Profile Evaluation 720 (Q48, V41)

[anandinnz]

Could you guys please evaluate my profile?

Background Info:

Age: 27

Indian Descent from parents, but born in Oman, and raised in Canada, but primarily in New Zealand. Now been in America for last five years. So completely international here.

Graduated from University of Auckland, New Zealand with a software engineering and accounting degree. Some student organizations and also part of winning indoor cricket team at local club level.

Worked in large consultancy firm (Capgemini) initially moved to America for my O.E. Have worked in a large multinational Telecom firm here in IT/telecommunications for last 5 years or so. Have been unofficial team lead for project for last 8+ months or so.

GMAT 720 (Q48, V41) - 80% Math, 92% Verbal

Other work/business experience:
In America, Helped and worked with business partner to setup a online fashion retail store with revenue in the range of 300k+. Work ranging from modelling myself to negotiating with suppliers in various outlets, purchase strategy, choosing right amount of debt etc.

Community experience:

Helped family and friends initially to bring different spiritual leaders to New Zealand. Helped arrange their lectures. Also helped arrange fundraisers and shows with audiences more than 500 in attendance.

Part of community group, went for prison visits, mentored students etc in New Zeland.

In America mainly been part of community group with youth volunteers in different aspects mentoring kids, little building, helping with marathons etc.


How do you guys rate my chances in Wharton, Booth, maybe HBS or other top 5 schools?

Do you think a retake with GMAT would help my chances at top 5 schools? I have a chance to do so now, because I am relatively freer at work. Will it add any value say if I manage to get a 750-760?

I feel I may have to improve my community/leadership experience here.

Also would it be wise to wait a year and half and finish my Green Card before applying for schools? I think post-school employment may be a pain with a visa and also I guess these schools have quotas for international students. I have a chance to do so.

Any thoughts??

[mili]

At a high level, I think you have a solid professional and academic foundation to be competitive at a top 5 school; however, I do feel like your community experience is a bit ad-hoc/non-linear. Sounds like you’ll have good leadership stories to tell from work, and I think that your entrepreneurial experience in particular will help you stand out (if you were truly heavily involved in the start-up). GMAT is fine - personally, I don’t think that you’ll drastically improve your chances by scoring a 750+, but of course it wouldn’t hurt (all depends on your personal risk tolerance and whether you think you can actually achieve that score). In my opinion, your time would be better spent tightening up your extracurriculars and community narrative - whether that means joining a nonprofit in a leadership capacity or starting your own nonprofit (whatever you choose to throw yourself into, though, should make sense with the rest of your narrative - either it should help you towards your career goal in some way, or it should demonstrate your passion for a particular cause that you’ve already been involved with in the past/have some personal attachment/passion for). Your international experience should add some interesting color to your application as well.

As for the question of whether to wait a year or not - it really depends on you. Obviously waiting would give you more time to immerse yourself in community and extracurricular leadership activities to help round out your profile, but there’s a chance you could get in without that (if you are still very involved with the start-up then that could help justify why you’re not more involved elsewhere). One option would be to apply now and if you’re not successful, reapply next year. The Visa question is not my expertise, but I do know anecdotally that it can be difficult for international students to find U.S. employment after business school w/o Visas. So, that might be something to ask the admissions offices at the schools - you could just call and anonymously ask what percentage of Green Card holders get U.S. jobs post graduation vs Visa holders. Might be able to get this data from their career center website as well.

Top 5 seems reasonable if you can truly make the start-up experience a substantive part of your story and have a strong career narrative to go with it. They might be willing to overlook the lack of serious community/extracurricular leadership activities. Of course, as always, there are no guarantees, and I strongly recommend that you spread your risk by targeting other schools in the top 20. I hope this helps!

Good Luck,
Mili


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