Okay, below is my opinion only. You know your situation well and only can take the correct decision.
1. 2 months for GMAT! It depends on individual basis. Some people ace the GMAT after a couple of weeks of preparation and some flunk it even after 6 month of prep. I am assuming you work full time so you only have evenings and weekends to prepare. 2 months may just be enough, but just! It depends on you and you only. How well do you think you can prepare. Your scores are good and it seems you are good student. So you should pace yourself. 550 will get you nowhere as far as good B. schools are concerned. You must aim for 700 plus scores to compensate for your relatively average academics scores.
2. "all the Univ for MBA are almost at the same Level (Govt. Funded ) in Canada ( EXCEPT the top tier 5-7 Univ )".
In my opinion Queens, Schulich, Rotman, Ivey, Sauder, Desautels are the first tier schools in Canada. Amongst which Rotman and Queens are the best. Then comes your Alberta, Haskayne, Dalhousie, Degroote, Telfer, Reyerson as second teir. I might have missed a couple but any school not in this list would most probably be a waste of your money in my opinion. I have spoken to several alumus from Rotman and schulich and even they face an uphill battle for jobs in Canada. Officially the schools say that employment rate is on an average 85% after 3 months of graduation but if you look at foreign students, the employment rate is less than 50% even after 6 months of graduation. So if this is how the top schools are faring, one can imagine what would happen to 3rd teir b.school graduates.... !!
What kind of budget constraints are you talking about? Most of these schools have a fee of about 60,000 CAD to 70,000 CAD except Rotman, which is at 100,000 CAD. But Rotman has a bank loan program for international students which brings it down to 47,000 CAD. I believe you are an indian, the world is open for you, I am telling you Indian are welcome everywher in the world at the moment. You just have to find the right path. A lot of canadian and american schools run bank (candian and american banks) programs which issue loans to only Indian students. You should check for all these options. Plus in India there are multitude of education loan programs available which are not available to us Pakistani students.
An MBA is a big investment. And you have to treat it such. As I told somebody else on this forum, forget about the finances as for now. Apply in the best schools that you think you can get in to. Once you have the admission, then go scourge for finances, get loans from banks, parents, sell you car, property etc. However you manage it, if the school is good enough it will all be worth it.
An MBA application is hell lot of an effort. As a rule of a thumb it can take 3 months for your GMAT, 2 months for you essays for application, 1 month for your reference letters etc and 1 month for putting it all together. You should only now aim to get into Fall 2014 MBA sessions if you want to get into best schools. (Leave the finances behind. when the time comes, it will be sorted out.)
Ofcourse the above paragraph doesn't hold if you are really really short on money. But I am thinking that you are not that short. You need to ask yourself what you want to do? what is it in which you can excel ? Would you be able to excel in MBA?
3."Even though my work profile is in IT , I can not go for Masters in those IT related specialization in which Loads of programming in JAVA or C++ are there as my B.tech was in Electronics and I have never been into Coding Area ( Current Role is Functional Inclined not Technical )"
Secondly you have also said you don't want a masters in computer and electrical / electronics fields. I can't help but saying that your choices would become very limited after that. The best I can think of is you can do masters in Engineering Management which is very similar to MBA but much cheaper. You can also trying looking at some of the Finance side fields if your experience is relevant.
I am sorry I can't give you much help regarding which course you should select because my field is completely different so my views are restricted. You should visit university websites and search for graduate programs and look at the courses they offer. It might have something which you may find interesting.
If you can find a book called "How to Get into the Top MBA Programs, by Richard Montauk" in your local book store. Buy it! Read it!! Twice!! Its the best amongst the 20 or so books I have read on this topic. It will tell you how to apply for a proper MBA program, what skills you will need and how to acquire them if you don't have them.
I usually don't bother answering to threads on this forum, but you seem like a genuine student from a good background. PM me your email address and I will try to send you some ebooks and MBA application material which will be quite helpful in informing you what an MBA is and help you decide if you should be doing it or not !!
P.S. ohh yeah, you are correct in not selecting Post graduate diploma. You should only go for masters. Much better employment prospects, much better chances for PR. Some of the provinces even have fasttrack PR programs for Masters and Phd graduates!!
1. 2 months for GMAT! It depends on individual basis. Some people ace the GMAT after a couple of weeks of preparation and some flunk it even after 6 month of prep. I am assuming you work full time so you only have evenings and weekends to prepare. 2 months may just be enough, but just! It depends on you and you only. How well do you think you can prepare. Your scores are good and it seems you are good student. So you should pace yourself. 550 will get you nowhere as far as good B. schools are concerned. You must aim for 700 plus scores to compensate for your relatively average academics scores.
2. "all the Univ for MBA are almost at the same Level (Govt. Funded ) in Canada ( EXCEPT the top tier 5-7 Univ )".
In my opinion Queens, Schulich, Rotman, Ivey, Sauder, Desautels are the first tier schools in Canada. Amongst which Rotman and Queens are the best. Then comes your Alberta, Haskayne, Dalhousie, Degroote, Telfer, Reyerson as second teir. I might have missed a couple but any school not in this list would most probably be a waste of your money in my opinion. I have spoken to several alumus from Rotman and schulich and even they face an uphill battle for jobs in Canada. Officially the schools say that employment rate is on an average 85% after 3 months of graduation but if you look at foreign students, the employment rate is less than 50% even after 6 months of graduation. So if this is how the top schools are faring, one can imagine what would happen to 3rd teir b.school graduates.... !!
What kind of budget constraints are you talking about? Most of these schools have a fee of about 60,000 CAD to 70,000 CAD except Rotman, which is at 100,000 CAD. But Rotman has a bank loan program for international students which brings it down to 47,000 CAD. I believe you are an indian, the world is open for you, I am telling you Indian are welcome everywher in the world at the moment. You just have to find the right path. A lot of canadian and american schools run bank (candian and american banks) programs which issue loans to only Indian students. You should check for all these options. Plus in India there are multitude of education loan programs available which are not available to us Pakistani students.
An MBA is a big investment. And you have to treat it such. As I told somebody else on this forum, forget about the finances as for now. Apply in the best schools that you think you can get in to. Once you have the admission, then go scourge for finances, get loans from banks, parents, sell you car, property etc. However you manage it, if the school is good enough it will all be worth it.
An MBA application is hell lot of an effort. As a rule of a thumb it can take 3 months for your GMAT, 2 months for you essays for application, 1 month for your reference letters etc and 1 month for putting it all together. You should only now aim to get into Fall 2014 MBA sessions if you want to get into best schools. (Leave the finances behind. when the time comes, it will be sorted out.)
Ofcourse the above paragraph doesn't hold if you are really really short on money. But I am thinking that you are not that short. You need to ask yourself what you want to do? what is it in which you can excel ? Would you be able to excel in MBA?
3."Even though my work profile is in IT , I can not go for Masters in those IT related specialization in which Loads of programming in JAVA or C++ are there as my B.tech was in Electronics and I have never been into Coding Area ( Current Role is Functional Inclined not Technical )"
Secondly you have also said you don't want a masters in computer and electrical / electronics fields. I can't help but saying that your choices would become very limited after that. The best I can think of is you can do masters in Engineering Management which is very similar to MBA but much cheaper. You can also trying looking at some of the Finance side fields if your experience is relevant.
I am sorry I can't give you much help regarding which course you should select because my field is completely different so my views are restricted. You should visit university websites and search for graduate programs and look at the courses they offer. It might have something which you may find interesting.
If you can find a book called "How to Get into the Top MBA Programs, by Richard Montauk" in your local book store. Buy it! Read it!! Twice!! Its the best amongst the 20 or so books I have read on this topic. It will tell you how to apply for a proper MBA program, what skills you will need and how to acquire them if you don't have them.
I usually don't bother answering to threads on this forum, but you seem like a genuine student from a good background. PM me your email address and I will try to send you some ebooks and MBA application material which will be quite helpful in informing you what an MBA is and help you decide if you should be doing it or not !!
P.S. ohh yeah, you are correct in not selecting Post graduate diploma. You should only go for masters. Much better employment prospects, much better chances for PR. Some of the provinces even have fasttrack PR programs for Masters and Phd graduates!!
