In terms of chances, I would say two things which are kind of independent of each other and as always, anything you see on the Internet, take it with a grain of salt, including these comments.

There are basically two gates in the application process and gate one is getting shortlisted for the interview which is where I feel the most people get shut down which may have a great profile but for some stupid reason during the rush of the three weeks after the application applications were submitted, schools miss those great profiles and great applicants perhaps by overly focusing too much on a few quantitative or easy identify things such as demographics.

So I feel which is not a scientific truth or fact but the mere feeling based on a random set of factors that made me feel this way, so I feel that if you can clear the interview stage, you have a really good shot with your background and hopefully essays that are articulated OK. You don’t need to do an amazing job in essays by the way, you just have to be good enough showing that there is more than just what you put on the resume or even that the resume you presented is not embellished beyond belief.

Getting picked for the interview, that’s hard to tell. I think each school has different method for that and some do it better than others but I’ve seen a lot of them missing great applicants or denying them. Just had a conversation about that in the broad MBA chat. People who have been accepted to similarly ranked programs with full scholarships, have been denied without interview in others. There’s really no rhyme or reason but the best thing to do is to apply to as many schools as you can to minimize the chances of something weird happening and also maximize the chances of something weird positive happening. Last year, we had a moderator who got dinged everywhere in all the top 15 but admitted to Kellogg. Frankly, Kellogg made the right choice and all the other ones made a mistake because I knew the individual and they are highly capable. So kudos on applying to whole bunch of programs 👍

Fingers crossed that it all works out in a great way. I wish I could give you a guarantee that these would work out and you would get admitted to all of these. I know many start thinking about applying to lower ranked schools. I would also encourage you to think about it but not applying to programs you’re not willing to attend because that’s a waste of your time and resources, so if you considering top 25 programs, ask yourself if you would attend them and if yes then you can absolutely hedge your bets.