Please review my profile.

[bhavika22]

Dear Consultants,

I need your advice. I just took the GMAT got a 640 (Q42,V37).

I plan to apply to Rice University, UT Ausin, Univ of Houston, Texas A&M for an MBA (in that order). Also does anybody know about the requirements for MS in Finance at Univ of Houston?

My profile :

I am an IB analyst, originally from India and currently work in NY. Worked in one of the top 3 IBanks for 3 years now.

Started my career in Mumbai, moved to Hong Kong and Beijing (spend 6 mths there ...very unusual for a non-Mandarin speaking person to work with Chinese clients). Got an offer from another team in NY a year ago and moved to NY last December. Can manage good recos from an MD and a VP, both of who I have directly worked with.

The problem is I have a Master of Management in Finance from University of Mumbai. (But that was before I had any work-ex and after getting a BCom I needed it since I would have never been able to get a job in IB in India with only a Bachelors.)

I have also done a project for an NBFC (Non Banking Finance Company) in India that was looking to setup a Housing Finance subsidiary. I did more work than I was supposed to and eventually got an opportunity to present my report to the board of directors (not just my project mentors). The company launched its Housing Finance subsidiary in 6 mths after I presented the report.

I think the 2 things that work against me are that I am an Indian female and I have a lower than average GMAT score (compared to ppl in the subcontinent) and then I have a degree partly similar to an MBA.

What are my chances to making it to any of the above schools given I have international experience and I was an I-Banker (very few Indian women get the opportunity).

Do you suggest I retake the GMAT. (Not sure if I can do much better. Also dont know if I have much time given the deadlines are fast approaching) Look forward to hear from you.

[Jen Kedro]

Hi there,

First of all, looking at the schools you are interested in, they tend to have average GMAT scores in the 660-670 range, with Rice possibly slightly lower. So, while you are below their averages, you are not too far off at 640, and remember those numbers are just averages; students scored above and below those numbers and were accepted of course.

If you are confident that you can score significantly higher on the GMAT, based on say high practice scores you've been getting, or just the feeling that you didn't prepare as well as you could have, you can certainly test again and see how things go. All schools I've come into contact with will take your highest score if you re-take (though feel free to double check with specific schools if desired), and if you improve to the average or certainly above the school's average, that will increase your chances of acceptance generally. However you are not so far below the average that I would say you absolutely need to re-take. The admissions decision at this point will likely be based upon the rest of your application.

It sounds like you have strong work experience, international exposure, and good projects to write about in your application. So it will come down to how you present yourself in your essays. Your goal in the essays is to convince the admissions reps both that YOU are great for their program (who are you as a person? what will you contribute to the class? etc), and that THEIR MBA PROGRAM is right for YOU (how does an MBA fit into your goals? why is this particular school right for you?). If you can create a compelling application that answers those questions, your chances are quite good.

Your international experience is a plus, and actually the fact that you are female is a small plus at some programs, since the % of female MBA students is quite low and many programs are working hard to recruit females. There are a large number of applications from India at the moment, but that said, many are from those with an engineering background, so the banking background may set you off from some of that group anyway. Finally, yes you'll need to convince the admissions reps that you need the MBA in ADDITION to the Masters in Finance, so spend time thiking about that when you work on your essays. Don't underestimate the time and energy required to create a strong application. Best of luck to you!