Plan Ahead for B School

[Anonymous]

Hello Atul.

Thanks for mentoring aspirants on this forum.!

I am 24 years of age and BE, CSE from a non-IIT , but regionally good institute in India. My GPA is also quite ok and i stand in top 20 of the class list.Currently i work in Top Fortune 500 IT company in India, Bangalore and of what-ever we get of flat hierarchies, i have tried to be a leader.I have around 3 years of what-i-call-good work experience. I have had a lot of international exposure too. So in summary i am just another run-of-the-mill guy.

I plan to work for some more years, may be a year of two and plan to get to a B School. Long term - I am pretty sure that i want to be a part of Product Marketing Team and in developing strategies related to that.

I am currently looking at LBS, INSEAD and IMD (pretty much non US Schools). I did my research trying to analyze my situation by reading forums on the web. There are some of the problems I am facing right now...and i was wondering if you could help me with those...

1. Demographics: I really dont think that i stand out distinctly from a demographic profile point of view. Technically there would be thousands of students who would have a good GPA a GOOD Gmat, a Fortune 500 and experience in software. My extracurriculars were good in school, but they are nothing that will make an impression.How much of extracurricular is really really important...And should this be related to what i want to do, like product marketing and brand building??? I have seen ppl inanely going and working for a NGO just for the purpose of getting through...and putting community work in their resumes. I cant do that sicne it doesnt motivate me...Should i stop that and start doing it....

2. Undergrad School : My BE is not from a REC and IIT. Its from a regional university (gujarat University), but has the topmost CE Rankings in Gujarat. How much is this going to hurt me. I am pretty sure i can crack GMAT.I dont want to sound overconfident ...but with
work i know its not impossible to get a good score.

What i am trying to do, is to plan ahead to get to a B School. I know LBS minimum looks at 4-5 years of work ex...and so does other schools..hence i have some time..to fit the bill, if i dont right and if i can.I really need pointers on how to do that....

Thanks again

Abhishek