Which college shall I apply?

[gargvaibhav]

Hi
Kindly suggest suitable college in US and Europe. I want to pursue my MBA in Operations.
Age: 25
Nationality: Indian
Academics
Degree: B.E in Instrumentation and Control Engineering from Delhi University.
Score: 68.5 %
High School: 75.4 %
SSC: 86.8 %
GMAT
No. of attempts till now: 1
Score: 700
AWA: 4.5
Work Experience: Working with Indian Oil Corporation for the past 3 years. Current position as Maintenance Engineer. Past experience includes working in the project and Commissioning of a Petro-Chemical Plant.
Activities: The member of "The Neighborhood project" in college where we used to teach poor children after college hours.
2. Involved in the organization of Inter College Cultural festival of the College.
3. Part of dramatics team in the college.
Certifications:
1. National Talent search scholarship in class tenth. This scholarship is awarded to only 750 students all over the India by Central Board of Education.
2. Multiple state Level scholarships in Class IX and X.

[Tani]

Your best bet is to identify those schools that are doing research in operations. Most schools publish lists of the research their faculties are undertaking. Another approach is to identify target employers you would like to work with after finishing your degree. Then see what schools they travel to for interviews. You can also find out the majors of MBA graduates from different schools to see which focus on operations. Most schools also publish statistics that tell where their graduates end up working. Those sources will help you identify a school that meets your needs. When you do apply, you will need to explain your choice to the schools so the more background research you do, the easier it will be to justify why a given school is right for you.

Ranking services will also tell you what range of GMAT scores and GPAs the schools are looking for and what percent of their applicants they accept. The top schools turn down many more qualified applicants than they accept, so be prepared to apply to a number of schools including one or more "safety" school.

Good luck,

[bizschoolprep]

Vaibhav,

Your school choice should primarily come from what you want to do AFTER your MBA. If you are interested in making a career switch to Finance, you should target the MBA schools that have strong finance program. Also, you should keep you test scores, etc in mind to know how competitive you will be to those schools. Check out this article on how to select the business schools to apply. Some of the top schools with great Operations program are CMU, MIT, INSEAD, LBS, HBS, etc.

You belong to a demographic where 730+ is a norm and while your GMAT is not weak , it will not be one of the strongest part of your profile as well. 10/12th marks and scholarships don't matter at all.

It seems your extracurricular activities are limited to the college time. You should definitely use this time to start working on this aspect outside work. Adcom wants to see how much do you contribute to the environment and in what capacity and you should highlight some leadership, teamwork, etc attributes of your character at work as well as outside work.

[gargvaibhav]

Thanks for your valuable inputs.

Vaibhav