Profile Evaluation Request:GMAT 690, 5 years work experience

[abbey_553]

Hi,

At the onset, please forgive me for being verbose and detailed about my profile, but since my career roles have been highly dynamic and varied, I feel that they are an integral part of evaluating my candidature towards B schools.

I knew I wanted to work in Business/Finance early on and after facing stiff resistance took up studying Commerce from Grade 11. It was not easy convincing my parents to allow me to give up science as both my parents are Science PhDs and my father is one of the most senior and reputed scientists in India guiding Agricultural Policy change and Agricultural development.

I completed my B.Com (Honors) from Delhi University (average grades) in 2006 and sine then have gained 5 years of experience in the Investment Banking support and Consulting industries.

Instead of continuing my education post my college degree, I decided to start working straight out of school and joined a small Consulting firm as an Analyst (typically unheard of for non-engineers in India). Over the next 7 months I authored 3 Industry reports published by Business Insights and worked on multiple projects for Private Equities and Hedge Funds.

Due to the repetitive nature of projects, I felt that my learning curve at the firm had been exhausted and I switched jobs to join an offshoring /consulting firm that had been engaged by a preeminent investment bank to support their investment banking team. I was initially hired as a Junior Analyst, and was the only college graduate to be a part of the 6 member pilot team that consisted of MBAs, CFAs and Chartered Accountants. I however outperformed all of them and was instrumental in setting and scaling up the M&A research process.

Within four months of joining I was promoted as an Analyst and within an year of joining sent to New York to work at with the Capital Markets Advisory division of the Investment Bank. Over my three months in New York, I worked across various industry groups on multi-billion dollar M&A and Capital Raising assignments. On my return to India I set up a dedicated four member team for the Capital Markets Advisory group at the bank, and over the next year grew it to an seven member team (very significant for my 30 people company).

When the excitement at work dwindled, I took a month of in July 2009 to travel to Kenya to work with a not-for-profit. Over my month in rural Kenya, I taught English to school students on the weekdays, and hawked/distributed educational books (part of the NGOs societal outreach) on the streets of nearby towns on the weekends.

On my return I applied to IE Business school's Masters in Advanced Finance program and secured an admit for the 2010 intake. Unsure about the job market and my own willingness to enter a non-MBA Masters I deferred the admit for two years.

At work, my role changed considerably, and I started working with the management in streamlining processes within the firm. I conceptualized and built recruitments, training and annual appraisal processes for the now 60 member firm. Additionally, I started working with the management in supporting business development activities (building new pitches and redefining client connect strategy), apart from working on Pilots and Consulting Projects. Key projects that I executed over the next year included advising a Venture capital fund and their portfolio company on a market entry strategy and authoring ghost white papers published by a mid-market investment bank.

I am currently working with the management in identifying and evaluating new business lines for the firm, in addition to working on some consulting projects.

The referees for my admission are going to be the COO of my company, an NYU Stern MBA (under who's supervision I've been working directly for the past three and a half years) and a Managing Director at the client Investment Bank, a Wharton MBA (under who's supervision I worked directly for three months in New York and for about an year on my return to India). My supervisor at my first 7 month consulting firm job, was a Ross MBA and ex Wall Street Banker as well, and if you suggest I may use his recommendation while applying specifically to Ross, although I worked with him only at the beginning of my career 4 and half years ago.

My best score on the GMAT has been a 690, which I took in Aug 2008. Additionally I have a 680 from a GMAT test I took in Aug 2009. I am scheduled to appear for another GMAT, in a week from now, in which I expect to cross the 700 barrier.

In terms of career progression at the current firm, I have received 5 promotions over 4 years (my salary is 4.5 times what it was when I joined the firm, so its not just designation based progression) and come to lead a team of people who are more qualified than me in work experience and education. I have been working as almost a part of the management for the past two years now, in streamlining operations and guiding the strategic direction of the firm.

In terms of global exposure, I have spent an year growing up in the UK and two years in the US (Grade 3 and 4). Additionally, apart from my three month US and one month Africa experiences, I have spent close to an year working with and investment banking team based out of Tokyo. I am also set to travel for two weeks to rural Cambodia this December, to work with another not-for-profit in the field of child healthcare and education.

My plan after my MBA is to work in Strategic Consulting/Financial Advisory in the US/UK for a few years before returning to India to ideally, set up, or work for a PE fund. I have already generated some ideas about the kind of work/deals I would like to do back in India, and my MBA and subsequent US/UK work experiences are supposed to be stepping stones in order to get to the stage of coming back to India and setting up my own PE fund. Most of ideas have a social angle, and I am very clear about wanting to come back to India and develop these ideas into businesses. My motivation stems from seeing my father (an IIT PhD) who gave up careers in the US and UK to come back to India and work for the rural people.

My questions are as follows:

- Is it imperative for me to get a better GMAT score (current best 690), considering I had average grades at school and come from a three year educational background?

- Would it be a far cry to apply to the likes of LBS, HBS, Wharton and Columbia?

- What are my chances of securing an admit to my current list of targeted schools:
- Columbia
- Yale
- Stern
- Tuck
- Kellogg

safety schools for round 2:
- Ross
- Judge
- Said
- Chicago (Booth)
- Cornell (Johnson)
- Georgetown

In summation my strengths and weaknesses are as follows:

Strengths:
- strong career progression, despite lack of commensurate educational qualifications
- strong leadership skills
- strong though not consistent social intitiatives
- strong recommendations
- experience in all functions of a business, from working in the core operations involving client, team and project management, to operations and talent pool management to business development support and strategy
- good quality of work experience - have had the Wall Street Analyst experience for two years, and over the past couple of years have had experiences that are typically more common at the Associate and VP levels, such as running consulting engagements and authoring offering memorandums and White papers.

Weaknesses:
- average grades in school
- average GMAT
- lack of continuing educational pursuits (could have done a CFA)
- lack of a brand in my CV as I chose to work with smaller firms/start ups that afforded me better opportunities to learn and grow. Although, the investment bank that I worked for through my firm is one of the most reputed in the Financial Advisory business and generally among the top-preferred employers for B-School graduates.

It would be great if you could evaluate my profile and guide me in terms of which schools I should consider applying to and what I should highlight in my applications.

Thanks in advance.

[abbey_553]

Hi,

Just as an update I gave my GMAT and got a 740 (97%ile) v48 (97%ile) q48 (80%ile).

I am now a little concerned about the score being skewed with a lower quant, despite the fact I come from a Finance background.

Do you think it would make sense to take the GMAT again?

Looking forward to your feedback, on this and the other questions.

Thanks

[mbamission]

Hi Abbey,

Thanks for writing and providing me with such detailed information to evaluate. While this forum isn't a good venue for an in-depth profile evaluation I think I have enough information to understand the gist of your questions.

1) You've since raised your GMAT and I would not advise taking it again after your 740, as your overall score is very strong and an 80% Quant should be strong enough at any top-tier school. Your grades and non-traditional path (delaying college, 3-year education) will get noticed, but you also have a very interesting story to tell and if you can put it in proper context, you can show this as a strength to combat your academic performance.

2) It wouldn't be a far cry, but you'll need to work hard on explaining your story in a clear and concise manner. As I mentioned above it's a bit of a non-traditional story, which is great, but needs to be explained clearly in order for adcom to understand it

3) I would group the schools you list as follows:

Reach:
Columbia, Kellogg, Tuck

Competitive:
Yale, Stern, Ross, Chicago, Cambridge

More Competitive:
Oxford, Cornell, Georgetown

Hope this is helpful. For additional information on some of these topics you may want to check out the mbaMission blog at:

http://www.mbamission.com/blog/

Best of luck!

Daniel Richards
http://www.mbamission.com

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[abbey_553]

Dan,

Thank you so much for your reply! It was really helpful and much appreciated.

Regards,
Abhishek