Ask Stacy Blackman

Hi! Amy:

Thanks for taking out the time and evaluating my profile.


30 year Indian male,
Work experience - 6 years+ (quantitative and computational modeling of engineering processes)

GMAT - 670 (Q50 - V30)

Education - BS Chemical Engg - 71% (have an equivalent of cum laude),
MS Chemical Engg - 3.8

Extracurricular:
Captain of a volleyball team in a city league.
I did quite a lot of stuff back at my undergraduate school, but I think that would be going too far back.


Target School: MBA - Insead, MFE Haas Berkeley


Would you recommend that I take the gmat again?
thanks

Hi beingAndNothing,

It never hurts to take the GMAT again if you think you can increase your score. It is only one part of a holistic application process and I am actually more concerned about the other qualities that you need to communicate. It looks like your academics are quite solid overall.

I would spend some time working on the extracurricular portion of your application. You can definitely talk about college, but ramping up your involvement in the community now would also be helpful. I would also spend some time thinking about the areas in your professional life where you demonstrate teamwork and leadership. With a largely technical background that will be important.

Good luck!

Amy

Hi! Amy:

Thanks for the feedback. Some more details on my profile.


Community Involvement
- My main involvement has been with sports organizing pickup games and starting a team with the company.
- Mentoring the coops in our company. We regularly have coops in our group and I sort of help them out with picking up courses and selecting career paths. The main problem with this is that the coops work in our company and not sure if this really means community involvement.

My long term career plan is work in the area of alternate energy consulting and risk assessment (not sure if this would be too specific for stating as a career plan). I plan to apply to MIT, CMU, Insead and LBS. MIT asks for a list of publications and I thought that they might be a bit more interested in people coming from a largely technical background (that's just my guess).

4) Started the department's first technical magazine, which is in its sixth year of publication.

4) My gmat score is 670 with a big disparity b/w verbal (50) and quant (30). I plan to take it again sometime within the next two months.


Do you think that I have a shot at the schools or that I might be better off applying for financial engineering where they have a preference for people with computational and mathematical modeling backgrounds.

Thanks a lot again.

Hi beingAndNothing,

I'm a little surprised about the lower quant score - I would definitely study and take it again.

It sounds like you have a lot of good aspects to your background that you can highlight in your application. Managing people is always a good thing, and it sounds like the content of your work is interesting.

I would choose the program that makes the most sense for your long term goals. If you are interested in an MBA I don't think there is any reason not to apply, and I think your chances are good if you are sure to apply to a range of programs.

Good luck!

Amy

Amy:

Thanks a lot for the feedback. There was a typo on my previous post. My score is lower on the verbal (30) and not on the quant(50). I plan to take the GMAT again as there's a big disparity in the verbal and quant scores.

thanks again.

thanks, amy