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Profile Evaluation Request (Wharton, Columbia, Yale, NYU)

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Profile Evaluation Request (Wharton, Columbia, Yale, NYU)

by hm2009 » Thu May 21, 2009 6:09 pm
Hello everyone. I have a profile-evaluation related question for you expert folks here. Thanks in advance to those of you who take the time out to respond. My details are below:

GMAT: 720
- Indian (M/28) + IIT Bombay Graduate + MS in Comp. Sci. from Univ of Cincinnati (on scholarship).
- Below avg UnderGrad GPA (too busy having fun :( ), MS GPA = 3.70/4
- During Undergrad: President of Mountaineering club (frequently lead expeditions for groups of 50-100) and was nominated as student-representative to a university-level council (interfacing with 10,000 students at the time).
- Gold medal in a national physics competition in India (1 of 40 nationally awarded out of 12,000 test takers).
- Selected to be trained for the Int'l Physics Olympiad (1 of ~25 nationally selected)
- Couple of paper publications.
- Strong. long-standing contributions to open-source/engineering community.

Professionally:
- Engineer (based in US) in the world's second largest semiconductor industry (~3yrs) and a technical consultant (in India, ~1yr)
- Writer; recently won a national (India) poetry award (organized by Harper Collins, judged by an Internationally known poet).
- Recently won an award for outstanding contribution at my office.

Extra curriculars:
- Founder and president of a local chapter for an international non-profit.
- Founder and ex-president of a local poetry club.
- Lead teams from UT Mccombs and Columbia in multiple business plan competitions (reached semi-finals in one; others ongoing).
- semi-fluent in spanish
- Piano player (2 solo concerts under the belt).

I am planning to apply to Wharton, Columbia, NYU and probably Stanford (not a 100% yet). Yale is the backup.

I'd like to get into a social entrepreneurship oriented for/non-profit focused programs. Ultimate goal is to network with fellow social entrepreneurs, understand how the business works at the grass-root levels, understand the financials of said business, and, at the end of the program, get into socially conscious wealth/capital management, or funds that focus on emerging markets, ultimately moving into green VC (in ~5-10 yrs).

Any thoughts on this? What are my chances given that I have no prior finance/capital-management background.

Thanks.
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Profile Evaluation

by AppReview » Sat May 23, 2009 7:08 am
Hi,

As our venture is based out of India and a lot of our mentors are Indians, we feel we are in a good position to gauge your candidacy for the schools you have mentioned. Please find below a profile evaluation from one of our mentors. He had a 760 on his GMAT and is the youngest Indian to be going to Yale for their MBA program (Silver Scholar).

Please find attached a brief FAQ about our venture. Do feel free to write in at [email protected] for any further queries or to enrol.

Regards,
AppReview Team


PROFILE EVALUATION

Hi,

First of all, let me stress that your profile is very impressive. As I myself went to BITS - Pilani, I can fairly say that this profile would seem very impressive to the adcoms. Let me analyze your candidacy on various levels:

Strengths
1. You went to the Univ. of Cincincatti on a scholarship
2. You graduated from IIT-B, which is renowned worldwide and is one of the torchbearers of the infamous IIT Brand name in the USA.
3. As long as your GPA is above 6-7/10, you should be fine. Your MS Gpa is good.
4. the various medals and positions you have got in the Physics Olympiads, other olympiads, your publications etc. are very good. Don't forget to mention ranks while applying. It is important to be quantitative about test ranks when the adcom might not have info about the particular activity.
5. Good professional mix (semiconductor + consultant) and the award at office shows a lot about participation/leadership.
6. Extra currics, especially poetry, spanish and piano are great adds.

Weaknesses
1. You are an almost 'typical Indian Candidate'. Engineer, and that too a computer engineer, even though you went to IIT-B. The IIT part will give considerable weightage here.
2. You do not show (atleast in this brief write up) adequate leadership qualities in areas that matter. Headin clubs and teams is great, but if you could show similar leadership opportunities you have availed in office, you would do great.
3. Your GMAT score is good (keeping above schools in mind) but not great. Please don't get me wrong here: Your score's very good, but for the above schools, not 'safe enough'.

Recommendations and our verdict:
I think you will be very competitive at the choice of schools you have reflected. If you are able to put in great essays (where we can help), you should have no problems at NYU Stern and Yale SOM.

Wharton loves finance students (prior experience) so your chances might decrease there. This is because your overall GMAT would be average compared to other such non-finance candidates (they would have aimed at maximizing GMAT scores to show they are equally competitive to finance students, if not more). Columbia Business school shouldn't be a problem, but I would still recommend a 99 percentile score to be safe.

For NYU/Yale, you are pretty much set.

If you plan on attending Wharton or Columbia, I think you should maybe re-take the GMAT and get a 99 percentile score to be completely safe.

Personal Mentor Notes:
I would also recommend, that you apply to the following schools, where I think you would do great:
Harvard Business School, Chicago Booth, Cornell Johnson, Stanford GSB, Fuqua and Kellogg. Of course, its up to you where to apply, but I think you have a good shot at HBS, Johnson and Fuqua to say the least.

Also, take a look at this list as it might be helpful.

Entrepreneurship Focus

Stanford University Stanford
Harvard University Boston
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
University of Southern California (Marshall)
University of California, Berkeley (Haas)

Non Profit Sector

Yale University New Haven
Stanford University Stanford
University of California, Berkeley (Haas)
Northwestern University (Kellogg)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Ross)
Duke University (Fuqua)

Although Stern is a good school, according to your interests, it doesn't 'fit' into the scheme of things. I strongly suggest you rather look at Fuqua, Haas, Stanford GSB, Kellogg etc.
Best of luck with your applications.
AppReview - Realizing your potential, transforming your dreams

A unique student collaborative venture - We are an eclectic mix of students having confirmed admission offers at Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Duke, Dartmouth, LSE, Cambridge, Imperial College, among others. Offering admissions consultancy options with the flexibility of choosing a custom mentor for all types of graduate and professional studies.

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