Seeking Advice

[vdv1987]

Hi..

I am an indian male with IT background...

X - 81%
XII - 90%

Undergraduate GPA - 7.22/10 in Information Technology from MNIT, a premiere engineering institution in India.

I have taken my GMAT. I scored 730. Q 50; V 40.

I have worked at one of the indian IT service majors, Infosys for about 2 years. I was twice nominated for the best performer award. I also mentored a few new joinees there. In less than an year, I was given the responsibility of leading a team of four, to enhance an application as per client's requirements. I also worked as offshore coordinator for my team.

Currently, I am working at Samsung Electronics. I work on mobile Operating System here. Here also, inside an year I have been given ownership (complete responsibility) of a few controls; something that nobody else has at my level.

I am planning to apply this year. By the time I join the b-schools next year (hope so), I'll have more than 4 years of work experience.

Outside work and academics, I have won some painting competitions at school. I played in branch cricket and football teams in college. I love music and photography. I can play guitar. I like to read a lot, especially history.

I want to do an mba in strategy. Looking at my technical profile, do u think that is possible?
Also is there a chance I can get into Booth or Columbia or Wharton or Kelloggs. Can u suggest some schools.

Thanks in advance.

[Jon@Admissionado]

Hey there good sir, and thanks for dropping a line.

So first off, congrats on your amazingly high GMAT. This is certainly a great first step to making your profile as solid as possible. I think you have a very solid profile, which an excellent promotion schedule and a very good employer on your resume.

Now, as you undoubtedly know, Indian Male Tech is not the rarest of profiles, and thus your applicant pool can be very competitive, esp. for schools such as the ones you listed. You have everything you need to make a great basic applicants (except perhaps not coming from IIT), but now you need more. You need that aded value so that when the AdCom gets YOUR application they will choose you although they have 15 others just as good and quite as similar. So what you need to do is to make your profile unique and impressive, beyond the "Facts" that you already have. What makes you special? What makes you unique? Why should they choose you above the many other amazing people they would have? You need to answer these questions to yourself first before you answer them to the AdCom.

Now, you certainly do have a shot at the schools you listed below, given your impressive work experience and lovely GMAT, but still if you limit yourself only to the schools below, your strategy might be a bit over-ambitious. I would suggest adding one or two "Tier 2" schools to your list, which would help you reach your goals as well. You can do an MBA in strategy from any MBA program, so I would suggest selecting schools that hold appeal to you because of fit/location/etc.

If there's anything else I can help with don't hesitate.

[vdv1987]

thanks a lot jon for your encouraging response.

I am also planning to apply for ISB, Nanyang and NUS. I suppose those are tier 2 schools with respect to those i mentioned in the first post.

Should i consider tuck, darden, stern, ucla-anderson and Duke's Fuqua to be tier 2 US schools; or cornell/Tepper/Ross?

Somebody just told me getting into kelly/goizuetta/mccombs/marshall/cox or smeal would be easier as compared to the top ones( i know dat) but also that i would be able to get a huge financial assistance from them.

I was under the impression that getting a loan in US was easy because ur college could become the co-signer. But i dont know for how many students does the college becomes the cosigner. If you can help me with this finance thing, with respect to the top schools, it would be a great help.

[Jon@Admissionado]

Good question you ask! Tier 2 is into a strict classification, but I would say Tuck is for sure Tier 1 as is Duke. NYU is borderline. Darden and the rest are on the top of Tier 2 and then your list kelly/goizuetta/mccombs/marshall/cox is in the middle. Nanyang and NUS should cover you for Tier 2, although I would consider ISB a Tier 1 school, esp in terms of difficulty of getting in.

Again this evaluation is a wee bit on the rough side, but should give you an overall idea of where you stand.

All the best!!!!