Hi,

The following are my qualifications and experiences so far. I have mentioned my questions after the details below.


GMAT
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750 (Q:51 - 99%ile V:40 - 89%ile)
AWA - 5 (61%ile)

Education
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Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, India (Consistently ranked as one of Top 5 institutes in India)
B.Tech (Honors) May '07
Major: Electrical Engineering
Cumulative GPA: 7.7/10.0
High School: 84%

Academic achievements:
--All India Rank 528 (top 0.1%) IIT-Joint Entrance Exam 2003
--All India Rank 734 (top 0.1%) and State Rank 15 in All India Engineering Entrance Exam 2003
--Selected for Indian National Chemistry Olympiad 2003 (top 0.1%)
--The Duke of Edinburgh International Award for Young People 2000 (Bronze Standard)

Work experience
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Bain & Company, Analyst, June '07-Present

--Have worked on 18 cases involving a range of industries, such as engineering & construction, IT, microfinance, consumer goods, paints etc. and capabilities, such as corporate strategy, private equity, due diligence, market analysis and client development.
Achievements include (work related): Recommended market entry strategy currently being implemented by a client in one of the cases; Market prodcut landscaping and analysis of potential acquisition targets for a leading IT player which resulted in securing the player as a long term client; Analysis of M&A deals - the analysis was used as a reference by Bain Chairman in the World Economic Forum conference in Dec 2007 and the results of which was also published in an interview of the Chairman in The Economic Times. Apart from these I have been consistently rated as frequently exceeding expectations on all my case performances and there is a high chance that I will get promoted in June.

Extra-curriculars@Bain:
--One of the founders and also the lead vocalist of the Bain music band, the band is now fully funded by Bain in its activities and plays three times a year
--Member, Bain India football club which was started this year and play twice a week

Leadership roles
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--Governor, Technology Dance Society IIT Kharagpur (Aug '06 – Apr '07): Organized the biggest every dance production till date of the society both in terms of varierty of dances and number of songs; Led a team of ~60 dancers, managed and coached society choreographers and handled sponsorship, publicity and logistics of several dance shows

--Head, Spring Fest '06 corporate management team IIT Kharagpur(Jan '06): Handled in-house publicity and logistics for the sponsors of the annual social and cultural festival of IIT Kharagpur

--Head, Careerz '05 event management team IIT Kharagpur (Aug – Oct '05): Led a team of 10 members to plan and conduct first ever career counseling fest of IIT Kharagpur ; procured sponsorship and organized the event "Bell the CAT" in the same

--Member, Spring Fest '05 event management team IIT Kharagpur (Aug '04 – Apr '05): Involved in overall planning of events and procurement of sponsorship; Headed the sponsorship work in Bangalore and arranged for over 1 lakh INR as sponsorship for the fest (one of the largest by any member)

--Captain, Western Entertainment LLR Hall IIT Kharagpur (Aug '06 – Apr '07): Led the team to win Bronze in Open-IIT Western vocals; Gold in Inter-hall Western vocals, Bronze in Inter-hall Western groups and over-all Silver in Entertainment Cup

Other posts held:
--Captain, Choreography LLR Hall IIT Kharagpur (Aug '05 – Apr '06)
--Volunteer, Kshitij '04, Techno management fest event management team, IIT Kharagpur

Extra-Curricular Activities
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--Lead vocalist of a rock band "Smack" ('05-'07)
--Awards in music:
Gold winning team, Western vocals IIT Kgp ('07); Bronze winning team, Inter Hall Western Groups IIT Kgp ('06 & '07); Bronze, OpenIIT Western Vocals IIT Kgp ('05)
--Awards in dance:
Silver winning team, inter college dance competition Spring Fest '07; Bronze winning team, inter college dance competition Spring Fest '05
--Member, Inter Hall Football Team at IIT ('03-'06)
--Member, Gold winning Throw-ball team, District Level Tournament and participated in Karnataka State Level Tournament ('00)

Questions
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I will be applying for fall 2009 and at the time of joining MBA my work-ex will be 2 yrs at Bain. I am targeting the top 10 (HBS, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Kellogg+ 1 or 2 more as of now). I wanted to know how competitive is my profile in these schools and what are my chances there?

The above profile is very detailed (more or less my entire cv!), but I wanted to provide as much info on my background as possible to help answer my questions, so any other pointers on it would be greately appreciated as my essays too will revolve around the things that I have written above.

Looking forward to the responses.

Thanks in advance,
Pramod Rao

In short, you should be competitive for all the schools you mentioned (i.e. the schools are in your league and your resume wouldn't feel out of place compared to the other current students at these schools). However, it's also likely going to be a competitive year and you never know -- there is a chance that you won't get into any of those top school as well. Which means having some backups unless you are a "top5 school or bust" kind of guy (which is fine). That may mean looking at perhaps 1-2 schools in the Duke/Darden/Michigan/NYU/UCLA/Berkeley/Cornell/Yale range to complement the other top schools.

A lot of it comes down to a combination of how well you execute the application (both the written app and the interview) as well as a bit of luck (getting adcoms that happen to like you, as opposed to those who just may say "I'm not feelin' it" -- unfortunately it can be that subjective and they can accept or deny you for any reason or no reason at all). You have the numbers (GMAT/strong grades), blue chip resume, and enough extracurriculars to show that you're not just a "work, work, work" guy but someone who is well rounded, so at this point all you can do is to just focus on the written app when it comes out in a few months' time.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com

Thanks for the reply!

One more thing, does that fact that my work ex. will be 2 years act as a negative point in my application irrespective of the learning, leadership demonstrated and quality of work done? I know its below the average work ex. but I am not sure how the schools evaluate this parameter.

Thanks,
PR

Work experience might be an issue (i.e. 1 extra year may be a little better) but schools particularly HBS, Stanford and Wharton are looking for younger candidates -- those with 2-3 years work experience as opposed to 4-6 which has been the case for the past 8-10 years.

You might as well apply this year and give it your best shot - if you don't get in, you can always reapply and still be well within range.

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com

Thanks for your feedback. Appreciate your views.

PR

Hi,

This is a query just to get your point of view on school rankings in terms of specializations to add to my list. The following is what I have gathered so far (From school rankings and other web searches):

HBS - General management, Organizational behavior (weak in terms of finance and accounting due to case method)
Stanford - Entrepreneurship,General management,Finance
Wharton- Finance, accounting are major strengths (not so strong in entrepreneurship)
Kellogg- Marketing
MIT-Manufacturing/operations, Supply chain, Entrepreneurship

I am more focussed on the schools which are strong in Entreprenurship, general management and finance (in that order). The school websites generally don't give a lot of indication on this as they would obviously say good about all their courses! I have started off with these schools and will analyze the top 20 but just wanted to have your point of view on which schools do you think are strong in the above mentioned fields? Ultimately I want to narrow my list down from say 10-15 (where it stands right now) to 3-4. Waiting to hear from you.

Regards,
PR

Your assessment is a little too simplistic.

The top schools are "top" precisely because they are great across the board. Business is business - it's not about specialities, but about the whole. That's what an MBA is about - to give you a broad base of skills and knowledge that can help prepare you for a business career.

Kellogg may be known for marketing, but that doesn't mean it's other departments suck. Far from it.

Same with HBS -- it may be known for "general management" but that doesn't mean it sucks in finance.

Same with Wharton -- it's renowned for its finance faculty, but it's exceptional across the board.

Also, it's hard to tell what you mean by specializations -- is it quality of academics/faculty, or career placement (as those are very separate things). If you're talking about career placement, any of the top schools will give you very similar opportunities or access -- it comes down to the individual (remember that the "MBA" doesn't put you on equal footing with your classmates - everyone has a work history/resume prior to their b-school which also matters for recruiting).

You're looking at the wrong things when it comes to selecting b-schools. You'll get a phenomenal education at ANY of the top schools -- it comes down to other aspects which are far more important that differentiate schools -- student culture, geographic location (which impacts student culture), locale (urban, suburban or rural - also impacts your experience and culture), and school size (small vs. large schools have different cultures). These are far more important than the actual academics or career placement when it comes to comparing top schools - since along these metrics, they are practically the same in reality -- you're going to have a mix of phenomenal profs and bad profs at all schools, and you'll have renowned and up-and-coming profs teaching you. The recruiters more or less go to the same schools, so comparing Kellogg vs. Wharton vs. Stanford vs. HBS in terms of career placement is particularly useful since they give you the same access. The differences in percentages, salaries, etc. are more a function of student self-selection (i.e. if you are going to stay in the Midwest, your salary is going to be lower than say someone working in NYC; those choosing banking will make more money than those choosing leadership development programs; and so forth).

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com

I have also been looking at other factors (class size, culture etc) to determine the schools but I guess my previous post did not talk about it. Anyways,Thanks for making those points.
PR