Request for profile evaluation: Older Candidate

[ballubalraj]

Hi,

Need help to evaluate my profile:

Indian/Male/31 Years (I would be 32 by the start of the program next fall)
GMAT: 730 (Q49, V41, AWA: 5.0)
Bachelor of Engineering from Good University - 74% (top 5%)
Master of Engineering from Indian Institute of Science (one of the top schools in India): CGPA 6.4 on the scale of 8.0
Extra-curricular - Organized events during schools and college days and participated in few events. Did some community work during school days. Now doing community work for past 2 years.

Experience: 8+ years (would complete 9 years by next year)
Ex1: 1 year on research in a govt. sponsored research program
Ex2: 7 Years on Top Indian IT company as Analyst/consultant/Tech Lead; worked for world's leading Financial Corporations (Banking and Equity/Capital Markets)
Overseas: US - 2 years; UK - 2 months
Publications: Published many papers internal to my company
Career progression: good - from engineer -> analyst-> Tech Lead

Areas of interest (post MBA): 1. Consultancy/Investment Banking, and 2. Brand Management/Marketing of Software/IT Products.

Considering my age and experience (in IT field), could you please help me in selecting few schools in which I may have a chance:

1. 4-5 schools from top 15-20 US business schools ?
2. Please suggest 3-4 schools from this list: INSEAD, IE, IMD, HEC, Cambridge, Oxford etc.

I would prefer to do an MBA from US B-schools but do not want to limit myself as I might be over-aged for those programs. What are your opinions on this?

Please let me know if I have missed any crucial information.


Thanks in advance.

[ballubalraj]

Please suggest few safety schools too in both the categories (US and non-US).

Thanks.

[adi1031]

I think that your good score and your experience (as in the number of years) makes every B-school in reach for you.

I think you can choose randomly between the top 10 US B-Schools. You can make selections on the basis of their location (if you like any particular location) or the course that they are more famous for.

Location is a particular advantage if it is for IT. Then, in that case California would be the appropriate place to be due to the Silicon Valley.

As you said, you don't want to limit yourself to US - you can check out the following rankings on ft.com or economist.com.

In your second list, I would suggest you opt for IMD ( I consider it a dream school). Then you can go for INSEAD and IE.

I hope this information helps

[ballubalraj]

Thanks Adi1031 for the insightful information.
I have read on many forums that many schools such as H/S/W do not consider older applicants. Additionally I am from IT background (very common) not a millitary guy or something like that.
Based on that, I want to know few reach and few safety schools.

Kindly help.

[adi1031]

As you can see, you and I have the same GMAT score. Yet, by the time you get an admit to a B-school you would have 9 years, whereas I would have 4 years.

4 years might be more than what the maximum number of applicants have which is - 2 years. But 9 is at a whole new level. Most people with 9 years have difficulty cracking 640, and here you've cracked 730.

Contrary to what you have read, what I know is that Harvard and the like schools prefer much experienced individuals. I think Harvard's median class age is around 29.

For you, almost every school is a safety school except the top 10 (which are a stretch for everyone )

I can name some very good schools if you want -

Chicago Booth
Yale
Duke Fuqua
UCLA Anderson
NYU Stern
CMU Tepper
MIT Sloan
Cornell Johnson
Columbia
Darden
Tuck
University of Maryland Smith

I know that IT is very common, even I'm from this background so I know the feeling.

I suggest that you'd better start on your applications ASAP, because the good schools have deadlines coming up very very soon.

Safety schools, I agree should be there, but with your score and experience, you should try for the top ones. I was told by someone to not aim on the lower side when it comes to Business schools.

[ballubalraj]

Thanks for the motivating and informative post, Adi1031.

I definitely agree with you that one should target the top B-schools. I too will be doing so. But the problem with me is that perhaps this is the last chance for me to get into full time MBA. Next year would be much more tougher. Hence, I want to try for both top as well as safety schools. As it is very difficult to apply for more than 3-4 schools in one round (and I am not yet ready for R-1 for many schools), I need to be very careful in school selection. I am trying to apply for say 1-2 schools in R1 (the schools havinge R1 deadlines after October) and 3-4 in R2. Lets see how it goes.

Good luck for your applications.

-Balraj.