nthatte wrote:
Hello,
Thanks in advance for your advice. Could you please help me determine my chances at some top tier schools?
Profile:
Female, 27 yr old
Nationality: US (of Indian ethnicity)
Education:
Carnegie Mellon University
3.50 GPA
BFA in Industrial Design
GMAT: 650 (expected, based on practice tests, I have not yet taken an official exam)
Work Experience:
- 5 years at Johnson & Johnson. Was hired as an Industrial Designer for the first year, then offered a position as a Packaging Engineer for Visine and Rogaine brands. While on these brands, I redesigned the packaging for Visine and Rogaine to achieve significant cost reductions.
- Promoted to Global Engineering and moved onto the Johnson's Baby Brand worldwide, and then onto Listerine worldwide, leading engineering and innovation for the Listerine brand.
- Leading sustainability within engineering in North America by building my knowledge of sustainable packaging and systems. Recently I implemented a decision tree tool for teams to use during the early stages of a project, which helps establish whether or not you are making progress in a positive sustainable direction with your product and packaging. This allows sustainability to be taken into account early on in the project, helping to shape the product and packaging in an environmentally beneficial way. I have also led efforts to track the progress of packaging reduction projects worldwide, and brainstorm new innovative ideas for sustainable packaging.
-Co-leading SAPNA, the South Asian Professional Network Association, which offers mentoring, talent development, and opportunities to give back to the JnJ community and beyond.
-Co-founded the "No Waste Project" at JnJ with two other employees, which is a program that looks for ways to re-purpose waste from the JnJ supply chain for societal and educational good. We recently re-purposed corrugate and office paper from 3 different JnJ sites to convert into 300 notebooks for the children of Project Head Start in East Harlem, NYC.
Extra-curriculars (concurrent with work):
-Recently redesigned the rain-barrels manufactured by the Non-Profit Watershed Association in Pittsburgh, which help people collect rain water for re-use (again showcasing my love for sustainability).
-Co-founded the New York City chapter of a non-profit org dedicated to furthering humanity through design. While working with this non-profit, I helped design an educational playground for the children in the HIV/AIDS orphan school in Kutamba, Uganda. This playground was featured in the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum in NYC as well as several books, such as "Design like you Give a Damn." Similar playgrounds have now been constructed at 26 other schools.
Extra-curriculars (concurrent with undergrad):
- Worked as a Resident Assistant 20+ hours a week all four years of undergrad to help finance my education
- Co-founded "CMU Fusion," a performance production that showcased the various cultural talents of students at CMU, and "fused" them together so that participants learned from each other's cultures
- Was active on the Student Activities Funding Committee
- Served as the student representative on the Public Arts Committee
MBA goal:
I want to pursue an MBA to better understand how to craft sustainability strategy for large consumer products companies such as JnJ. I think my design background and technical expertise enable me to understand tactically what to do, but I want the business acumen to know how to scale up, and how to measure success.
Schools:
Tuck, NYU, Sloan, Columbia, HBS
Do I have a chance at any of these schools?
Thank you very much for your time!
Thanks in advance for your advice. Could you please help me determine my chances at some top tier schools?
Profile:
Female, 27 yr old
Nationality: US (of Indian ethnicity)
Education:
Carnegie Mellon University
3.50 GPA
BFA in Industrial Design
GMAT: 650 (expected, based on practice tests, I have not yet taken an official exam)
Work Experience:
- 5 years at Johnson & Johnson. Was hired as an Industrial Designer for the first year, then offered a position as a Packaging Engineer for Visine and Rogaine brands. While on these brands, I redesigned the packaging for Visine and Rogaine to achieve significant cost reductions.
- Promoted to Global Engineering and moved onto the Johnson's Baby Brand worldwide, and then onto Listerine worldwide, leading engineering and innovation for the Listerine brand.
- Leading sustainability within engineering in North America by building my knowledge of sustainable packaging and systems. Recently I implemented a decision tree tool for teams to use during the early stages of a project, which helps establish whether or not you are making progress in a positive sustainable direction with your product and packaging. This allows sustainability to be taken into account early on in the project, helping to shape the product and packaging in an environmentally beneficial way. I have also led efforts to track the progress of packaging reduction projects worldwide, and brainstorm new innovative ideas for sustainable packaging.
-Co-leading SAPNA, the South Asian Professional Network Association, which offers mentoring, talent development, and opportunities to give back to the JnJ community and beyond.
-Co-founded the "No Waste Project" at JnJ with two other employees, which is a program that looks for ways to re-purpose waste from the JnJ supply chain for societal and educational good. We recently re-purposed corrugate and office paper from 3 different JnJ sites to convert into 300 notebooks for the children of Project Head Start in East Harlem, NYC.
Extra-curriculars (concurrent with work):
-Recently redesigned the rain-barrels manufactured by the Non-Profit Watershed Association in Pittsburgh, which help people collect rain water for re-use (again showcasing my love for sustainability).
-Co-founded the New York City chapter of a non-profit org dedicated to furthering humanity through design. While working with this non-profit, I helped design an educational playground for the children in the HIV/AIDS orphan school in Kutamba, Uganda. This playground was featured in the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum in NYC as well as several books, such as "Design like you Give a Damn." Similar playgrounds have now been constructed at 26 other schools.
Extra-curriculars (concurrent with undergrad):
- Worked as a Resident Assistant 20+ hours a week all four years of undergrad to help finance my education
- Co-founded "CMU Fusion," a performance production that showcased the various cultural talents of students at CMU, and "fused" them together so that participants learned from each other's cultures
- Was active on the Student Activities Funding Committee
- Served as the student representative on the Public Arts Committee
MBA goal:
I want to pursue an MBA to better understand how to craft sustainability strategy for large consumer products companies such as JnJ. I think my design background and technical expertise enable me to understand tactically what to do, but I want the business acumen to know how to scale up, and how to measure success.
Schools:
Tuck, NYU, Sloan, Columbia, HBS
Do I have a chance at any of these schools?
Thank you very much for your time!
Hi, Nthatte,
Your GPA is fine; regarding the GMAT, the practice tests, in my experience, are not the best determiner of how you will actually do on the test. If you are consistently getting 650 on the practice, you might consider taking a GMAT preparatory course to help you improve your grade - and your grade on the actual test.
You are in a very 'sexy' niche - sustainability - and it's not just words with you; you have the work and extracurricular experience to back it up, and that's fantastic. In addition to the schools you have chosen, you might also check out schools that are rated very high on sustainability: Ross (Michigan) is #1, with the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise; Cornell (Johnson) - perhaps you get points for working for J&J and applying to J? - seriously, they have an MBA specialization for sustainable global enterprise; Haas and Yale come in at 3 and 4. MIT Sloan comes in at #6; the other schools you've chosen are not particularly noted for being 'green', but that doesn't mean you shouldn't apply.
Regarding chances, I suggest you click on the link down bottom, below my name, where you can answer a series of questions about your profile, and get a sense of your eligibility at the various schools in which you are interested.
Last thing - when you apply, I suggest you highlight as much as possible your leadership; I think you have a good deal of it, but it may not be coming off at the moment in your resume. Whenever you've actually led or supervised people, you want to spell this out very clearly.
All the best,
Joy
Senior Application Consultant
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