MBA Profile Evaluation and PM Career
Me: APM with almost 2 years of experience looking to do an MBA to fast track my career.
Post-MBA roles:
- Product Management
- Strategy Roles
- Program/Project Management
- General Management
- Other similar roles
Long term goal: To stay in India; fine with working 2-3 years abroad.
Query 1: Considering an average profile with 9/8/8 in high school/intermediate/college, tier-1 undergrad and 2 years work-ex at a start-up. Do I have a chance to bag an MBA admit from the following with little scholarship:
- LBS
- Insead
- HEC Paris
- Oxford
- Cambridge
- SDA Bocconi
- NUS Singapore
- IESE
- ISB
I'm targeting 1 year programs only for cost purposes, hence the US is out of the picture. Feel free to suggest good 1 yr US programs
Query 2: How much GMAT is required for my profile to get into these schools?
Query 3: Are 2 year IIM Programs more advisable for me and should I leave abroad colleges altogether. At the maximum, I can't wait more than 3 years of work-ex at the time of applying due to personal reasons.
Please guide me🙏🙏🙏🙏
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Oxford 25 admit here. Female. Took me 6 years to complete engineering from an average engineering school bcos of family situation. Here is my 2 cent:
- Have a great work experience with leadership in it. I worked for 6 years 4 of which were in hype fintechs building teams, launching and scaling products to a million userbase.
- GMAT needs to be 740 or GRE 326+ especially for male candidate.
- Scholarships are hard to secure with the current job climate. Oxford is giving out scholarships primarily to social impact or economically disadvantaged folks. I Havent received one.
- If ROI is your biggest metric go for ISB skip 2 year MBAs in India
Would like to understand from folks here on this thread that according to them which MBA colleges have the best alumni network both Indian and global?!!
You are better off targeting Indian schools given your preference to move back to India and the fact that you have a limited experience. If you are a male engineer, your application will have to have something that is quite strong (GMAT 760/780 does not hurt though it might just be another bullet point at best).
I will recommend a 2 year international MBA at IESE or the likes only after you have had 4 years of work experience, i.e. you can relate to the case studies being discussed given your experiences in the work setting. It will be more valuable than joining right now when you might not completely appreciate the depths of the cases being discussed.
Masters Union also has a 1 year programme
MU doesn't carry any brand/tag so will not consider it. Imo brand is really important for a b school. Had it been affiliated to some know institute, then it would have been ok.
But in my opinion it is marketing itself very well. It has an innovative entrance process, is a one year course and has good exchange programmes with other foreign universities. It also said that the average placement base salary is more than their fees.
I think it is new now but could potentially have great brand value in a few more years when enough of their alumni have graduated!
Your first preference should be indian institute .. if dnt make maybe those who have international campus in Singapore that will give u some international exposure but yet be relevant in indian context.. just ask urslf how many pm or staregy heads you see in the company you aspire to be from these foreign mba college listed above . Basic swot analysis will lay it out for you .
Understood Does msft hire PMs from Indian B-schools in good numbers? Or is it easier to get the same role abroad in EU or Singapore.
Just asking your experience here
They hire but not in good numbers. Lateral hiring is more also growth beyond pm2 level has become tough.. they snipped many gpm who were there since the Microsoft teams was build ..idea is tech can drive majority of work..pm is just to facilitate.. higher position in pm org will be in US and lesser in india.. this is from msft idc perspective.. gsmo ..css etc have pm in bunch but they are more like pre sales role than actual pm.. i dnt want to trigger people that is just my opinion based on my experiences
You have a decent chance at NUS Singapore, and ISB (assuming that you have good GPA and reference letters from well-known professors on Tier-1 schools). But likely you can land better schools like INSEAD, OxBridge, etc if you work for a few more years and have like ~4-5 YOE. Post MBA jobs are also far easier to obtain if you have good work experience under your belt. That being said, if you want to stay in India long term, IIMs/ISB are your best bet
When I was applying to schools , I was using a website/ app called Yocket and Gradcafe which were extremely useful. Maybe try to look up the websites to see the average profile of people who get admitted
Firstly thanks for the quick reply!!
Cgpa is 8+
Profs I would say are decent only not too popular.
I have recently downloaded Yocket. Can you share your experience if you took a consultant from here or any other platform?
Thanks
Gaad bless this post, found lot of answers for myself