MBA Crystal Ball

Hi Baccardisprite,

Thanks a lot for the response.
Some details about my job, working in back-office as Manager of Hedge Fund in India, my responsibility is Management Reporting. Calculating rand reporting the PNL, returns, responding to the MD's on their queries, work on Automation of Reports. Also basic knowledge of different instruments traded by Hedge Fund and their PnL calculations.
I have studied Calculus, Statistics and Probability in my Engineering, so not in touch with advanced Maths since last 7-8 years. Also not worked on C++, so plan to brush-up my concepts on Maths and C++ after GMAT, which I plan to give in December.

One more question, if i plan to join the 2014 class i will have around 7 years of experience. Would that be more considering the average experience for applying the course of MFE.

Thanks.

seekingMFEdetails wrote:One more question, if i plan to join the 2014 class i will have around 7 years of experience. Would that be more considering the average experience for applying the course of MFE.

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seekingMFEdetails,

That sounds like good operational experience even if conducted largely back-office; you should have a good handle of what HFs & Quant's do, and what works versus what doesn't.

That should be fine. In addition to C++, try also to appear for & pass at least 1 level of the CFA. It's a tough ask, alongside C++, but it's worth having the qualification to demonstrate competence in finance (doesn't replace or score over your hard-core experience though) + communicate your seriousness to adcomms about a long term career in finance.

Work hard for the GMAT and score 740+. Get professional help if you need to - worthwhile investment; Sameer should be able to advise you who to go to / how to go about it. It will help with admissions, and more importantly, with employers going forward.

C++, Level 1 CFA, Good GMAT - quite a lot to do in the next 12-15 months, so plan your schedule, discipline yourself, and save every penny. Not a moral lecture :-), but it will help you.

All the best
Baccardisprite

Thanks a lot for the details Baccardisprite. Have started preparing for GMAT and will work on C++ and Mathematics once have good GMAT score. All the points you mentioned are very important, as i have not done serious studies since last five years, so need to set up schedule (so there is no moral lecture). Will also plan about the CFA next year.

Thanks a lot.

Hi baccardisprite,
Here's a short overview of my profile -

Undergrad - Engineering from University of Pune
Work -ex - Would be 6 yrs by fall 2013.
Have worked with companies like Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays Capital as a Quality Analyst in their core IB divisions on trading systems like Fidessa and Charles River (both are very niche systems in the industry).

Post MBA - Would like to get into a Business Analyst kind of role in the Technology sector.Another option would be IT consulting.

GMAT - 660.
Avg ECs.

Now I m pretty confused as to whether I should be going in for an MBA or MS in MIS?
Could you please help me out?

Regards
Sid

Hi
I had posted my profile sometime back. I have taken my GMAT and would like to get some analysis of my score.

Section. Scaled score. Percentile
Quant. 49. 85
Verbal. 32. 64
IR. 2. 15
AWA. 5.5. 77
Total. 670. 84

With this, which colleges can I realistically apply to?

Thanks.

squenx wrote:Hi
I had posted my profile sometime back. I have taken my GMAT and would like to get some analysis of my score.
:
With this, which colleges can I realistically apply to?

Squenx,

We can't recommend schools on this forum for the reasons described in this blog post: How not to select bschools.

Though the post has been written for MBA programs, the rationale extends to non-MBA options as well.

siddharthsen85 wrote: Undergrad - Engineering from University of Pune
Work -ex - Would be 6 yrs by fall 2013.
Have worked with companies like Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays Capital as a Quality Analyst in their core IB divisions on trading systems like Fidessa and Charles River (both are very niche systems in the industry).

Post MBA - Would like to get into a Business Analyst kind of role in the Technology sector.Another option would be IT consulting.

GMAT - 660.
Avg ECs.

Now I m pretty confused as to whether I should be going in for an MBA or MS in MIS?
Could you please help me out?

Regards
Sid

Hi Siddharthsen85,

For the career you want, you don't need more specialist IT education. An MBA helps better in my opinion - with elective / specialist courses in Strategy & Technology Management. Best MBA programs in these areas are offered by Business Schools attached to a University which also has a strong school of Engineering. Most tech management courses / programs are derived from or co-developed with sister departments in Industrial Engineering, Computer Science and Operations Research.

Business Analyst (Corporate / Consulting) & Consulting (IT or Strategy) roles in the big firms tend to be elitist in nature, and you'd need to go to a good US Top 20-25 for the best combination above. To be in the competitive ball-park for these schools you'd need to have a good profile rounded off with a competitive GMAT score, which tends to veer 700+ for most Indians. Your GMAT is inadequate. Hopefully your career has seen you progress to roles of increased responsibility, impact, leadership and client interaction. The last mentioned is critical for Client / Stakeholder Interactive roles like Business Analysis or Consulting.

Get professional help to improve your GMAT.

All the best
Baccardisprite

Hi sir,
This is teja from Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. I have ordered the "Beyond the MBA Hype" book written by you just a week back and I got it just 2 days back and have started reading it. I was quite impressed with your writings. I have not yet completed reading it. I would like to ask you a question regarding my future. I have completed my B.Tech(CSE) in 2012. I am not interested in software field, so not taken any job offer. I am interested to go for Management side but I dont want to do MBA in India. So I have gone through many foreign universities for MBA and came to know that they need atleast 2-3 yrs work experience. So I thought of going for Masters in Management(MSc) programmes offered by UK Universities. But I have come to know that the 1 year UK PG degrees are not invalid in India as they are only 1 year in duration. The Association of Indian Universities(AIU) has declared that UK PG degrees are invalid in India saying the 1 year duration programmes are not equal to full time PG degrees offered in India. Recently an article has been publishes on the Internet and also on The Hindu News paper. So I have dropped to go for that. At this point of time I am really confused about my future and dont understand what to do. Please help me in this issue what I have to do now? Waiting for your reply.. Thank you in advance

Baccardisprite (the expert on this thread) is a little caught up with work. So I'll share some thoughts.

tejaswi wrote:Hi sir,
This is teja from Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. I have ordered the "Beyond the MBA Hype" book written by you just a week back and I got it just 2 days back and have started reading it. I was quite impressed with your writings. I have not yet completed reading it.

Hi Teja,
Let me know if the "quite impressed" part stays after you finish reading it completely.

tejaswi wrote:I am not interested in software field, so not taken any job offer.

From that statement I'm assuming you have job offers in hand, correct?

tejaswi wrote:I am interested to go for Management side but I dont want to do MBA in India. So I have gone through many foreign universities for MBA and came to know that they need atleast 2-3 yrs work experience.

The minimum requirement doesn't give an idea of the average profile. Most students have around 5 years work experience in international MBA programs.

tejaswi wrote:So I thought of going for Masters in Management(MSc) programmes offered by UK Universities.

Be careful there. Masters in Management (MSc) programs aren't an alternative to the regular MBA programs. The job opportunities, responsibilities and salaries that you'd get (even if you get a good job) will be quite different.

tejaswi wrote:But I have come to know that the 1 year UK PG degrees are not invalid in India as they are only 1 year in duration...

I completed a 1 year UK PG degree, and I didn't have any problems getting a job in India.

However, if you just jump at the first university that is willing to accept you, it can backfire. Read this story that just got published in the news - Hundreds of Indian students face deportation from UK

If you stick to the good universities with a good track record that gets respect from employers, you are safe. Otherwise you are playing with fire.

tejaswi wrote:At this point of time I am really confused about my future and dont understand what to do. Please help me in this issue what I have to do now?

Going back to the earlier point about having job offers in hand. I'd suggest taking up the best one from the lot. If you don't have any offers, better start looking for them.

Don't start collecting degrees. Aim for real work experience, which is value more in the long run.

Greetings!

Background:
No work-experience but 2 solid internships.
Postgrad: Just finished my Master's in Finance and Economics from LSE with 59.2%.
Undergrad: BA(H) Mathematics, University of Delhi- 80% (Topped all 3 years)
Decent ECA's
GMAT: 720(under mitigating circumstances)

I would be grateful if you could answer a few questions I have:
1. Is my Master's grade too low to get into a solid Ph D program in the US?
2. Do you think taking research internships will help rectify the problem?
3. The primary reason behind my look out for a Ph D program is that I haven't able to gain a job as yet. I reckon a Ph D will help me get a solid opening in the consultancy sector. I figure that as my course starts, I will develop interest in it and thus completing the program won't be a problem. Do you think it is practical, my line of thinking?