Thank you for your additional information - it certainly is helpful.
As I am sure you know, as an Indian candidate, you are facing some very tough competition. Further, as an "older" candidate coming from a tech background, it gets even more difficult. Finally, your stats are strong relative to the overall pool, but relative to the top-15 schools, they are in fact average to below average. And, most of your extras are five years old. So, you are facing an uphill battle, particularly with the goal of trying to enter the field of finance, which, during tough economic times, may not seem likely for to an admissions/career services office and may undermine your candidacy. So, you might want to target schools at the bottom end of the top-twenty - CMU, Texas and Rochester float in and out of the top-twenty and all have reputable finance programs. I think that the top-15 will be a stretch for you.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Shinewald
MBA Mission
www.mbamission.com
646-485-8844
mbsubramanian@yahoo.com Wrote:Thank you sir for the response. I really appreciate your help.
Let me answer your questions one by one.
Country - India
Work/Leadership experience - Project lead in an IT consulting firm ( TCS ) which did projects for Bank Of America.
Project lead in another IT consulting firm which does projects for Walmart.
Number of people Managed - Maximum team strength of 9.
Number of promotions - 2. From trainee to Team member to Project lead
What am I looking out of MBA / Career plans - I would like to do 2 year full time MBA in Finance in one of the top 20 schools. Location & pedagogy dont matter.
Why a person in IT want to do finance? Well thats because 90% of my IT work I did was for Bank Of America. My current work is for Financial Planning and Budgeting for walmart. I would like to pursue this business domain. The next step of my career needs a lot of business knowledge in finance to understand the business requirements and suggest business friendly solutions.
If getiing in to Finance is unrealistic because of my age - 30, IT background or country , my back up plan is to go for a general MBA in one of the top 20 schools. That would not help me to play a better role in Financial domain, but would help me take up bigger reponsibilities in project management.
Extra curricular and community involvement -
School captian 1992 -94, Founder - Blood donation forum in College - 1996 , Organiser - Knowledge sharing sessions for TCS consultants in Bank of america 2002-03, Organiser- Tsunami relief fund collection for Jacksonville based south indians, Organiser - activities of Ohmkaram - a St Louis based community for south Indians.
besides I have many certificates for my participations in Speeches, Essay competitions etc.
Hope I shared all the information you are looking for. Please advise