Profile Evaluation

[Ishward195]

Hi!

Here is my basic profile:

PROFILE
- 25-year-old Indian male
- Grew up in India
- Moved to Malaysia at the age of 17
- Moved to Singapore at the age of 24
- GMAT: 700
- GPA:3.3
- Undergraduate degree in Computer Science (Monash University, Top 50 in the world)
- 2 years of Mobile application development (iOS and Android), 1 year (current) in Data Engineering
- Founder of an active startup (est. 2013). Team of 5.

Undergrad
- Head of school of IT
- Published an Android application for final year project
- Internship for Australian software mining company (Big multi-national company)

Post-Grad
- Developed core mobile app for Malaysian startup (1st job)
- Developed iPhone and Android apps for multi-million dollar Malaysian companies (3rd job)
- Founded a startup, published own product on iPhone and Android (in charge of marketing (TV,Radio,Online news), development, management). Project is still live.
- Transitioned from iOS engineer to data engineering to evaluate business-side impacts of marketing and dev efforts (4th(current) job). Worked towards improving marketing-effort efficiency, gather data from multiple sources for analyses etc.

Languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Malay, Mandarin (level 1 certification)

Goal:
Lead marketing teams by improving efficiency of current marketing efforts and exploring innovative ways to expand business. Possibly entrepreneurship.

Target Schools:
Round 1: UCLA, UCB

RECOMMENDATIONS
Possible to get from Stanford alumni (current supervisor) and a client of my startup (young Malaysian millionaire entrepreneur)

I would like to know if based on my experiences , profile and relatively low GMAT score if I'm aiming for the right schools. If I'm a good-fit or if I should work on improving my profile before applying for top 15 B schools.

Thank you,
Ishwar

[mbaMissionKate]

Hi, thanks for sharing your profile with us. So clearly you've got strong technical skills (though so do many applicants from your demographic), but I like that you've also had some exposure to marketing, plus the start-up experience sounds really interesting. And the experience living / working in different countries will be a plus too. Seems like you might be a little light on activities / extracurriculars post-college, unless you just didn't list those. Your GMAT / GPA combination is good, but not stellar, and that could make a big difference at a school like Haas where the averages are much higher. So I feel much better about your chances at UCLA. I'd encourage you to apply early and make sure you're communicating your unique story / strengths and passion for your career goals in your essays.

On the recommenders -- pick people that know you best, have examples they can share about your leadership and growth, and are enthusiastic to support you. Those factors matter much more than titles / where they went to school.

If you want to improve your profile then retaking the GMAT might help - or adding some leadership in activities outside work or gaining even more exposure to the marketing side of your work. That will take time though, so I might give it a shot with a slightly wider range of schools (Haas as a reach, UCLA, + 1 or 2 more?), and then if it doesn't work out this year, you could take some of those steps to improve and reaapply next year. If you're drawn to the West Coast, then USC Marshall might be a good one to add. Maybe UW Foster which has pretty good ties to tech / marketing positions in Seattle. There are lots of great programs outside the top 10.

Good luck and keep us posted if we can help!