750 Female... Please Evaluate profile

[Prithads]

First of all thanks for reading this

So here's my profile:

Age : 25

10th from West Bengal State Board : 84.6%
12th from West Bengal State Board : 57.2%

B.Tech (Computer Science)GPA : 3.5

M.Tech (Operations Research) GPA : 3.5

GMAT(2013, 1st attempt) : 750(Q49, V42)

Currently working in IBM India as SAP BI consultant : 6 months

Extra curricular : Reading and writing Poetry in Bengali. Have been editor of a Bengali little Magazine. Managed a group of 12 for the same. Amateur dancer with some stage performances in the past. Love cooking, aiming to open a family run Pizza startup. Avis social worker but not constantly connected to any organisation.

My Questions are :

1. Am eyeing the 2015 or 2016 intake. Which b schools are suitable for my profile?

2. What are my chances at ISB?

3. How can I make my profile stronger? Is my experience with startup going to help me? What are my shortcomings?

4. Am totally dependent on loan and scholarships... Is that going to hinder my chances?

Anxiously waiting for replies...

[mbaMissionJenK]

Hi there,

Congrats on the excellent GMAT! Very impressive. So you've only had 6 months of full-time work experience if I'm understanding correctly? And the start-up you describe is an ambition, not something that you have done?

Your strengths as I see it here, are your GMAT and strong academics, quant ability, IBM experience, some other personal involvements/interests, and yes potentially start up experience can be a plus. Weaknesses would be: limited work experience (again if I'm understanding correctly), as the average b-school admit has 5 years of work experience to bring to classroom discussions and projects. And I don't know about your quality of work experience, such as leadership and teamwork opportunities, results you've contributed to, impact you've made, etc.

Sounds like you'd be applying in 1-2 years so in that case you'd gain more experience to strengthen your profile. Be sure to focus on making an impact and demonstrating leadership and initiative in the coming years. In terms of schools, top 8-10 will always be challenging given all the strong applicants out there, but you can always give it a shot and see, with a super strong application and essays it's not impossible, but you may want to aim just outside the top 10 for best chances. ISB should be within reach, WITH a very strong application and more experience/leadership. Admissions decisions are not based on scholarship/financial need, they are independent, so that won't affect the decision, but you should research your loan options in advance as scholarships are more limited.

Keep us posted and good luck on your decisions and upcoming career!