some occasional volunteer work with the Cancer Council of Australia mostly to help my partner out. Her dad was a former Olympic long distance runner who passed away 5 years ago and her family along with the Athletic Association of South Australia organises a 5K run every year where I do some fundraising and organise teams to participate in the race.
I also love fashion and a bunch of us launched a monthly magazine covering mens fashion, fitness and sport. We had 4 editions out before it fell apart but it's something that might be a potential future passion project...sorta on the lines of a GQ style magazine but with a lot more web resources and more interactive web/social media business model

Goals and Aspirations - I want to get into management consulting(strategy and operations) post MBA preferably working in social enterprise units of M/B/B, and long term I'd like to be an entrepreneur and do something both in the consulting area and also social enterprise (maybe like a virtual interactive art studio/auction house).. I obviously need a some help articulating these goals and tying them to my current exp and portraying them as viable options.

BTW the schools I am targeting are Yale(so far my primary choice), Booth, Duke, Cornell, NYU and Darden(I like Haas too and the Bay area location but the smaller class size and the number of Indian applicants applying there combined with the weird essay questions are giving me second thoughts)...I was thinking of Georgetown as a backup due to their amazing international reputation but I'm not sure if I'd be comfortable making the move to America for a lower ranked school than them.

Cheers, Varun

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by mbaMissionJenK » Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:10 am
Hi Varun,

Thanks for sharing, you have obviously started to put a lot of thought into this process which is great. ;)

Yes 6-7 schools for R1 sounds a little too ambitious to me... keep in mind, you don't want to sacrifice QUALITY of your applications just for quantity... you want each application to look like it's the ONLY one you submit! And you do need to tailor each app and the essays to each program, as well as spend time revising and getting feedback etc. So depending on how much time you have available, 3-4 per round is most common, maybe slightly higher if you have a LOT of time on your hands, but aim to prioritize and see how much time it takes you. Plus don't forget-- you'll also be asking recommenders to submit as many letters of rec within a given timeframe! Spend some time researching the schools some more, review rankings, websites, blogs, messageboards. See if you can get in touch (often admissions offices can help with this) with a current student or alum at programs you want to hear more about. Ask q's about what they like and don't like, how they'd describe the student culture, why they picked the program, etc. Look closely at the 'employment statistics' (available on each school's website) to see what companies frequently hire there and what roles the students go into. ps-- Yale does seem a good option given your goals/interests.

Based on what you have said, here's what I see that you've got going for you:
-varied, interesting background (though be careful it doesn't start to sound TOO varied, see further comments below)
-International experiences
-extracurricular involvement; shows you will likely be involved at b-school as well
-entrepreneurial experiences, showing determination, innovation, ambition
-respectable GMAT, above average at many of the top programs

Your challenges:
-the GPA you mentioned (and yes additional coursework that is strong/recent will help to counterbalance. ps-- be sure not to mention the drinking/going out in the app/interview, lol!!)
-potential challenge describing all of your vast experiences, along with your rationale for the MBA and your goals, in a clear and concise way

I think you have an opportunity to stand out from many applicants due to all of your different experiences. However you could easily go the other way and come across as too scattered, or un-focused, or uncertain, or your story could become confusing. It will be important for you to get help, from an MBA admissions consultant if possible; if not at least from a friend/colleague with b-school experience, to ensure that your essays, and your overall story, make sense, get the points across you are aiming for, and showcase all you have to offer.

Think about how you want to be remembered by the admissions committee. It's human nature for them to think of certain applicants as "the one who has x, y, and z attributes or experiences." Currently the challenge is, you could be the guy who....

-is Indian from Australia
-has tech consulting experience
-has entrepreneurial experience
-has social enterprise ambitions
-volleyball player
-product analyst
-sports writer
-organizer for musicians etc
-volunteer
-fashion magazine editor
-art studio interests

:) Of course not saying you shouldn't include many of these in your application, but as I think you know based on your own comments, you'll want to choose a few key facts and experiences about you that you REALLY want to highlight within the application... the 'how will you be remembered' factor.

Hope that helps! If you are interested in additional help at any point, we do offer a free 30 min consult, if interested it is at https://www.mbamission.com/consult.php.

Keep us posted!
Jennifer Kedrowski
MBA Admissions Consultant
www.mbamission.com
[email protected]

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