Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Nov 1909:00 AM PST
-10:00 AM PST
What’s in it for you- Live Profile Evaluation Chat Session with Jenifer Turtschnow, CEO ARINGO. Come with your details prepared and ARINGO will share insights! Pre-MBA Role/Industry, YOE, Exam Score, C/GPA, ECs Post-MBA Role/ Industry & School List.
Nov 1910:00 AM EST
-01:00 PM EST
Get expert MBA strategy, instant essay feedback, and personalized advice on your entire application. Join My Admit Coach, the AI-powered MBA admissions platform built on 10K+ successful application docs for HBS, Stanford GSB, MIT and other top programs.
Nov 1911:00 AM PST
-12:00 PM PST
Round 2 is here — and it’s your chance to make your MBA dream happen! Join GMAT Club’s LIVE discussion with two top experts from The Red Pen, Gunjan Jhunjhunwala and Natasha Mankikar, as we break down everything you need to know- Nov 12
01:00 PM EST
-11:59 PM EST
Get expert MBA strategy, instant essay feedback, and personalized advice on your entire application. Join My Admit Coach, the AI-powered MBA admissions platform built on 10K+ successful application docs for HBS, Stanford GSB, MIT and other top programs. - Nov 18
11:00 AM PST
-12:00 PM PST
Join us in a live GMAT practice session and solve 30 challenging GMAT questions with other test takers in timed conditions, covering GMAT Quant, Data Sufficiency, Data Insights, Reading Comprehension, and Critical Reasoning questions. 
Nov 2010:00 AM EST
-10:30 AM EST
If you’re applying to Columbia, NYU Stern, or Yale SOM, you need more than strong stats. Each school defines “leadership” differently, and your essays must reflect that. Join Sia Admissions founder, Susan Berishaj on November 20th
Nov 2009:00 PM IST
-10:00 PM IST
Join our free expert-led Essay Workshops to discover how to choose impactful stories, highlight your core values, and align your background with each school’s distinct culture, making every word truly count.
Nov 2108:30 AM EST
-09:15 AM EST
Get the inside scoop on what makes Emory’s Goizueta Business School great, learn how you can present a strong MBA application, and connect with an Admissions Director to get your questions answered.
Nov 2109:30 PM IST
-10:30 PM IST
Learn how to craft powerful, authentic essays by mastering the 3 “WHYs” every top MBA program looks for: Why MBA, Why Now, and Why This School.
Nov 2408:00 PM PST
-09:00 PM PST
Inquire for a free profile evaluation and guarantee statement for possible admits and scholarships!
25 May 2017, 02:07
Kudos
Bookmarks
A bit about my professional background: I am a computer engineer (male) from a top 10 engineering school from India. I had a GMAT of 730. I had strong international work experience (consulting for 5+ years) but lacked extra-curricular or other experiences outside work.
I was a reapplicant targeting the top 10-12 bschools in the US for the class of 2018. I had applied for class of 2017 but could not convert my interviews. I just concluded my first year and can surely say two years at business school is a transformative journey. Reflecting on the last year, I hereby capture what I believe I did differently while applying to class of 2018 as compared to when I applied a year earlier.
Resume: I decided to use an admissions counselor this time and based on reviews of Admissions Gateway from many people in my college and professional network I joined them. My earlier resume solely focused on consulting projects while applying for class of 2017. It looked more like a resume for a job than for a business school application. The feedback I got from Admissions Gateway counselors was to include more firm specific and practice specific stories instead of project level bullets. I incorporated this feedback by including themes on practice/ business and firm development and leadership roles in a STAR format. Most business school use VMock as a tool to evaluate resumes. It gives a score which considers things like formatting, strength of bullets, word usage, etc. I used my bschool application resume as a first pass once I started school and got a 9/10, which illustrates that this is the right way to craft a resume. So I will be using mostly the same resume to recruit.
School selection: My learning from half the courses in first year – diversify your risk to increases chances of success. I had applied to a limited set of schools (exactly 3 and that too in second round) while applying for the class of 2017 – this I believe was my biggest mistake. I strongly suggest to apply to a larger set of schools, especially as a male Indian applicant since the competition is very fierce for this candidate pool. While applying for class of 2018, I applied to 7 schools, 4 in R1 and 3 in R2 in the top-15 range to diversify my risk. In addition, I conducted much deeper analysis of which schools fit my future professional goals as well as my prior background (For e.g. talking to a friend at MIT, I recently came to know that MIT has the least % of Indian admits amongst top business schools)
Essays: Start early and take a month off from work (in August) was my motto while applying for class of 2018. As mentioned earlier, I focused my essay themes on macro topics such as firm and practice development instead of project level stories. This I believe was the key differentiator between my applications for class of 2017 and 2018. My admissions counsellor, Rajdeep Chimni from Admissions Gateway played a key role in distilling out the broader stories from my professional background. An important part is being regular and building momentum and I was kept on my toes and really made to think at a more mature level.
Letters of recommendation: I sat with my recommenders talking them through my rationale of applying to business school. I reminded them of my achievements, professional annual performance reviews etc. to ensure they could readily recall my strengths and areas of improvement, since these two questions constitute the bulk of content in the LOR.
Interview: Finally, I must say that I fundamentally changed the way I prepared for the interview. With the Admissions Gateway question set, I listed down about 25-30 basic questions which I could expect in any interview. I then supplemented these questions with any school specific questions (collated from clearadmit etc.) I then wrote answers to all these questions in STAR format and practiced a couple of times with Rajdeep and then by recording my answers and hearing them back. I initially thought this may look my answers rehearsed but I strongly believe this helped me a lot by enabling me to include all relevant points within 2 minutes and ensuring I do not ramble long winded sentence but answer in a clear concise manner. We followed the philosophy that once you know what you want to say then you can focus on who you are. This is something I have carried onto business school while preparing for job interviews as well. Career development offices also strongly recommend to prepare in a similar fashion.
Hope the above helps for people considering whether reapplying to business schools is worth the effort. Trust me it is!! And success will lead you to the best two years of your life.
I was a reapplicant targeting the top 10-12 bschools in the US for the class of 2018. I had applied for class of 2017 but could not convert my interviews. I just concluded my first year and can surely say two years at business school is a transformative journey. Reflecting on the last year, I hereby capture what I believe I did differently while applying to class of 2018 as compared to when I applied a year earlier.
Resume: I decided to use an admissions counselor this time and based on reviews of Admissions Gateway from many people in my college and professional network I joined them. My earlier resume solely focused on consulting projects while applying for class of 2017. It looked more like a resume for a job than for a business school application. The feedback I got from Admissions Gateway counselors was to include more firm specific and practice specific stories instead of project level bullets. I incorporated this feedback by including themes on practice/ business and firm development and leadership roles in a STAR format. Most business school use VMock as a tool to evaluate resumes. It gives a score which considers things like formatting, strength of bullets, word usage, etc. I used my bschool application resume as a first pass once I started school and got a 9/10, which illustrates that this is the right way to craft a resume. So I will be using mostly the same resume to recruit.
School selection: My learning from half the courses in first year – diversify your risk to increases chances of success. I had applied to a limited set of schools (exactly 3 and that too in second round) while applying for the class of 2017 – this I believe was my biggest mistake. I strongly suggest to apply to a larger set of schools, especially as a male Indian applicant since the competition is very fierce for this candidate pool. While applying for class of 2018, I applied to 7 schools, 4 in R1 and 3 in R2 in the top-15 range to diversify my risk. In addition, I conducted much deeper analysis of which schools fit my future professional goals as well as my prior background (For e.g. talking to a friend at MIT, I recently came to know that MIT has the least % of Indian admits amongst top business schools)
Essays: Start early and take a month off from work (in August) was my motto while applying for class of 2018. As mentioned earlier, I focused my essay themes on macro topics such as firm and practice development instead of project level stories. This I believe was the key differentiator between my applications for class of 2017 and 2018. My admissions counsellor, Rajdeep Chimni from Admissions Gateway played a key role in distilling out the broader stories from my professional background. An important part is being regular and building momentum and I was kept on my toes and really made to think at a more mature level.
Letters of recommendation: I sat with my recommenders talking them through my rationale of applying to business school. I reminded them of my achievements, professional annual performance reviews etc. to ensure they could readily recall my strengths and areas of improvement, since these two questions constitute the bulk of content in the LOR.
Interview: Finally, I must say that I fundamentally changed the way I prepared for the interview. With the Admissions Gateway question set, I listed down about 25-30 basic questions which I could expect in any interview. I then supplemented these questions with any school specific questions (collated from clearadmit etc.) I then wrote answers to all these questions in STAR format and practiced a couple of times with Rajdeep and then by recording my answers and hearing them back. I initially thought this may look my answers rehearsed but I strongly believe this helped me a lot by enabling me to include all relevant points within 2 minutes and ensuring I do not ramble long winded sentence but answer in a clear concise manner. We followed the philosophy that once you know what you want to say then you can focus on who you are. This is something I have carried onto business school while preparing for job interviews as well. Career development offices also strongly recommend to prepare in a similar fashion.
Hope the above helps for people considering whether reapplying to business schools is worth the effort. Trust me it is!! And success will lead you to the best two years of your life.
26 May 2017, 03:47
Kudos
Bookmarks
sorry if I missed but which schools you got in to? What are your post MBA goals and why you thought that the schools you chose to apply were right for your post MBA aspirations? When people read MBA debriefs they want to know what successful applicants did differently, how they chose their schools, crafted their story, or prepared for interviews. We expect a debrief writer should touch these crucial points in his/her debrief.
PS: I renamed the topic title; This forum is not for admission consultant reviews.
PS: I renamed the topic title; This forum is not for admission consultant reviews.
26 May 2017, 21:30
Kudos
Bookmarks
Narenn
I applied to schools mostly ranked between 5 to 12 (Booth, MIT, Kellogg, LBS, Ross, Fuqua, Yale). Recd 2 interview invites and converted one of these. I was an ex-consultant and looking to enter into PE/VC (interning at a tech VC this summer) or stay in management consulting post business school. As I mentioned above on school selection, the key point was to diversify my risks by applying to more number of schools, preferably in R1, to hedge my bets (I applied to Kellogg, Tuck and INSEAD last year).
Hope I covered other points around story or interview preparation in my writeup earlier.
