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🙏🙏🙏🙏
My opinion -
Q1 - If your long term goal is to be in India, prefer institutions within india. Reason - You won’t be able to build network, an imp component of any MBA program. I know someone who went Dublin and struggling even to get references back home. Adding A/B/C will help
Q2 - Target 720, you will land at a better place. GMAT is just a barrier, not the deciding criteria.
Q3- 2 years would be good considering your constraints and long term goals. If you can extend 1 more year, you’ll be eligible for IIMs 1 yr MBAs.
Overall - It’s my strong opinion that if you are targeting foreign MBAs, value derivation will happen only if you plan to stay, work abroad for few years. Financial burdens will be less plus you will something worthwhile to show. See the privilege of “foreign-returned” is slowly reducing in india as global roles are getting created here as well.
Ohh yeah foreign return tech guys are still valued if they have worked on core and great product.. same cant be said for executive as there is so much local context .. etc which u can only learn been in the field . Many have failed as well so its happening less unless ur company has an india office too then its lot simplified
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DarkTrash26
Stealth
5 months ago
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:
1. 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.
2. GMAT needs to be 740 or GRE 326+ especially for male candidate.
3. 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.
4. If ROI is your biggest metric go for ISB skip 2 year MBAs in India
ISB is the worst possible ROI options in India. Even NUS Singapore beats it on ROI numbers, and its easier to get into.
@AgileSinging Why does ISB have the worst possible ROI? I've only heard good things about it especially for 1 year programs.
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Thanks for asking this bro. Even i am having same queries. Can we connect? Even i wanna ask somethings.
Sh29
Student
5 months ago
Go only for BLACKIM in IIMs. I would suggest go for ISB
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.
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
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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!
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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?!!
I think the question can be divided into 2 parts:
1. Best alumni and prestige of Indian and abroad colleges in India, relative to one another.
2. Best alumni and prestige of Indian colleges in abroad.
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Somedude
Stealth
5 months ago
Gaad bless this post, found lot of answers for myself
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
