Hello Duncan,

Thanks for providing your invaluable advice and for your time in evaluating profiles. Here is my profile -

- Indian Female(IT Engineering Non IIT) with 3.2 yrs of wrk experience(while applying) in US Pharma/Healthcare consulting firm. Have mainly worked across verticals - from providing assessments , managing operations to designing BI systems for the top US pharma clients. Currently managing a team of 4 analysts and leading the offshore management of field operations.

- My GMAT Score is 730 (Q50 V38 IR3). IR Score is a tad low which I plan to offset with the consulting role that I have filled in the past at my current firm.

- I have also engaged in an internship (typically offered to current MBA students) with a start up in India which caters to the needs of low scale innovations/businesses in developing countries. In this engagement I made use of my consulting background to conduct an assessment and provide a value proposition to the start up to extend its range of services to cater better to the needs of the current client segment.
- Also, I have been briefly involved in leading CSR initiatives at my firm.

- My post MBA goal is to join a boutique consulting/advisory firm catering to the needs of sustainable businesses in the developing economies, in a strategic consulting role.

The schools I am targeting are -
High
Yale
Kellogg
Booth
Duke

Medium
Stern
Ross
UCLA
Darden

Low
Tepper
Cornell
Kenan-Flager

Can you please let me know your thoughts on whether my list seems realistic based on my profile?
Your help is really appreciated

Firstly, I am unsure about your career goals. Do sustainable businesses in the developing economies hire boutique consulting/advisory firms staffed by top-tier US MBAs? How could that business model work? Could you point me to a firm like that?

Second, this doesn't look like a good list of schools to me. To be a competitive candidate, as an Indian, you need to be above average on all the major criteria. Take a look at GMAT Tiers - strong schools for your GMAT www.find-mba.com/board/27082

Also try to track down people who are working in roles like the ones you will be looking for and see where they did their MBA -- if they did an MBA at all. My sense is that the kind of investment that you'll be putting down for a top-tier school like this would not make sense in ROI terms. You'd have a great network, though.

Maybe look at lower-tier, less costly schools that have good sustainability/CSR curriculum. Non-US schools like CEU or Nottingham might be worth considering.