Am I Stanford, Sloan or Haas material?

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Am I Stanford, Sloan or Haas material?

by sahilkumar » Mon Jul 30, 2012 10:09 am
GMAT : 770 (50Q, 47V) 6.0AWA
UnderGrad : 7.5/10 BE (Computer Science Engineering) (Manipal Institute of Technology)
Age : 24
Work Exp : 4 years at the time of admissions (Fall 2013)

Worked for a large (50,000+ employees) multinational, EMC Corp., for about 10 months. Realized that I was stifling my innovative side by working there due to very little room for out-of-the-box thinking, hence quit the job and joined a startup.

Worked on the Business Development team for the startup (40 employees, US and India) and was a key member of the team(4 members) responsible for its monetization (which reached $5M revenues) and eventual profitability .
Saw the startup through an acquisition of $120M and still work here, now as a part of the larger corporation.

I am currently working to establish my own startup centered around the concept of social responsibility. Guess I am turning into a somewhat social entrepreneur. However, this has not taken off yet and is in its initial conceptualization phase. Have a 3 member team, where I have taken the central role.
Since this has not been launched yet, I am apprehensive about mentioning this anywhere in the application essays, as it may seem fabricated.

Additional experience : Working with an NGO for the welfare of stray dogs in our cities. I am a core member and working towards building their online presence and mobilizing volunteers and funds for the organization.

Post MBA goals
Short Term : To work for internet based startups(preferably in North America) in a Product Management role to get an end-to-end understanding of a product lifecycle. I would like to do this for a span of 2-3 years, which would give me time to repay the education loans incurred for an MBA as well.
Long Term : Want to start my own venture to work in the emerging e-commerce sector in South East Asia.

Target schools : Haas, Sloan, Stanford GSB, ISB, and open to suggestions :oops:

Programs of interest : An MBA in Entrepreneurship and Business Strategy

Letters of recommendation : Hopeful of securing these from the CEO (Berkeley alum), VP Business Development (UCLA Andersen alum) and Product Manager (ISB alum), all of whom I have worked with directly.

In terms of the strength of my credentials please advise whether the schools I am aiming at are realistic or not, also please suggest 1 or 2 additional schools to apply to.

Thanks a lot..
I really appreciate this.
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by apphelp » Tue Jul 31, 2012 4:39 am
sahilkumar wrote:GMAT : 770 (50Q, 47V) 6.0AWA
UnderGrad : 7.5/10 BE (Computer Science Engineering) (Manipal Institute of Technology)
Age : 24
Work Exp : 4 years at the time of admissions (Fall 2013)

Worked for a large (50,000+ employees) multinational, EMC Corp., for about 10 months. Realized that I was stifling my innovative side by working there due to very little room for out-of-the-box thinking, hence quit the job and joined a startup.

Worked on the Business Development team for the startup (40 employees, US and India) and was a key member of the team(4 members) responsible for its monetization (which reached $5M revenues) and eventual profitability .
Saw the startup through an acquisition of $120M and still work here, now as a part of the larger corporation.

I am currently working to establish my own startup centered around the concept of social responsibility. Guess I am turning into a somewhat social entrepreneur. However, this has not taken off yet and is in its initial conceptualization phase. Have a 3 member team, where I have taken the central role.
Since this has not been launched yet, I am apprehensive about mentioning this anywhere in the application essays, as it may seem fabricated.

Additional experience : Working with an NGO for the welfare of stray dogs in our cities. I am a core member and working towards building their online presence and mobilizing volunteers and funds for the organization.

Post MBA goals
Short Term : To work for internet based startups(preferably in North America) in a Product Management role to get an end-to-end understanding of a product lifecycle. I would like to do this for a span of 2-3 years, which would give me time to repay the education loans incurred for an MBA as well.
Long Term : Want to start my own venture to work in the emerging e-commerce sector in South East Asia.

Target schools : Haas, Sloan, Stanford GSB, ISB, and open to suggestions :oops:

Programs of interest : An MBA in Entrepreneurship and Business Strategy

Letters of recommendation : Hopeful of securing these from the CEO (Berkeley alum), VP Business Development (UCLA Andersen alum) and Product Manager (ISB alum), all of whom I have worked with directly.

In terms of the strength of my credentials please advise whether the schools I am aiming at are realistic or not, also please suggest 1 or 2 additional schools to apply to.

Thanks a lot..
I really appreciate this.
Hi Sahil,

Guess the startup is Slideshare ( 120 mn USD :) ).

Now your GMAT score is great and since you have an experience of working in a big corporate as well as startup you can really use both these experiences in your essays. BD experience will help especially if you talk about the challenges of doing BD for s startup.

Launch your venture soon so that you can talk about real stuff rather that an idea ( which will get you more points).

Your goals look in sync with what you have done in the past and choice of schools also looks decent. All schools in your list look quite achievable except for Stanford which is a little tough but you should still target .

Would recommend considering CMU as well. Safe option for you.

Feel free to contact us for any queries.
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by Anil Kumar » Tue Jul 31, 2012 6:25 am
Hi Sahil,

You have an excellent GMAT score which to some extent offsets an OK GPA (I am not sure what it means in percentile terms). But, the utility of GMAT score beyond a point is not that much. With this score, the adcom will know that you can withstand the quantitative and other academic rigor. The weak point is "not so well known undergraduate institution".

In your case, a lot will depend on the quality of your work experience in the start-up. In all probability, you may not have had great things to show in a large organization in a short span of 10 months.Stanford is always very difficult more so because of its low admission rate. MIT is also not easy. You may like to add few more schools to increase your chances of getting into B-school.
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