Profile Evaluation - Indian Marketing guy- 660 GMAT

[rahulvsd]

Hi

Could you evaluate my profile?

I took up the GMAT thrice. Got 610 in my first attempt. 660 (47Q 34V) in my second and 650 (46Q 34V) in my third (No power for the entire duration of the test made me lose my focus). My practice test scores were in the range of 710 - 740 and I felt good before my third attempt. But as mentioned the external conditions at the test center dampened my chances of getting a good score. I do not want to take the GMAT again.

Here is a short brief on my profile.

1. GMAT - 660 (Highest)
2. Work ex - 13 months with Cognizant Technolgy Solutions as a developer. 16 months as a Product Evangelist at a software products company.
3. Undergrad CGPA - 3.2 not sure on this (82 % - and finished in top 5% of my class)- Electrical Engineering
4. Have led and formed teams at college and at work. Revamped a dead Entrepreneurship Cell at my college by taking it from a one member team to a 75 member team in one year. Received an award at college recognizing this. Led a team of 50 other training batch captains at Cognizant and conceptualized and conducted a one day fundraising cultural activity. Raised 5000$ (INR 2,50,000) for an orphanage.
5. Received an award and lot of appreciation from clients and peers at Cognizant for developing a tool that reduced testing time by 80% and brought down costs by 70% for my client (An insurance company based in the US)
6. Was more interested in marketing and sales side of a product and hence switched to my current role. Have been involved in creating marketing strategies for 4 different products (2 new products) in my current role. Have worked on getting more customer testimonials for the 4 products, have revamped the product blogs and have drastically improved our social media presence.
7. Have been leading teams of size 4 - 10 for the last 8 months now. Played a key role in expansion of the company and have also helped manage recruiting at all levels. We nearly doubled up our head count in the last one year.
8. Have also helped with operations and described as the "The GOTO Man" by my CEO.
9. Was the campus ambassador for Child Rights and You and worked with them to help create awareness for the Right to Education act. Have also been involved with the CSR arm of Cognizant during my stay there.
10. Worked as the Alumni officer at my Undergrad college for two months before my role at Cognizant. Have helped set up the process for the Alumni Scholarship for meritorious students from difficult background. Have been a board member of the Alum Association and was also part of the Scholarship committee and Election committee which oversees the election process for office bearers.
11. Have finished Level 1 Spanish certification and will be taking up Level 2 soon.
12. Learning to play the flute and the sport of archery for last 6 months.

I would like to pursue a specialization in Marketing. Below are the list of my target schools.

1. Indian School of Business
2. University of Virginia - Darden
3. University of Michigan - Ross
4. Cornell University - Johnson
5. Carnegie Mellon University - Tepper
6. UCLA - Anderson

My Score lies in the mid 80% of all schools. Could you comment on my chances?

[Jon@Admissionado]

Hey Rahul,

Well first of all let's start with the fact that you have good stuff, both in depth and breadth. I feel like you have a mine of material which we can work with, which is great. Your challenge is overcoming your GMAT, and standing out in your pool. It's a bit tougher for you because not only are you from a very overrepresented pool, but it's also a pool that does AWESOMELY well on the GMAT. So you need to be honest and ask yourself the question: why would school X take me on rather than another Indian fella with similar background but better test scores? And there's only ONE answer: because there is NO other Indian candidate similar to you.

What do I mean - is that you need to make your applications UNIQUE. You need to shine, and not just with run-of-the-mill stories and writing, but by standing out.

Secondly, you might want to play it a bit safe - what I mean is that although yes, you may be within the 80% of these schools, but you are well in the lower side of the 80%, so you gotta be honest with yourself and acknowledge this disadvantage and add a few Safe Schools to your list. You still can make it into one or even several schools on your list, but you want to be clever by covering all your bases.

Hope this helps!

[rahulvsd]

Hi Jon,

Thank you for the response.

I have two questions.

1. What safe schools would you suggest?

2. How does a school view a candidate, is it based on the industry or nationality? Does the role the candidate currently make a difference? I work as a product evangelist for 4 products and wanted to know if this could help me differentiate myself from the rest of the Indian IT Pool.

Thanks in advance.

[Jon@Admissionado]

Rahul,

1. I don;t have a specific suggestion for you becuase you need to first research the schools and go by what feels right for you, what matches your needs most. But when approaching the question of "what is a safe school", you want to aim for schools where your GMAt would be say 20 points ABOVE the Mean. So, have a look at rankings lists with GMAT avergages, and start form there.

2. There is no ONE way that Adcoms look at profiles. They take everything into consideration including nationality, industry, grades, leadership, etc. etc. etc. But no school wants a class of 100% Chinese Finance people, of French Consultants or whatever. Their diversity is good for the school.

As for how to differentiate yourself? If there was a magic silver bullet I would tell you. But there isn't. It's done with digging into your profile, with hard work and long thought on the strategic aspects of your application, a careful consideration of the wording, and hours and hours of work on your essays.

If you'd like us to help out, feel free to drop us a line: https://admissionado.com/mba/free-consultation/