Please evaluate my profile for Stanford/harvard/kellogg

[galaxynexus09]

Hi,

Please help evaluate my profile. My target schools are Stanford, Harvard and Kellogg

Age: 26
Nationality - Indian
GMAT score: 680 (V36,M47)
GPA - 3.8
Current location: Singapore

Education:

- B.COM, Bharathiyar University, India
- PGDM, Marketing, Insead Business school, Singapore (part time & sponsored by employer through a rigorous selection process)
- Advanced project management degree, Stanford University (part time & sponsored by employer through a rigorous selection process)

Work Experience:

- 6 years with a top internet company with 5 years in India and 1 year in Singapore
- Currently Head of vendor sales operations for IN, SEA & ANZ
- Currently managing sales teams across 5 locations in APAC
- One of the youngest business leaders in my company, in terms of job level within the company, I'm at par with employees who get recruited from top business schools with relatively higher work experience
- Built the outsourced sales team from scratch in India and now optimized operations for other regions in APAC to become one of the most profitable operations globally
- Experience in being a part of the landing team for Google india, which helped shape the internet ecosystem in India
- Won the prestigious founder's award
- Consistently rated in top 5% percentile of employees globally

Extra curricular:

- Represented my state cricket team for 4 years and played professional cricket for a club team with international cricketers for a year during college
- Represented the south zone (best cricketers from 6 states) cricket team at the junior level
- Captained the school, college and district cricket team
- 4 time district badminton champion

Community work

- Vice-chairman of the board for a charity trust in india which runs two non-profit schools for nearly 2000 students
- Worked on multiple projects to receive funding for the school

Leadership experience:

- As I mentioned earlier, I currently manage a ~180 member team of vendor employees and 6 googlers across 5 locations
- I have captained professional sports (cricket) teams throughout my career

Reccos:

- I can manage recommendations from senior executives from my company who are alumni's from stanford/Harvard/Kellogg

The other thing I want to mention is that my salary right now is higher than the average salaries at any of the top b-schools. Will this affect my chances considering b-schools tend to look at % increase in salaries quite a lot?

Also, I understand my gmat score is below par and I belong to the highly competitive 'indian male' category but I'm hoping my profile could make for it. I would really appreciate it if you can share your views.

[mili]

Hello!

Thanks for the detailed info. You certainly have an impressive leadership profile, and I think your professional and community activities are quite strong. You've obviously competed at some of the highest levels of cricket and badminton, but it was unclear to me whether these were activities you carried forward after school? If so, then that is great.

To address your concerns:
1. Your GMAT is slightly low, but not so far below average that it will make or break your application. For schools like HBS/Stanford/Kellogg, it would be ideal if you could retake and score higher, but it would not be impossible to overcome your current score with a really robust profile in other dimensions (which I believe you have).

2. I wouldn't worry as much about the salary issue, but I would worry more about making a strong case to the adcoms as to why you need an MBA at this point in your career. Seems like everything is going so well professionally, it's difficult to understand why you really need an MBA. Depending on your career goals, you may want to consider EMBA programs -- your management experience level seems to be a better fit for these (though generally EMBA candidates have 10-15 yrs experience under their belts). Still, may be worth considering, especially if you want to stay on the executive track within your company/field. Along these sames lines, the fact that you already have a degree from INSEAD could really be an issue. If your INSEAD degree is an MBA, then I don't think you'll be taken seriously as a candidate at any other schools...please clarify that point for me.

3. I wouldn't worry so much about the "Indian male" demographic issue, as that generally applies to IT/software engineers. Since you studied and work in business fields, this should be less of an issue for you.

All in all you have a strong profile. If you have an INSEAD MBA already, then I don't think the adcoms will consider you. Either way, you'll need to make a very compelling case for why you need an MBA, and you may wish to consider executive programs depending on your goals. I do think you can overcome your GMAT score if you execute well on the other areas of your application.

Hope this helps,
Mili Mittal
Senior Consultant
http://www.mbamission.com

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[galaxynexus09]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick response. Please find my answers below.

You've obviously competed at some of the highest levels of cricket and badminton, but it was unclear to me whether these were activities you carried forward after school?


I played highly competitive cricket in school and college and very early into my work career but not as of now due to time constraints but its not too long ago so I guess it shouldnt be a problem.

I wouldn't worry as much about the salary issue, but I would worry more about making a strong case to the adcoms as to why you need an MBA at this point in your career. Seems like everything is going so well professionally, it's difficult to understand why you really need an MBA. Depending on your career goals, you may want to consider EMBA programs -- your management experience level seems to be a better fit for these (though generally EMBA candidates have 10-15 yrs experience under their belts). Still, may be worth considering, especially if you want to stay on the executive track within your company/field. Along these sames lines, the fact that you already have a degree from INSEAD could really be an issue. If your INSEAD degree is an MBA, then I don't think you'll be taken seriously as a candidate at any other schools...please clarify that point for me.

The INSEAD degree is not an MBA. Its a certificate course in marketing which was customized for my company. My story for why MBA is the following

Looking to switch career to venture capital, which is well suited to my skills and with relevant work experience, I would want to start something on my own to support social enterprises and tech startups in India. There is a lot more to the story with examples from my work with the charity trust and how one can build a social enterprise which provides affordable products or services in India and still be quite profitable. I think Stanford is best suited for my goals in every way and thats the reason why I'm a little worried about the gmat score.

[mili]

Thanks for the additional info. Ideally, you want to be able to show that you're just as engaged in extracurricular activities now as you were back in college. I understand that there are time constraints, but just note that your competition at GSB will still be actively engaged in every dimension of life. I worry a bit about the lack of post-college extracurricular activities, especially since you're 6 years out of school.

Also I suggest being very careful about your career narrative. Venture capitalism is an incredibly difficult field to break into, especially without any finance or successful entrepreneurship background. Admissions committees know this and they expect you to know this. You'll need to really justify how you'll get there and show that you understand how competitive this field really is. It's not the most intuitive jump from a sales background. Saying you want to go from VC to social enterprise is a bit far fetched -- realistically, you'd a) go finance then VC or b) build a start-up career (work in start ups, social enterprises, etc., and then go on to found your own).

As I said before, your GMAT score is slightly below average for these schools, but remember that the scores they report are the medians and averages, meaning half the class has scored lower than what they report. With that said, it would obviously be safer to apply with a higher score, so if you have the opportunity to retake the GMAT and believe you can score higher, then go for it.

I'd suggest that regardless of whether you retake the GMAT or not, you apply to GSB and one of your other targets (Kellogg or HBS), but that you supplement this list with other top tier but safer schools (e.g., UCLA, Michigan, Berkeley, Darden, Duke, etc.). It's a very risky strategy for anyone (even someone with a 700+ score) to apply only to HBS, GSB and Kellogg :)

Thanks,
Mili

[galaxynexus09]

Thanks a lot for the advice. You have been very helpful. I will definitely refine my career narrative when I do start working on the applications. This was more of a high level gist of what I was wanting to do. I should be able to show active engagement in sports maybe not as much as before but to a reasonable level. My immediate concern is to whether to go ahead with a 680 or not! Thanks again for your inputs!

[mili]

At the end of the day, it really depends on your own personal risk tolerance and whether or not you think you can considerably improve your score. There are trade offs involved (time spent studying for GMAT is time not spent on the application/essays). As I said, a 680 is certainly not impossible to overcome, but if you want to be solid on the academic dimension, think you have time and can improve your score to 700+, may be worth retaking. Unfortunately, I can't make the decision for you, but I hope this is somewhat helpful!

Good luck,
Mili

[naraenk]

Hi Milli,

I have gone from a 680 to 2 unsuccessful reattempts with 650 and a canceled score since I was sick and couldnt complete the exam. After some research, I thought 4th attempt might be too risky so I took the GRE and scored Verbal - 158 (77%) and Math - 162 (86%). The sectional scores are better on GRE but the GRE comparison tool from ETS predicts a score of 670. What would be the better score in this case? Any thoughts?

[mili]

I'd probably stick with the 680 score and let them know in an optional statement what your GRE score was.

Thanks,
Mili

[naraenk]

Hi Mili,

Thanks for all the advice. I got through Wharton and Kellogg.

[mbamissionjenK]

Posting for Mili... are you saying you got accepted at both?? Many congrats if that is the case! Are you attending one this fall or ?

Good luck on your career!