My Story - From GMAT 660 to 740 and 7 admits

Well it was one fine day after two years of giving CAT, scoring 97 and 98 percentile respectively, and still not getting any interview calls (Being a Male – General – Engineer does have its perks!) that I realized that – (pardon the use of hindi for dramatic effect) Bahiya Bharat se MBA na ho payega! (It does not seem possible to do an MBA from India).

By that time I had three years of work ex and I was like – cool now I can target universities outside for MBA (though I really didn’t have an idea why I was doing that). I did not want to join the big consulting services simply because I had been associated with TIME for a close to 2 years and during this period I realized that getting a personalized solution from these big consults would not be possible. I wanted to work with an agency or a consultant who was willing to spend their time and energy on me in equal parts and that is when I met Experts Global. Off the bat they were very professional in their approach. I still remember my first conversation with Priyanka who took a brief of my profile and then told me that Mayank sir will speak with me and decide if they want to take me on as a student (and my first reaction was - COME ON! Are you seriously THAT good that you will reject a potential customer…and you know what dear readers - apparently, THEY ARE!)

So I spoke with Mayank sir and he understood my profile, questioned me on why I want to pursue MBA and what options I would like to choose and finally gave me the green light to come aboard. I paid up around 80k for both GMAT prep and Application package, however even before I could start I got a ringer from XLRI that I was waitlisted for an MBA in HR. I discussed my case with Mayank sir and he told me “Fair enough! You have a legitimate case and if you get admit in XLRI we will return the money”. This was the moment, THE MOMENT that I realized that I have made a good decision by choosing EG.

Eventually I didn’t make it to XL and started off with GMAT prep – thus started months and months of my life revolving around one excel sheet. Experts had shared the study material and an excel sheet that contains the well chalked plan to prepare for GMAT. All one needed to do was just follow the plan and one would be golden – no extra study material – no additional tests – nothing extra – just the stick to the plan. Please take this ‘Gayan’ because trust me I did end up doing all the things above, that I am asking you not to do. I spent a couple of weeks on GMAT club website searching for 700-720 difficulty question only to come back to EG study material and find all these questions neatly compiled there.

And then after grilling myself for three months I gave GMAT, aced it and everybody lived happily ever after. HA! You wish! A week before GMAT I thought that things are not challenging enough so I decided it will be a great idea to have Dengu fever right before the exam (my other option was to give GMAT while juggling swords on a unicycle but sadly they don’t allow swords in the test center.)

GMAT Attempt 1 SCORE - 660

I took the week off and then started my preparation again. Any other coaching institute would have said Sayonara to me by now or would have asked me cough up more money for the prep but not EG. They sat with me and understood why I did poorly and chalked up new plan for the prep. It was again one and half months of preparation, mocks and lots and lots of practice but eventually I managed to crack GMAT (On hindsight it seems that trainers at EG were more obsessed with me cracking the GMAT than I was).

GMAT Attempt 2 SCORE - 740

For any other person with 3.5 years of work ex with top OEM, good GMAT score and decent extracurricular the normal course of action would be to happily apply to B-Schools, but…well…normal is a little too mainstream for me. At this wonderful moment I thought to myself, “Hmm so I cracked GMAT, but why the hell do I want to do an MBA in the first place?”

“Enter Career Crisis”

See, the thing was, along with my 6 day, 9 to 5 job (9-5 on paper, 9-9 in reality), I was also running a small training firm on the side with a couple of my friends (you know, the kind of people who get kicked out by their wives or girlfriends because they are not useful around the house and they end up discussing crazy ideas while sipping tea in dhabas). Now this entrepreneurial venture started doing well and thus I was getting torn between either doing an MBA or to focus on venture. By this time the work on my applications was underway by my mentor Shailesh sir. I had given a lot of inputs on essays to him and he had been listening to my rambling on “Why I want to do an MBA” and “Why HR”, “My strengths”, “My weakness” etc for past three months.

So when I called him (Unannounced, as I often did) and told him – “Sir I am not sure I want to do MBA” – There was an understandable silence on the other side (I believe he was probably thinking at that moment – getting real tired of your sh@# man, but that’s just my interpretation ). In reality, however, we went on to have long conversations about the options at hand, pro con analysis and many other things. I toyed with this idea for a couple of months and during this time I would call Shailesh sir whenever I would have a new idea or perspective to discuss. Though none of this directly related with MBA, all the discussions with Shailesh sir matured my understanding and allowed me to deeply introspect and identify the reasons for doing and MBA, what I stand to gain from MBA education and what career course I must choose. Eventually we decided to delay the application by one year and for good measure.

I filled my profiling questionnaire again (it’s a 32-35 question long questionnaire that will make you deeply introspect your reasons for doing an MBA, draw out leadership stories etc and will serve as a base for your essays) and shared with Shailesh sir. One good thing about the whole mentoring process was Shailesh sir never spoon fed me what I should write in my essays to get in a B-School. My profile is aligned well for a general management / operations role however I wanted to transition to HR. He could have easily told me that if I projected my profile a certain way I would easily be able to crack in a B School but he didn’t. Through the questionnaire and discussions he allowed me to realize and understand what my strengths are and how can I justify the choices that I am planning to make for myself. In the end I did create a compelling argument about why I want to do MBA in HR.

My schools were selected keeping in mind my profile, the choice of career option and that I wanted to target scholarship friendly schools. The risk was spread between 3 Dream, 7 Realistic and 2 Saftey schools.

Next comes the interviews – I ended up giving around 5 mocks with different trainers and received extensive feedback before I even sat down for my first interview. I have to say this here, one of the big reasons I cracked Wisconsin Madison with a scholarship and stipend was an HR exclusive interview I had with Mayank sir a day before. The inputs worked wonders for me and I knew, as soon as my interview was done, that I have cracked it. I consulted with Shailesh sir before every interview to understand what focus area or strength the school has and tweak my answers accordingly.

THE RESULT

ADMITS WITH FULL SCHOLARSHIP – Wisconsin Madison, Purdue Krannert, Boston University

Admits with Partial Scholarship – Washington Olin, Rotman

Admits with No Scholarships – Marshall and ISB

Interviewed but turned the college down because decision was already made – Carroll, Foster, Emory

Rejected – Vanderbilt Owen, Pittsburg Katz

In the end I just want to tell you this – there is a difference between consulting someone to get in a B-School and mentoring someone through the entire process so that they gain that maturity, intellect and understanding. I believe I have established a relationship with EG that goes well beyond giving tips of getting in B-School. Anyone can do that. But to grow someone so that they learn to find a path for themselves – that is what EG is all about.

Reach out to me in case you need any help, guidance or support.

Reach me at: pradeep.bhatt0401@gmail.com or pradeep.bhatt4188@gmail.com
Reach experts global at: https://www.expertsglobal.com/

ALL THE BEST!