Please evaluate my profile and advise on target b-schools

[visa1416]

Hello!

Following is my profile :

Personal details:
Age: 31 years
GMAT: Male
Marital Status: Married
Nationality: Indian

Education:
•Bachelors in Production Engineering from University of Pune, India. Passed out in 1999 with a first class (61% marks).
•On the job trainings / certificates:
1.Six Sigma Green belts. One week training done in 2004.
2.ISO 9001-2000 lead auditor Course. One week training followed by an exam. Completed in 2004
3.National Examination Board (UK) in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) – International General Certificate. Two week training followed by an exam. Completed in 2007.
4.Certified suggestion scheme evaluator training. One day training conducted by Dubai Quality group. Done in 2007.

Work Experience:
9+ years (August 1999 – Present) of manufacturing industry experience. Details are as under:
August 1999-June 2003 : Power cable manufacturing company in India.
July 2003 – Present : Power cable manufacturing company in United Arab Emirates.
Areas worked in: Production, manufacturing engineering, QHSE (Quality, health, safety and environmental) management systems.

Major Achievements/Highlights:
•Led a six sigma productivity improvement project on one of our bottleneck processes to its successful completion. This project saves company approx. 5 Million USD per year.
•Promoted twice in the last 5 years in my current company.


Social/Other activities:
•Involved in an initiative to train national students who have been school drop outs (due to social / family reasons) to be capable of working in industry.
•Helped raise money for old aged people in India through an initiative called “Help Age India”.

Sports activities:
•Led college cricket team in the inter-collegiate competition.
•Led the college chess team in the inter-zonal competition organised by Pune University.

I can take up community activities related to recycling/disposal of waste by being a part of local environmental society but I haven’t joined it as yet.


Expected GMAT score (plan to take it in the last week of December): 700+

GPA: ? I need to get my transcripts from my university in India.

Recommendation letters: I can get very good recos. from my managers.

Essays: May avail your service in getting them done.

What do I want an MBA program to do for me?
Give me lot more options than I currently have in my career:
•Make me eligible and capable for jobs outside my current industry (manufacturing).
•Enable me move up the ladder in my current industry.
•Help me in understanding all the areas of business. Currently my knowledge is mostly limited to Manufacturing. This will help me in becoming an entrepreneur if I decide to later in my career.

MBA specialisation options: Operations, General Management. (Are there any other areas that I can specialise in?)

I Plan to start my MBA in 2009.

Iam aiming at second round of applications. Do you think preparing for applications will be a bit tight for second round since the deadlines of most of the colleges are in January first week?

Could you please advise me 6 best b-schools/programs (pls rank them 1-6) that I should be targeting?

What are my chances of getting in to top US b-schools?

[Graham]

Dear Visa1416,

Thanks for your post!

You've posted fairly broad questions, but I will do my best to shed some light.

As I'm sure you know, it's a bit difficult to assess your chances without some vital pieces of information like your final GMAT result, career plans/target industries/target region, types of schools you might consider (US vs. European, 1-yr vs. 2-yr), etc. I know that some of this is out of your hands - since you haven't yet taken the GMAT - but I just wanted to be clear that there are some important variables that are presently question marks in your file. In any event, my general thoughts are as follows:

1) As you may know, you fall into an over-subscribed group in the applicant pool as an Indian male with an engineering background. This group tends to have fairly high GMAT scores too, so the bar will be raised for you in that respect. Having said that, your manufacturing experience and interest in operations could be a differentiating factor. Schools ranging from Wharton and MIT (top tier) to Purdue (second tier) offer strong operations coursework.

2) You are much older than the average full-time MBA applicant. Most top schools target students with anywhere from 2-7 years of experience. While students with 9+ years of experience are sometimes admitted, they comprise a very small percentage of the student body at the top programs. This fact may decrease your odds - depending on the schools you target.

3) I am unclear as to why you are waiting until late December to take the GMAT - given that you'll also need time to work on the applications and that R2 deadlines are in early January. I presume you are planning to multi-task and get started with your essays soon? Of course, you might consider taking the test a bit earlier to help get a sense for where you stand in the applicant pool and be able to better select target schools...

4) Your activities look respectable and it seems that you have several items to work with (ranging from sports to community service). I'm not sure you need to start any additional activities at this moment, given that you are applying in a couple of months and the recycling post doesn't seem related to prior XCs you have pursued.

5) Your goals/reasons for the MBA need refining. You should ideally figure out if you are looking to accelerate your career or make a career change - since these are two very different things. You should also refine your entrepreneurial plans - if you decide to actually be an entrepreneur. In other words, I don't think you can go into the admissions process not knowing if you are a career changer vs. a career accelerator and if you are a life-time company person or an entrepreneur (and if the latter, then what sort of entrepreneur).

6) As to the timing of this process, I think you should be fine for R2, but I'd love to have the metrics on your GMAT performance early enough to adjust school selection accordingly - if need be. I also should stress that you will clealry have to multi-task over the next three months if you are to assemble a set of strong applications to several schools.

Best of luck,

Graham