Ask an MBA Admissions Consultant

Hi,
As the title says I am currently working for Microsoft developing C# compilers. I did my Under from IIT Bombay (GPA of 8.2/10). I did my masters from Stanford in CS (GPA 3.7/4.0, I know I screwed up!). I worked for a few years for a small startup company and then joined MS. I worked in Outlook team and then the C# compiler team. My job job has always been very technical in nature.
But lately few life changing events have occured in my life. 1) I got married and suddenly I feel stable and a sense of freedom to try and do something different. 2) I got my Green card so I am no longer tied to MS on H1B 3) I am now older (30) and feel a urge to do something more meaningful in life rather than merely making money. I dont think I really want to do a MBA and then join some finance company. I would rather stay at MS then and save the cost of tuition! I feel a strong urge to do something useful for the society, just not 100% certain what yet. But I do get the impression that MBA will allow me broaden my horizons, become a more well rounded individual and provide me the skills to make my small impact on the society that we live in.
Anyways I did take my GMAT last week. I got a score of 750. I am pretty satisfied with this score.
What schools do I have a reasonable shot at?
thanks
kulki
Ohh BTW I did run a small IT company of my own, but closed it because I wanted more time for myself to pursue my hobbies.

Hello,

You appear to be a competitive candidate for top tier MBA programs, though age will make some of them (e.g., HBS, Stanford) unlikely. Many good MBA programs such as Columbia have curriculums in social entrepreneurship and related fields that may be of interest to you.

Your strengths: Microsoft (great brand even though purely tech role), great GPAs (from excellent schools])and GMAT, entrepreneurship experience. Your weaknesses: tending toward older side, Indian IT over-represented group, purely technical background.

For top programs you’d need to show some consistent community service or other interesting extracurricular activity, and you didn’t mention that.

If you prepare a great application that differentiates you, I believe you’d have a shot at some top programs such as Kellogg, Columbia, MIT. Yale might also be a good fit. However, you’d have to develop concrete goals and articulate them well – they can certainly be goals with a social benefit objective. It seems that you could combine your entrepreneurial experience and your global organization experience into a rich and comprehensive perspective that would have relevance for your goals -- and also provide an interesting read for the adcoms.

Best regards,
Cindy Tokumitsu
Senior Editor, Accepted.com
www.Accepted.com

Hi cindytokumitsu,
thank you very much for your valuable feedback. I think I will go ahead and apply to some of the top schools and get it my best. Even in the worst case I still have a good job that I enjoy and wonderful wife I come home to every day, so I cannot really complain much:)

I apologize for asking my question in your thread, but it seems to be at least somewhat relevant.

I hear that the "Indian IT Professional" applicant pool is large and competitive...but what about non-Indian IT Professional? For example, I am an IT Professional, but I am American and caucasian. Would I actually be considered as a different group from Indian IT Professionals?

Again, sorry if this question doesn't belong here.

Don Wrigley wrote:I apologize for asking my question in your thread, but it seems to be at least somewhat relevant.

I hear that the "Indian IT Professional" applicant pool is large and competitive...but what about non-Indian IT Professional? For example, I am an IT Professional, but I am American and caucasian. Would I actually be considered as a different group from Indian IT Professionals?

Again, sorry if this question doesn't belong here.

Hi,
Well frankly I think everyone is unique whether one is a "Indian IT professional" or not. So I wouldn't really pay too much attention to what others have to say about this matter. My best advise is to ace ur GMAT (good GMAT score cannot hurt no matter what people might say) and complete your application to the best of your ability and leave rest to fate. Its useless to keep wondering about such matters which are clearly beyond one's control.
Good luck with your application.

kulki wrote:

Don Wrigley wrote:I apologize for asking my question in your thread, but it seems to be at least somewhat relevant.

I hear that the "Indian IT Professional" applicant pool is large and competitive...but what about non-Indian IT Professional? For example, I am an IT Professional, but I am American and caucasian. Would I actually be considered as a different group from Indian IT Professionals?

Again, sorry if this question doesn't belong here.

Hi,
Well frankly I think everyone is unique whether one is a "Indian IT professional" or not. So I wouldn't really pay too much attention to what others have to say about this matter. My best advise is to ace ur GMAT (good GMAT score cannot hurt no matter what people might say) and complete your application to the best of your ability and leave rest to fate. Its useless to keep wondering about such matters which are clearly beyond one's control.
Good luck with your application.

I absolutely don't agree with it, and it's unfortunate, but it's the world we live in. And I know there's nothing we can do about it. Just wondering what the adcom thinks about it.

Well, I am a newbie here, but as far as I can understand, you won't be pooled together with "Indian IT" guys. You come from a different country, and the Adcom looks for diversity based on countries too. So, maybe there will be an American IT pool, and an Indian IT pool. Again, I haven't heard of this from anyone, so you can take my explanation with a grain of salt.

I think 'pool' can sometimes be an unhelpful term to use in this context. Adcom aren't saying "OK, here are all the applicants who have a particular national/cultural background and a particular professional background, and we can only take this number of them". What they are doing is looking for diversity in the broadest sense. So if what you offer in terms of professional and national/cultural elements is the same as what a lot of other applicants offer, you need to work harder to differentiate yourself through other elements of your candidacy, as Cindy advised the original poster.

To Don's point, there are a lot of, for want of a better term, 'american white guys' who apply to business school and a lot of people from an IT background. What can differentiate you as a candidate is your individual experiences, achievements and personality, and how you express those through the application.

Best

Helen