Profile Evaluation pls

[gaurav.sood11]

Profile:
- 28 years old (US permanent resident)
- GMAT 660 (Q: 48; V: 34) AWA: 4.0
- Undergrad in Business (GPA 3.0) from Uni. of South Alabama

Work Experience:
After college, I worked as an Assistant Manager at Walgreens for 7 months. I left that job for position as Sales Executive/Manager in Development for a crane company, and worked there for 10 months. Since then, I have shifted gears and started working as an IT Consultant (Business Analyst) for 2 years. Presently, I am working as a Senior Business Analyst (not as a consultant).

Unfortunately, I do not have any extracurricular under my belt, unless working voluntarily to share Bible based information counts!

What are my chances of getting into Emory (1 or 2 yr program), Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech?

Thanks!

[mbamission]

Hi Gaurav,

Thank you for your inquiry. I have a few questions for you in order to get a better sense of your candidacy. What percentile did you score for the verbal and quantitative sections of the GMAT? I ask because there seems to be a big difference in the verbal and quantitative raw scores. Depending on your answer to that question, I might recommend that you try to take a class or provide other evidence of academic achievement in order to shore up any weakness you might have in your GMAT. Your undergraduate GPA alone is probably not enough to do that.

I also have a question about your work experience. Based on what you have written, it seems that you have been working for about 3 and a half years, but you are 28 years old. Assuming that you graduated from college at around 22 years old, you should have closer to 6 years of work experience. Am I missing something?

It will be important for you to show the progression of your career and take any steps you can to shore up evidence of strong academic performance.

To your point about a lack of extracurricular activities, it is not too late to become involved with community activities. mbaMission included a blog post on exactly this topic.

You can read the entire post at: http://www.mbamission.com/blog/2009/04/ ... -to-start/

Sincerely,
Akiba Smith-Francis
MBA Mission

646-485-8844

Website: http://www.mbamission.com
Blog: http://www.mbamission.com/blog
MBA Mission Insider’s Guides: http://www.mbamission.com/store.php
Free Consultation: http://www.mbamission.com/consult.php

[gaurav.sood11]

Hello Akiba,

Thanks for the prompt response. My Quant score of 48 was in the 84th percentile, and Verbal score of 34 was in the 69th percentile, giving me an overall score that is in the 83rd percentile.

The reason why I have 3.5 years of experience as opposed to 6 is because I started school in Spring of 2000, and changed my major a couple of times.

Here comes the long part, so please bear with me:

I started in Computer Sciences and after 4 semesters into it, I decided to change to Bio Med because of my love for Math and Sciences. However, a semester into it, I checked with my advisor to find out that it would take altleast another 4 years for me to graduate from bio med, since none of the courses that I had taken in the past could be applied to shorten my graduation time. Devastated by the news I knew I had two choices - go back to Computers (a field that I hated) and finish up my graduation there; get a degree in Business since a lot of my courses (I had taken a few Business electives) could be applied. Also, it may be worth mentioning that during college I have taken advanced Calculus classes and aced them! So I went with Business and graduated in July' 05.

At Walgreens, I was managing about 20 people and before my stint ended, I was promoted to an executive Assistant manager (one step below Store Manager). The only reason I left was because I did not want to work first and second shifts; I just wanted a Mon thru Fri, 8-5 job.

Once I started with the crane company I was brought on board as a part of the Manager in Development program. As a part of the training, I had to sell our services and over time the company
liked my ability to do so. They wanted me to continue as a salesman as opposed to becoming a Branch Manager (what they had initially brought me in for). Selling was ok as long as it wasn't something I'd have to do forever!

So fed up with the whole situation, I decided to rely upon my Business degree and the few Computer courses that I had taken during college to transition into consulting as a Business Analyst.
Since then, I have worked projects where I have acted as the liason between Subject Matter Experts and the technical team.
I have worked with the senior mangements representatives to understand their needs and ensure that the the technical team (programmers and database guys) understand what exactly needs to be done.

During the course of my consulting career I have mentored a few people. I have streamlined development processes by leading discussions to understand what is exactly expected and how can we work to make it happen!

When it came to the GMAT I took classes with Manhattan GMAT and studied my rear end off. After my first attempt I scored a 660 and then I retook the exam, with the intention of getting a better score! To my surprise, I scored a 620! After comparing my 660 against the scores at Vanderbilt (Middle 80% range: 580-730; Mean: 656 and Median: 650) ; Georgia Tech (Middle 80% range: 640-730; Mean: 681 and Median: 680); Emory (Middle 80% range: 620-750; Mean: 680; Median: 685), I feel that with some voluntter work I may have a chance, and thats why I am seeking your advice.

Thanks again,

Gaurav

[mbamission]

Hello Gaurav,

Thank you for providing so much more detail on your candidacy. It does seem that your percentiles on the both sections of the GMAT are solid and that you have additional ways to demonstrate your academic achievement (the highly quantitative courses you aced in college). And as you indicated in your post, your scores fall solidly within the range of GMAT scores of the schools you plan to apply to.

As I mentioned in my previous post, it will be important for you to explain, perhaps in the optional essay that most schools offer, why you took an extra year to graduate from college. It is always important to provide a coherent explanation of your career path in an application. Many schools ask for a recap of your career progress and since you have worked in three different industries, it will be even more important for you to explain your choices and what you have accomplished and learned in each role.

You have identified one area of weakness in your candidacy, which is a lack of community service. As I mentioned, it is not too late to begin doing community service and I recommend seeking out opportunities that will allow you to have meaningful impact on an organization over the next four or five months. Best of luck on your applications!

Sincerely,
Akiba Smith-Francis
MBA Mission

646-485-8844

Website: http://www.mbamission.com
Blog: http://www.mbamission.com/blog
MBA Mission Insider’s Guides: http://www.mbamission.com/store.php
Free Consultation: http://www.mbamission.com/consult.php

[gaurav.sood11]

Thank you for your response. I definitely understand the need to shore up the community service side of things. In my first post, I had mentioned about volunteering as a Chrisitan minister. Do you think that is something worth mentioning in my essays and even during interviews, because I know it can be a touchy subject at times?

Thanks again!

[mbamission]

Yes, if volunteering as a Christian minister is a significant aspect of your volunteer activities, I would say you should consider including in your essays.

Sincerely,
Akiba Smith-Francis
MBA Mission

646-485-8844

Website: http://www.mbamission.com
Blog: http://www.mbamission.com/blog
MBA Mission Insider’s Guides: http://www.mbamission.com/store.php
Free Consultation: http://www.mbamission.com/consult.php