Mr. Industry Changer

Hi, this is Deepak Punwani from MBA Exchange. Mr Industry Changer, pardon my “low-ball” views on your chances but you haven’t provided enough ‘spikes’ in your profile for me to be bullish on your chances at the schools on your list. You seem to be in the median or just below the median range on most parameters and adcom may find it easy to ding you. Is that the end of the world ? Definitely not. You may have certain other spikes in your profile not mentioned here (congrats for those) or you may be motivated enough to create fresh spikes. Will lay out the opportunities for such spikes here. 1) Definitely look to retake the GMAT. Your profile may seem plain vanilla at first glance but your lower than average GMAT for Indian cohort removes any benefit of doubt you could have hoped to get from adcom. So my sincere advice would be to consider a retake and aim for a 730 ish or plus score. 2) Add more heft to your workex. Big 4 working for efficiency improvement for back offices of financial services firms isnt a highly interesting role. Would therefore suggest you offer some other variables and strengths wrt to your professional experience. It could your lead in business development or some quasi professional activities you do outside work (strategy consulting for startups for ex). 3) Your extra curricular activities needs one or two stand out “talking points” so that you become a memorable applicant . Hope this helps. My intent was not to dishearten you (especially since mine is first eval) but to provide a realistic sense of your chances. Good luck.

Hi, it’s Nisha from mbaMission! It sounds like you’ve made solid progression as a consultant (including international leadership), and it is great to see that you’re heavily involved in mentorship. Regarding academics – I’d like to see a stronger GMAT score from you given the competitiveness of the process for consultants as well as Indian applicants for the schools you’re targeting, so please consider retaking for a 730+.

Aside from that, I really think your chances of success depends on 1. how well you’re able to communicate your professional and community accomplishments on your resume/application 2. the quality of your recommendations – will they portray you as a standout consultant? 3. Your ability to make a strong case for why each target program is a good fit for you based on its culture and resources within/outside of the classroom (this will require thorough research, including talking to students/alumni) and 4. Explaining the motivations behind your goals in a way that is compelling – why do CPG and technology interest you based on your experiences and observations?

Hope that those are some good thought-starters – best of luck and please get in touch if you would like to discuss further.

Mr. Industry Changer – Thanks for sharing your profile. Susan Cera here from Stratus. I spent ~10 years evaluating candidates at Duke Fuqua. During this time, I reviewed hundreds, if not thousands of applications from Indian candidates. Based on the info I have, it isn’t obvious that you are an Indian national so I won’t make any assumptions. Your profile shows some glimpses of strength but, with the limited information I have, I’m not seeing you as a stand out. (This is one challenge of these evaluations since I don’t have really robust information!)
A few things I would suggest that you work on:
1) Retake the GMAT. While 710 is admirable, it is slightly below average for many of the programs on your list.
2) Build up your extracurriculars – while your involvement with mentoring low-income students is admirable, it doesn’t demonstrate leadership or initiative, per se.
3) Clarify your whys – why corporate strategy? why MBA? and be sure to leverage the skills and knowledge that you have developed to date as you consider your post-MBA goal. Might you think of doing corporate strategy for a financial services firm? It seems you have some insights into their challenges so don’t throw that learning away.

All the best!