Profile evaluation

[mbaaspirant2014]

I am 28 year old Indian female. I have 5 years of work exp and planning to give my gmat next month. I have done my BE in computers from Mumbai with an aggregate of 55%.
Request you to evaluate my profile.

1. Currently working as a PMO for a year and a half with Business Unit lead of one of the world's largest outsourcing company.
2. PMO (6 months - Customer Operations Mangement - BPO unit) : My role was to program manage focused initiatives towards achieving key business priorities. I was responsible for tracking, monitoring and reporting on key business indicators / KPIs. I also worked on articulating our overall achievements, plans and updates to the appropriate audience and worked on special projects such as branding of our program.
3. Now I work as a PMO to the sector development executive for Manufacturing BPO sector in my firm. I help drive marketing campaigns at all stages, manage account development by tracking and monitoring of all accounts, building strategies to bring in innovation in the sector, do considerable amount of research on manufacturing industry and market analysis and trends to build insights, helping drive bringing vertical solutions to the industry, connect and coordinate with people in different business units for synergies, build decks for meetings and client visits related to manufacturing. Help in developing road maps and designing strategies for sector innovation
4. Have 3 years of work experience as a web developer and designer. Automated the build process and led a 15 member team for 6 months as a Rnd lead in parallel to the development and designing work.
5. Shifted to program management because of my keen interest in management
6. Can get good recommendations and show leadership in managing tasks.
Extra Curricular : Quite sporadic
1. Keen Interest in classical music and playing instruments for 4 years
2. Fundraising for NGO
3. Active member for fun team and CSR team at work
4. Won prizes at school and college level for elocution, UN examination prizes, elocution competition, singing and dance competitions

My aim is to do MBA from Ivy League colleges.

I request you to let me know if I should consider doing some certification to overcome my low GPA score. I am planning to give my GMAT next month. How much min should I aim for. Which colleges do you think I can aim for. Also I have a 8 months gap before I switched over to new firm so request to guide me how to overcome this as well.

[mbaMissionJenK]

Hi there,

Thanks for posting your profile. If I am understanding correctly, you have a lot of computer/IT/project/analysis experience, and less-than-amazing academics, and haven't taken the GMAT yet.

As much as I encourage everyone to reach for their dreams, so to speak, I must also be realistic and let you know that based on the info you provided, in my opinion it would be extremely difficult to gain acceptance to an 'ivy league' or top-rated (not entirely the same list, fyi), MBA program, no matter what your GMAT score is... it's just SO competitive, and with the lower than average grades and an IT/computer/technical background which is very common. It's not clear if you have much in the way of leadership experiences? Any international experiences? Communication skill examples? And/or anything that just makes you unique. Without that, you may want to look outside the top-10 schools for sure... (based on the US News & World Report ranking, most commonly used in the US). Being a female applicant helps, but you still need a unique set of experiences and traits to bring to the program, plus strong academics and GMAT, for consideration.

In general, getting the best GMAT you can will be crucial for any schools you apply to, and to help offset the GPA. Certainly 700+ would be needed for any of the more competitive programs. Also in terms of something else to help with the GPA/academics, if you took some coursework now and did well, it could help show more recent academic success.

Work hard on that GMAT, and keep researching... you haven't mentioned WHY you want the MBA which is another key element, so be sure to work on your goals as you need clear post-MBA goals to gain acceptance at top programs as well.