Hi

This is Sathya. This is my first post in this forum. I need your help in evaluating my profile.

I am from India. I took GMAT last month and scored a 730
Score - 730 (Q - 49 V - 41)
AWA - 4
IR - 5

I know that the AWA and the IR score are slightly on the lower side. But still I just want to go ahead and apply for colleges with this score. I am looking for Fall 2014 entry and am planning on applying in the early action so that I might have better chances of landing a scholarship.

Profile:

10th grade - 91%
12th grade - 96%
UG CGPA - 8.5 (in scale of 4 - 3.5)

WE:
Sony India (1+ years)
Will complete 3 years by the time I get into a b-school.

Extracurriculars:

1) Have been playing football and represented college.
2) Have been an active member of Youth Red Cross during my college days.
3) Have organized many events in college and in office.

Am currently working for Sony as a software engineer( I know am competing with a larger pool of candidates!!)

Please let me know where do i exactly stand among the competing group. Let me know what are my chances of getting into a top b - school. Also , please provide me the list of colleges that I could apply for.

Thanks in advance for your help!!

Also I forgot to mention, am looking for a school in USA.

One issue is your lack of work experience. I think many schools would rather have you apply later on, especially UCLA, Kellogg and the other schools that have five or more years' work experience on average.

Using this approach http://www.find-mba.com/board/27082 I think Darden, Carlson (who will like your GMAT), UNC and Ross are good schools to consider if you have *interesting* work experience. Depending on your career goals, I think USC would be a nice safety school for you.

Thanks for the quick reply, Duncan.

I have done some research about colleges before stumbling onto this forum. What I heard from people was that almost every b-school needs 3 years of work experience as minimum requirement. I do understand that my work experience(3 years by FALL 2014) might be on the lower side. But I just can't quite imagine myself sitting at my workstation and code for another 3 years to get my work experience to 5 years!!

So I might just apply for colleges for next fall (2014).

I have just went through the list of colleges that you have mentioned. I would be pretty happy to get an admit in one of the institutions you have mentioned.(So that says a lot about the competitiveness of the admission process in those schools).

But does my work experience stand as a detrimental factor in the apps for those institutions?

Can you suggest me some more safety options too??

And some schools in which I stand an higher chance of getting an admit with scholarship.

Add to my previous post, I do have one quick question.

When do the b-schools have the deadlines for the Round 1 of the application process??

I found from various forums that , it falls in late September through early October.

Am I right??

Well, it's your choice. If you get more -- and better -- work experience, and perhaps push up your GMAT further, then you can get into a better school.

Generally scholarships are used to attract the sort of candidates who bring more to the cohort than the average member of the cohort. So, to get a scholarship, you'll need to look at schools that are far below the schools we are talking about.

On the GMAT Tiers post linked above you can see my suggestions for schools.

When do the b-schools have the deadlines for the Round 1 of the application process??

I found from various forums that , it falls in late September through early October.

Am I right??

Thanks a lot for your response.