Please help in shorlisting colleges

[ankitjain_shanu]

Hello Everybody,

Thanks for all your help. I would like to apply to the US b-schools for fall -2010. I took the GMAT in January ’09 and got 630 score with v-31, q-46. I retook the exam last week and got 540 (v-22, q-44), its different story, I had a bad day...forgot my passport and all. Anyway I am not planning to retake the exam as I don’t want to miss R1 deadlines and I want to put best of my efforts in filling applications.

My profile:

GMAT 630 (v-31, q-46)

Work ex:

-1 year 2 months (Dec 05- Feb 07) in TCS (IT company) - 8th months Module leader.
-2 and half year (Since March’ 07) in Oracle- Mentored 6 employees, Back up manager for APAC region for 1 year, Manage team of 8 employees.

Community service:

Owned an NGO (mission to spread awarness of eye donation) with more than 40 members across India in 6 cities.

Academics:

10th - 67%
12th- 66%
Bechelar of engineering in Electronics and Instrumentation from Government Engineering College: 67.3%

Prefered specialitation: Finance

I have just started shorlisting colleges. I want to know what would be the best Finance school I could get into and whether the list is sufficient or I need to research on more colleges. I am specifically looking for below colleges, please do consider my latest score (530), although most of the universities look for highest score but I am not sure how much it will hurt my chances in getting into any college:

Texas A&M University--College Station (Mays)
Pennsylvania State University--University Park (Smeal) University Park, PA
University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
Southern Methodist University (Cox) Dallas, TX
Wake Forest University (Babcock) Winston-Salem, NC
Michigan State University (Broad) East Lansing, MI
University of Rochester-Simon
Purdue University, Krannert

Also, if you get time, please let us know your comment on below colleges (Rank, College name, Average GMAT score):

22 Indiana University--Bloomington (Kelley) Bloomington, IN 663
26 Ohio State University (Fisher) Columbus, OH 674
26 University of Washington (Foster) Seattle, WA 688
28 University of Wisconsin--Madison Madison, WI 666
29 Arizona State University (Carey) Tempe, AZ 676
29 Brigham Young University (Marriott) Provo, UT 673
29 University of Rochester (Simon) Rochester, NY 675
32 Purdue University--West Lafayette (Krannert) West Lafayette, IN 662
33 University of Minnesota--Twin Cities (Carlson) Minneapolis, MN 663
33 University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) Notre Dame, IN 677
33 Vanderbilt University (Owen) Nashville, TN 656
37 University of Florida (Hough) Gainesville, FL 687
38 Rice University (Jones) Houston, TX 667
40 University of California--Davis Davis, CA 675
40 University of Maryland--College Park (Smith) College Park, MD 660
44 Boston College (Carroll) Chestnut Hill, MA 661
44 University of Iowa (Tippie) Iowa City, IA 653
46 Boston University Boston, MA 680
48 Tulane University (Freeman) New Orleans, LA 655
49 University of Texas--Dallas Richardson, TX 651
51 University of California--Irvine (Merage) Irvine, CA 675
55 University of Georgia (Terry) Athens, GA 667


Best Regards,
Ankit Jain

[mbamission]

Hello Ankit,

Schools will usually accept your highest GMAT score, so you should be aware of that. It is very difficult to provide you a list of the best schools for you since there are many factors that one should look at when considering which business schools to apply to. In addition to ratings, which come and go and can vary widely, depending on which publications you are looking at, and the average scores of students, I encourage you to consider curriculum, pedagogy, size, size and location of the alumni community as well as professional specializations. In addition, your decision about whether to apply to reach, competitive or safety schools will depend on your personal risk profile and your career goals. Based on the long list of schools you seem to be considering, I suggest doing a bit more research to narrow your list.

Sincerely,

Akiba Smith-Francis

MBA Mission

646-485-8844

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