Please evaluate my profile.. Thanks!

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I am a 24 yr old Indian national, born in Chandigarh, India but brought up in 3 different cities in India, Nigeria and finally in Kuwait, where I did my high school. I then went to the United States to do my undergraduate.

I graduated with a major in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Business Administration from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) with a GPA of 3.12 in May 2007. The Electrical Engineering program at UIUC has been consistently ranked in the top 5 by US News for several years now and is therefore extremely competitive. My grades in the Finance and Accounting courses were mostly A's. I also won a hall of fame "green" award for my senior design project in electrical engineering.

GMAT score - 770 (Q50 - 93%, V44 - 97%)

After graduation, I got a job at AT&T (through a consultant) as a design engineer for its Project U-verse. It was a small team of about 30 people where I moved quickly through the ranks and within 8 months time was leading a team of 6 people, lecturing and training the new inductees on system processes and project methodology and interacting with senior AT&T managers to continually improve and streamline existing processes. It was during my tenure with AT&T that I started developing an interest in value investing. I read several books that introduced the concept of value investing and revisited the finance and accounting books from college. I figured I should move to the financial services Industry and started looking for jobs. This was around September 2008 (I had worked for about 1yr and 2 months by now). I realized that with the economy in turmoil, it was going to be a challenge to get a job, especially in the financial services industry. I thought of doing the MBA then but realized I was short on experience and didn't know exactly what I would want to do post MBA. So after a couple of months I figured I should probably move back to India where the economy was still growing and I would probably have better luck getting the job I wanted.

So, I moved back to Mumbai (financial capital of India) in December 2008 with an open mind. I wanted to have a vacation for a month or so and take that time to think about my career goals and where I wanted to be headed. I came to the conclusion that an MBA is a must but wanted to get some experience in the financial services industry so as to get a better idea of where my interests lie. After a couple of months of job hunting, I secured a job with IDBI Capital Market Services Ltd. (an Investment Bank with a good reputation in India) as an executive (equivalent to an analyst in US Investment Banks) in the corporate advisory department. I have been working here since April 2009 and have gained valuable experience executing assignments across different industries. I have registered for the CFA Level 1 exam in December 09 and believe an MBA would be ideal at this stage of my career.

Extracurriculars:

Before College:
Led a team of 6 individuals to a Student League of Nations conference in Geneva.
Sports Captain at High School


At college:
Initiated a team that collected funds for the South Asia Quake relief
Involved in backstage preparations for several shows such as India night etc.
Member of IEEE
Member of the cricket club


Post college:
Helped organize various events during festivals as part of my housing society .
Member of toastmasters International

Other Interests:
I am an avid reader and traveller. I love trying different types of food (from roadside stalls serving utterly disgusting food to fine dining) and have travelled to various parts of US and other countries such as UK, Switzerland and Italy.

Target B-schools:

Booth at University of Chicago
Columbia GSB
NYU (Stern)
Cornell (Johnson)
Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
Austin (Mccombs)

I appreciate your patience in reading this long post and will be very grateful for any feedback/advice you can provide on what my chances are at these schools and what part of my profile I would need to strengthen in order to boost my chances.

Thank you!

Best Regards,
Piyush Goel

[Lisa Anderson]

Dear Piyush,

I think you need to get busy writing your applications for your target schools. There was nothing in your post that raised a concern in my mind nor did I see anything I would classify as a weakness. Your school list is appropriate with a good mix of schools in the top 20. You have some interesting professional experience and a solid rationale for why you moved to the financial services sector. At this point, you need to start writing those essays and submitting those applications by the first round deadline or early in the second round.

Best of luck,
Lisa

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Dear Lisa,

Thanks a lot for your feedback! I had some follow up questions and would be grateful if you could answer them.

1) I guess I should have asked this in the first post and I am sorry for the inconvenience! From my list of taret schools, I selected Columbia and Booth as reach schools, NYU & Cornell I feel I have a reasonable shot at and Carnegie Mellon & Austin are schools where I feel I have the best shot. Am I being too optimistic as per you or is my assessment correct?

2)Since Columbia has a rolling admissions process, would I be at a disadvantage if I apply the last week of september (early action deadline is Oct 7th) as most of the spots would be taken up by then? Should I just wait and apply early in Round 2?

3)For schools that don't have a rolling admissions process, does it make a difference as to when you apply in a particular round? I ask this because you suggested me to apply in round 1 or early in round 2. I just wanted to know if it would make a difference if I sent in my application in december as opposed to sending it in october for a school with a second round deadline in January.

4)When you apply for scholorship, does it diminish your chances of admission at that particular school, or is that something which is looked at separately?

Thanks for all your help!

-Piyush

[Lisa Anderson]

1) From my list of taret schools, I selected Columbia and Booth as reach schools, NYU & Cornell I feel I have a reasonable shot at and Carnegie Mellon & Austin are schools where I feel I have the best shot. Am I being too optimistic as per you or is my assessment correct?
I think your assessment is probably accurate for your profile.

2)Since Columbia has a rolling admissions process, would I be at a disadvantage if I apply the last week of september (early action deadline is Oct 7th) as most of the spots would be taken up by then? Should I just wait and apply early in Round 2?
Rolling admissions means they look at applications as they come in. As long as you submit an application by the deadline for that round, then it is considered in that round. Decisions are usually given as they are made, but some schools do wait and send out all decisions for a round on the same day. If you submit the last week of September, then you would be considered part of the early action round. It is highly unlikely the class is full after the first round, so there is no disadvantage.

3)For schools that don't have a rolling admissions process, does it make a difference as to when you apply in a particular round? I ask this because you suggested me to apply in round 1 or early in round 2. I just wanted to know if it would make a difference if I sent in my application in december as opposed to sending it in october for a school with a second round deadline in January.
Not necessarily, but most schools put applications in a queue as they come in and are complete. So, it might get your application an earlier look, but that does not necessarily mean an advantage.

4)When you apply for scholorship, does it diminish your chances of admission at that particular school, or is that something which is looked at separately?
Scholarships are usually a separate process once an applicant has been admitted.

Regards,
Lisa

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Thanks Lisa for your expert comments!