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Big 4 consulting in SEA for 10 years of which just under half as a manager. 6 years of project experience in regional markets that are not my home, focused on either typical growth strategy with some M&A or digital transformation. Outside work: love to learn new languages, self-taught myself to maybe a B1 level for 3 non-native tongues.
Target School: Berkeley Haas
Considering: MIT Sloan, London Business School, INSEAD
See More Profiles For: Berkeley Haas
Application Status: Open
Undergrad School: Ivy League (Northeast)
Undergrad Major: Mech Eng
GPA: 3.7
GMAT: 740
Age: 32, Ethnicity: Asian or Indian
Extracurriculars: Heavily involved in recruiting for my firm, led training sessions every year, hosted community get-togethers at work.
Title: Manager
Industry: Consulting
Company: Top Firm
Length of Employment: 9 yrs, 6 mos
My experience is in financial modeling with M&A/JV elements. My interest is in machine learning applications that simplify our lives. Consequently: Goal A is product management at big tech or startups that have an AI/ML product as their core; failing that, Goal B is PE/VC that focuses on emerging technology (could be broader than AI/ML).
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I love it when I see a fairly large variance in a candidate’s odds by our experts. Debbie at mbaMission clearly thinks you would be a better executive MBA candidate and estimates your odds at only 10% for Haas, well below the overall acceptance rate of 17.7% at the school. Jennifer at Stratus and Deepak at The MBA Exchange are both more optimistic, giving you odds that are twice the admit rate at 35%. I fall in the more positive camp with them. Yes, you are outside the sweet spot on age. But you bring a lot of maturity and great experience to the game, along with solid numbers and an Ivy League background. Your post-MBA goal, moreover, is achievable and realistic. Any of your …
I love it when I see a fairly large variance in a candidate’s odds by our experts. Debbie at mbaMission clearly thinks you would be a better executive MBA candidate and estimates your odds at only 10% for Haas, well below the overall acceptance rate of 17.7% at the school. Jennifer at Stratus and Deepak at The MBA Exchange are both more optimistic, giving you odds that are twice the admit rate at 35%. I fall in the more positive camp with them. Yes, you are outside the sweet spot on age. But you bring a lot of maturity and great experience to the game, along with solid numbers and an Ivy League background. Your post-MBA goal, moreover, is achievable and realistic. Any of your target schools should be really happy to have you in the classroom. And since two of your targets–INSEAD and London–tend to accept older applicants, you are definitely going to get accepted at both those programs unless you really screwed up your applications. My hunch is that Haas will take you with open arms.
Hi Poet at Heart. This is Deepak Punwani from MBA Exchange. For someone who went to school in his 30’s and is surrounded by others on MBA-ex team who also went to B school well in their 30’s, we extra encouraging and supportive of profiles like yours. You have a great base to build on – 1) Your acads are really good and while one might argue that undergrad performance becomes less of a factor once you have a decade plus of work-ex under your belt, it never hurts to have top grade acads like you have. 2) Your work ex and professional growth is also impressive. The Big-4 are a lot more discerning in their recruitment and promotions in SEA as compared …
Hi Poet at Heart. This is Deepak Punwani from MBA Exchange. For someone who went to school in his 30’s and is surrounded by others on MBA-ex team who also went to B school well in their 30’s, we extra encouraging and supportive of profiles like yours. You have a great base to build on – 1) Your acads are really good and while one might argue that undergrad performance becomes less of a factor once you have a decade plus of work-ex under your belt, it never hurts to have top grade acads like you have. 2) Your work ex and professional growth is also impressive. The Big-4 are a lot more discerning in their recruitment and promotions in SEA as compared to other developed parts of the world so your experience will be well respected. Now lets come to the challenges. Assuming you worked in financial consulting / transaction services / corporate finance practice of Big 4 – am not seeing a direct line from your prior experience to your short and long term goals. Its therefore safe to assume that you are “pivoting” your career from safe confines of the Big 4 to something more tech related. If that’s the case you need to signal to the adcom that your pivot has high chances of success and that your enhanced experience hasn’t made you too set in your ways to attempt this pivot. There are various ways in which you can do this and if you execute well on your applications and convince the adcom that NOW is the right time for you to seek an MBA, your chances are good. A word of caution – if you are looking to change industry, function and geography (the 3 pillars of a career), your task is already cut out. Not to say it cant be done or hasn’t been achieved earlier, it only means that only a top 10 full time MBA will make this happen for you with a realistic chance of success. Don’t see any exec MBA programs coming through for you as catalysts for you to achieve your future career goals. Good luck !
Hi Mr. Poet at Heart, This is Debbie Choy, Senior Consultant at mbaMission. Your credentials are impressive. I like that you have strong project management experience with leadership roles such as leading training sessions and so on. With your tenure and where you are in your career, I think you would be most successful at executive MBA programs. Most of these programs are seeking rising executives who have at least 10 years full-time work experience. With these programs, you will be learning with – and from – classmates with a similar length of experience. This is important not only for building your knowledge but also your network for your future career goals. My estimated odds are for the FT 1 or 2-year programs where I think …
Hi Mr. Poet at Heart, This is Debbie Choy, Senior Consultant at mbaMission. Your credentials are impressive. I like that you have strong project management experience with leadership roles such as leading training sessions and so on. With your tenure and where you are in your career, I think you would be most successful at executive MBA programs. Most of these programs are seeking rising executives who have at least 10 years full-time work experience. With these programs, you will be learning with – and from – classmates with a similar length of experience. This is important not only for building your knowledge but also your network for your future career goals. My estimated odds are for the FT 1 or 2-year programs where I think your profile would be “over-qualified”. But if you end up going for the executive programs, I think you would have a good chance. Frankly, I think it would be a better fit for where you are in your career. Have a think!
Hi, it’s Jennifer Jackson from Stratus Admissions. You have many strengths for applying to MBA programs. A great GPA in a hard major at an Ivy League school plus a very strong GMAT. Your experience managing people on consulting projects is a big plus, as is I’m sure the diversity of project experience you’ve gained at your firm. Are you interested in the MBA for Executives program at Haas? Given your age and length of work experience, I would look into that if you haven’t. The 80% age range for that program is 32-47 so you’re on the cusp there. You may not want to be in a FT 2-year program with a lot of people a fair amount younger, but you don’t have to …
Hi, it’s Jennifer Jackson from Stratus Admissions. You have many strengths for applying to MBA programs. A great GPA in a hard major at an Ivy League school plus a very strong GMAT. Your experience managing people on consulting projects is a big plus, as is I’m sure the diversity of project experience you’ve gained at your firm. Are you interested in the MBA for Executives program at Haas? Given your age and length of work experience, I would look into that if you haven’t. The 80% age range for that program is 32-47 so you’re on the cusp there. You may not want to be in a FT 2-year program with a lot of people a fair amount younger, but you don’t have to rule those out completely if that doesn’t bother you. LBS and INSEAD offer shorter timeframes for getting the MBA and have a wider age range for their FT programs (LBS work experience range is 3-15 years). Just make sure to do research on the class profiles at schools you’re interested in. As far as your goals, I’d recommend going for that first ST goal as it’s harder to break into PE/VC without prior experience there and you’ll be competing against people coming from that arena. That product management goal will be most compelling if you can talk about what you’ve experienced from the consulting side in that industry and how you now want to be on the side where you’re getting your hands dirty on the ground rather than an advisory role. I think you’ll have a good shot at top schools — good luck!
Much will depend upon your interview during which admissions officers will be evaluating your fit for a traditional two year, full time MBA program in light of your age and work experience.
MIT-Sloan may be your best option if not willing to enroll in an Executive MBA Program.
The difficulty is that an EMBA isn’t really designed to meet your goals of switching industries and facilitating relocation.
Although you seek opportunities in PE / VC firms, I wonder whether you are better suited for traditional IB positions or in a management consulting (MC) firm.
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