Journey to Wharton
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19 May 2022, 10:41
I’m going to Wharton this year with a 100k USD scholarship and I thought I’d share my application experience since I’m not from one of the common feeder colleges for Wharton, like the IITs or Sri Ram College of Commerce.
I have a Bachelors in Business Admin from College of Business Studies, DU and had about 4 years of work experience at Bain & Company and Accel, when I applied. I have a pretty strong social work background both at work and outside of it. During the pandemic, I cofounded a non-profit focused on mental health and well-being.
I applied to all the M7 schools but Wharton was my goal as I had decided on it after many recommendations from colleagues. After rejects from Columbia, Booth and Harvard, I decided to work with Admissions Gateway as everyone who worked with Rajdeep had only great things to say about him. I retook the GMAT and got a 750 and we both worked hard on my application, researching Wharton and putting together essays that showed the full scope of my experience and contributions I could make to the class. In addition to all the research, we also did multiple simulations and mocks to prepare for the group discussion and interview.
All paid off in the end because I got an admit plus one of the highest scholarships that was offered this year, as far as I know.
During the process I was struck with the realisation that there are no guaranteed seats. I learnt to get comfortable with rejection without succumbing to self-doubt. I learnt to keep focused on optimising the ongoing application and not worry about the ones that were already done with.
The selection process is fairly opaque and is based on more factors than applicants are privy to. Don’t worry too much about what you cannot change and focus on showcasing what you have.