Profile evaluation request - Indian, business owner

[sharma0]

Hi,

I just took the GMAT on the 11th July and scored a 720 (Q 50, V37) 94% however, I feel that I can definitely pull my score up by anywhere between 20- 50. I am looking at the top 10 business schools. It would be a great help if someone could suggest if I need to retake the GMAT or focus on my applications.

I am Indian, Male. 26 at matriculation next year
I graduated from Purdue University, West Lafayette in electrical engineering with a GPA of 3.62 in 2007
I was involved in a Cancer research project for over an year at Purdue and have also interned with Motorola in Chicago over the summer
After graduation I worked with Lutron electronics for 6 months in PA. While I was enjoying my job and was doing well at Lutron, An opportunity came my way to take up a big project in my family business (real estate development in India) and my entrepreneurial instincts took over and I decided to move back to India and join the family business. (6 months later recession hit real estate pretty bad) and the project took us almost 3 years to complete and a lot of learning.

For the past 1.5 years I have been managing my own residential construction projects in Delhi which are funded by our investors however, all strategic decisions and team issues are managed by me.

Also for the past three years I have been an active participant and volunteer for the Art of Living foundation and have organized cleaning drives, bike rallies to promote bicycle riding against global warming, participated in advance courses etc. and am looking to become a teacher for the organization in the next year so that I can further take courses to teach people about meditation/ yoga/ society issues.

Kindly suggest if I should retake the GMAT, I am registered for August 11th and feel I definitely can improve my score by 20- 50 points considering the scores are very high from indian male engineer applicants. I really appreciate your response.

Thanks,

[GMAT_1986_subha]

Hi,

I just took the GMAT on the 11th July and scored a 720 (Q 50, V37) 94% however, I feel that I can definitely pull my score up by anywhere between 20- 50. I am looking at the top 10 business schools. It would be a great help if someone could suggest if I need to retake the GMAT or focus on my applications.

I am Indian, Male. 26 at matriculation next year
I graduated from Purdue University, West Lafayette in electrical engineering with a GPA of 3.62 in 2007
I was involved in a Cancer research project for over an year at Purdue and have also interned with Motorola in Chicago over the summer
After graduation I worked with Lutron electronics for 6 months in PA. While I was enjoying my job and was doing well at Lutron, An opportunity came my way to take up a big project in my family business (real estate development in India) and my entrepreneurial instincts took over and I decided to move back to India and join the family business. (6 months later recession hit real estate pretty bad) and the project took us almost 3 years to complete and a lot of learning.

For the past 1.5 years I have been managing my own residential construction projects in Delhi which are funded by our investors however, all strategic decisions and team issues are managed by me.

Also for the past three years I have been an active participant and volunteer for the Art of Living foundation and have organized cleaning drives, bike rallies to promote bicycle riding against global warming, participated in advance courses etc. and am looking to become a teacher for the organization in the next year so that I can further take courses to teach people about meditation/ yoga/ society issues.

Kindly suggest if I should retake the GMAT, I am registered for August 11th and feel I definitely can improve my score by 20- 50 points considering the scores are very high from indian male engineer applicants. I really appreciate your response.

Thanks,

Really Nice Profile.
With a strong profile 720 is a good score for getting admission in top B Schools.

If you want to go with some increased score, thats good. But working on essays and profile can make the chances better.

[essaysnark]

Agreed with first response: Your 720 score is absolutely fine. Getting a higher score is not necessarily going to make a huge difference for you in outcomes at any schools. You've already met the hurdle that the GMAT is designed to test: You've proven that you can handle the material. Yes, a higher score could help differentiate you against the pool of other Indian candidates, but not by much - significantly more important will be the rest of your story. You seem to have some interesting elements that you can leverage. The way you position yourself really would depend upon which schools we're discussing, and what you want to do with the MBA (and why do you need to come back to the States to do it -- if you're planning on staying with the family RE business, then many US schools may not think you need an American education for that -- that would be a potentially bigger hurdle for you to overcome than the part about being a male Indian engineer).

As the other respondent said, spending your time/energy on essays will "make the chances better". Chasing a higher score doesn't have great ROI in our opinion.

Bottom line: You should be proud of the 720. It's a good place to be.

Good luck with it!
EssaySnark

[sharma0]

Thanks for your reply,

I greatly appreciate your response. my reason for wanting to come back to US is because currently my business is micromanaged by myself and the best way I can achieve my long term goals is by atleast learning about the good management practices, get a good understanding of the finance concepts, HR practices etc. and given my experience at Purdue I have realized that there is a huge difference in the learning at a US university as compared to even the best in India. Secondly, one of the major difficulties that I face currently right now is that I am not even able to think of managing projects outside Delhi, this has to change and with time I am looking to develop a company which can take up affordable housing projects across the globe and not just India. Third, the most important factor for the success of a real estate company is the funding and it would be a very big strategic advantage for me to interact and network with the finance guys, the investment banking firms on wall street, in order to later explore what options I can have for funding of my projects. Kindly suggest what schools would be a good fit given my profile.

Thanks in advance.

[essaysnark]

Hi sharma0,

The choice of bschool is obviously very personal and a lot of factors need to go into it. One of the best MBA programs for real estate is at UNC Kenan-Flagler, which is a top 20 program. Several top 10 programs also have strong real estate concentrations, including Columbia, UC-Berkeley Haas, and others.

There's an interesting (if dated) discussion of this on the BW forums that has more useful input than we can offer: https://forums.businessweek.com/n/pfx/fo ... &tid=73399

You might also be interested in an MBA program with a strong focus on entrepreneurship, particularly family business. Babson is a good choice for that, and several of the other schools already referenced are also strong in that area.

As we mentioned before, you'll need to explain clearly to the bschool why you need to come to the U.S. for your MBA. There are many aspects to real estate that are regional, such as taxation and financing standards. They may not be convinced that a U.S. education is really what you need. You'll have to marry up your goals with what the school can offer. And be careful about getting *too* ambitious with your goals... Sometimes it stretches the reader's credibility when an applicant claims that they're going to expand their business from a very local geography to a worldwide operation. They'll need to "believe in you" in order to "buy" that type of goal, and so you'll need to show them how you're the guy to pull off such a very lofty goal, if you'll be successful in admissions.

You have a strong profile with lots to work with. It'll just come down to positioning WRT goals and school choice and you'll have a good chance at a top school.

Good luck with it!
EssaySnark