Requesting a Profile Evaluation

[mba_aspirant2014]

Hi,
Need your guidance in understanding my chances of getting into a good B-School. Your help would be greatly appreciated. I am specifically targeting the following B-Schools (Harvard, Stanford, Sloan, ISB, Insead, Columbia, Kellogs, Wharton). Please find my profile information below:

Age/GMAT/Nationality: 24/M/India
GMAT Score : 720 (Quant: 50/ Verbal: 38)
Academic Credentials:
-Undergraduate Discipline/College: Engineering/Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
-Undergraduate GPA: 4.0 (Department Rank 1)
-Class 12 Board Exams (ISC): 96.4 % (First in Batch, Award for Best Science Student)
-Class 10 Board Exams (ICSE) : 93%

Professional Experience:
-Work Experience: 2 years
-Profile: Project Manager in the largest manufacturing unit of one of India's leading FMCG company.
-Responsibilities: Handling projects on process improvement, infrastructure up-gradation and regulatory compliance (CAPEX to tune of couple of Crore Indian Rupees)
-First year of work : Responsible for projects in the biggest manufacturing unit of the company
-Second year of work: Responsible for projects across the company's six manufacturing units in India

Extra-Academic Activity:
-Involved in organizing various events and function in office.
-Marketing head of college's annual cultural festival. Planned the sponsorship and publicity strategy for the fest. Lead a team of 24 people and achieved the highest sponsorship amount and foot-fall in the fest till date.
-Elected as a member of the Sports committee in my hall of residence at college.
-Nominated as a member of the Academic Committee for my department.
-Prefect in school. Member of the Nature Club, Interact Club and Safety Patrol in school
-Took up projects on rural development in a village near my college

[Bryant@VeritasPrep]

The good news is, your profile attributes are top notch. The bad news is, so is everyone else's in your applicant pool. The problem is there are so many applicants with a profile that looks very similar to yours. The adcoms see so many prefects from good schools with top grades who led a cultural festival, that they all end up sounding alike. You will need to really differentiate yourself particularly with H/S/W since compared to other applicants with a similar background, you will be considered "average" in these schools' application pools. You can thank your fellow high achieving peers for that. With only 2 years WE and what looks like entirely in India, you will be up against some challenges competing against similar applicants but with 5 years WE and much of that global market environs. Another way to differentiate yourself is if you can be passionate and uniquely insightful as to why you want tthe MBA and why you want to make an impact in your field. A good story is hard to beat, but is also hard to come by. If you can develop your history in a compelling way and weave it into your future plan, you will be doing more than most. Also think of things which are unique to you compared to someone with similar core professional and educational attributes. If you can differentiate yourself from your peers, you may be the one who is picked from this broad group of applicants.

[mba_aspirant2014]

Dear Bryant,
Thanks a lot for your inputs. I will definitely work on differentiating my application from the rest.
I needed one more advice. Do I retake the GMAT because I feel that I can definitely get a higher score if I do so.

[Bryant@VeritasPrep]

Of course the higher the better, but at 720 it would not be the GMAT that gets your application rejected. Having said that, if you are confident you can do better, it could always help distinguish yourself further, just don't rely on it as some kind of guarantee. In other words, make sure you focus on the application, because getting in is about so much more than just a fantastic GMAT score. Reach out to us for help if you need it. We have specialists who graduated from likely all your target schools who can provide sage insight.