mayankasthana

01-27-2006, 10:55 AM

Dear Mayank,

Thanks for the detailed information about the current state of your candidacy. As you suggested, your candidacy has some strengths, but there are also a couple of areas which could use some improvement. Your GMAT looks fairly strong, although I wonder if your 34 V puts you above the ever-important 80% mark. If not, the adcoms may perceive you to be a weak communicator, which is something you will need to compensate for elsewhere in your application. In any case, here are a few examples of aspects of your candidacy that might need a little bit of work, or at least some refocusing:

1) Extra-curricular activities ?It appears that your extra-curricular activities are primarily drawn from your collegiate experience. Even though you’ve only been out of school for two years, the adcom will still be primarily interested in current, or at least post-collegiate involvements and hobbies. Remember, community and volunteer-based involvements, particularly those that demonstrate leadership roles outside of the office, will be most impressive.

2) Undergraduate marks ?Although I realize that there may be some differences between the British and Australian grading systems, an overall mark of 62% is fairly low. Despite the fact that you can’t change how you performed in college, however, there are still things that you can do. I would recommend identifying one or two of the specific business disciplines (calculus, economics, statistics, accounting) in which you did not excel, or in which perhaps you did not take any classes. Then, look into classes that you could potentially take over the course of the coming Spring and Summer. The information you learn will be valuable and, just as importantly, you will demonstrate to the adcom that you are ‘serious?about academics, and therefore capable of excelling at business school.

3) Career goals ?First of all, I am very pleased to see that you have a clearly defined set of career goals. In this sense, you are already well ahead of many of your peer applicants. However, from what you’ve shared thus far, I’m not sure how much your short-term goals differ from what you are doing right now, at least in terms of the skill sets that you would require. While it is important to make sure your goals are realistic, you don’t want to make them seem ‘too?realistic, such that the adcom begins to wonder whether an MBA is indeed a necessity for you. I am confident that, if you can continue to refine your short-term goals, you will be able to articulate exactly what it is that you want to get out of your MBA experience.

Overall, you have the potential to be a strong candidate. However, if your GMAT Verbal score is indeed below 80%, and your academics do not thoroughly compensate for it, I think you’ll be fighting an uphill battle at schools like HBS and Wharton. Nonetheless, there is still plenty of time for you to improve your candidacy before next year’s deadlines. Good luck!

Nick Maxwell
Clear Admit, LLC

Hi,

Please advice me on my chances in Top 10-25 B-Schools.

I have done my Electronics Engineering from an Indian University. We didn't have a GPA based system. Instead we had SCPA(Semester Credit Point Average). I have a SCPA of 73. (Don't have a idea how to convert it to a GPA in 4 point scale). I was within top 15% of the class.

Currently I am working as software engineer in a top software company and posted in US. I have a work experience of 2.5 years, out of which in the first year I was involved mainly in coding and development stuff. For the next 7-8 months I acted as a module leader managing 4 people. For last 4 months I am working as the onsite coordinator in US for my project and managing 3 people in offshore,India. In my current assignment I have to interact with client regularly in understanding business and system requirements.

Not taken the GMAT yet, but hope to get around 720.

Extracurricular activities not too much. Once I was resposible for organising a vaccination camp, else participated in most social activities in school/college.

I would be grateful for your kind advice.

Dear Aakash,

Below, I’ve provided you with my thoughts on the details you’ve listed about yourself.

Academics:
The fact that you were in the top 15% of your class speaks highly of your undergraduate marks, even if you’re not sure how these would convert to the Western GPA system (one way to overcome this hurdle is to mention where you were ranked in your class). If you do get a GMAT score of 720, you’d have a much better chance of being a competitive candidate at the top 10 U.S. business schools.

Employment:
Your work experience sounds solid since you’ve been promoted from more of an Analyst type of position to a managerial one. Because you are going to be competing with many other engineers from Indian institutions for a spot in a class at business school, you should highlight those parts of your experiences that will set you apart from more traditional engineers. Draw on the teamwork and leadership experiences you had, specifically when you managed four others. You could also outline the skills you are currently using and the concepts you are learning as an on-site coordinator.

Extracurricular Activities:
While organizing a vaccination camp sounds interesting and as though it could be an activity that would set you apart from other candidates, I’m concerned that you haven’t listed other extracurricular activities you could discuss in your applications. You’ve mentioned that you have a few social activities but also that these occurred during your undergraduate years.

The adcom will be looking for evidence that you’ll be involved in campus life so they’ll want to hear that you’ve been active in the past few years (since you graduated from college). It would thus be a good idea to start getting involved now. You should look at local volunteering programs. Ideally, you would participate in a cause you feel passionate about (because this will come through in your essays and your interview). Since you’ll be on the younger side of applicants, you have some time to join an organization to build up your profile and strengthen your candidacy so make sure you take advantage of this.

Also, please keep in mind that the clarity of your future goals and the degree to which they make sense given your past background will make a difference in the competitiveness of your candidacy.

If you’d like some assistance with compiling your applications or more detailed feedback on your profile, feel free to send your resume to info@clearadmit.com and an admissions counselor will be in touch with you regarding scheduling an initial phone assessment.

Regards,

Chelsea Ferrell
Clear Admit, LLC

Hi Chelsea,
Thank you for your quick response. I really appreciate your views on my profile and will try my best to follow your advice. I am planning for MBA starting from Fall,2007. By then I will have also almost 4 years of work experience. But the thing that concerns me most is my undergrad marks- SCPA(Semester Credit Point Average) of 73. If I try to convert it into percentage in a 4 point scale it rounds to 2.9. Well not at all aware I should follow this conversion or not. Also my university is not among the most renowned in India. How does the name of graduating University matter regarding admissions?
Regarding my career goals, in the short term , I want to be involved in IT consulting after completing my MBA. Way ahead, I want to be in some senior management position in IT industry. Maybe someday I dream to be an entrepreneur having my own software farm.
Please advice on my chances and the probable schools I should target.

Dear Aakash,

The reputation of your university is one of a variety of factors that contribute to building your academic profile in the admissions process. Though candidates that have high scores from colleges with well-known reputations will have a better chance of proving their academic success, not having attended a well-known school should not be detrimental to your application (provided you can demonstrate solid academic performance, have a clear plan of achieving your future goals and have participated in extracurricular activities).

With the GPA that you calculated, your grades are below the average of most applicants to the top U.S. business schools (which usually have achieved averages close to 3.5). However, I’d advise you to double-check that you’ve converted your figures correctly (since my understanding was that some conversions take the first ranked student in the class and assign their percentage a 4.0 GPA, for example ?working down from there). Of course, you might also leave this statistic out altogether (since not all schools ask for int’l students to convert to the US system). Because a 2.9 GPA is considered to be a rather low GPA (if this is accurate), it would probably be a better idea simply to discuss your rank in terms of your overall class (which is more impressive).

It sounds as though you have an idea of the future goals that you want to achieve after graduating from business school. You’ve laid out a trajectory of how you might be able to someday start your own software firm. I’d urge you to be as clear as possible in your essays about what specific consulting firms you aim to work for in the short-term and how these would help you to learn the skills and experiences you’ll need to move into a management position in IT or to start your own software firm.

The schools you should target will ultimately depend upon your career goals and what type of business school experience you’re seeking. You should investigate which schools tend to place graduates in the IT consulting field ?and how their coursework is tailored to this function. You should also reflect upon the size of classes and what style of teaching best enables you to learn (if you work best with the case method, you might want to consider schools like HBS or Darden whereas if you prefer classes that emphasize teamwork, you might look at Kellogg). Other school attributes to take into account include proximity to cities, your geographical location post-MBA (because many schools have more connections with regional companies and this should facilitate the recruiting process).

If you’re interested in more specific information, please e-mail info@clearadmit.com.

Regards,

Chelsea Ferrell
Clear Admit, LLC

Hi Chelsea,
Thanks a lot for the detailed analysis of my profile and your sugggestion regarding my candidature. I have recently started on my preparations for applying for an MBA admission and your advices will be a great help for me.

Regards,
Aakash