Where did I go wrong with my R1 apps? Please help!

Hi,

I wouldn't be so concerned with this aspect of your profile. Frequent job switches can come at the cost of change in designations and some companies do tend to have more linear structures. These are things out of your control, so its better to focus on those elements which you can control. For example- explaining what opportunities each job switch gave you (leaving the monetary benefits aside, these should not come across as you biggest motivators), how your responsibilities/ area of influence increased with every job and how your impact increased - these would be good pointers to convince. The same goes for leadership as well. You dont have to be in a leadership position to be a leader. You can still influence others to work with you and achieve outstanding outcomes. I will be able to gauge this only after looking through your essays.

An essay component which I have often seen bringing applicants down is the career goals essay- especially when the career goals don't connect with your existing experience and/or skills set. Your GRE score is on the lower side but it should have worked for the lower ranked MBA programs where you applied. So, I would go back to the application and try to understand what you were doing wrong.

Although LORs are typically not the reason for a ding, but I hope these were good.

Namita Garg,
Founder, MBA Decoder
Email: contact@mbadecoder.com
Profile evaluation: https://mbadecoder.com/services/free-pr ... valuation/

shriniv7 - thanks for the update. Progression can be conveyed through the scope of your role(s) i.e. the size of the projects handled, impact/ result, learnings, etc. and not necessarily through pay/ designation. This can be done both in essays and CV: some guidelines/ tips for writing an impactful CV are here

The important part is to link your professional experiences and arc to your post-MBA career goals, and having a narrative as to how the MBA (and the particular B-school) fits in the picture.

Regards,
Arvind
Founder, admitStreet
LinkedIn
W:https://admitstreet.com| E: consultingteam@admitstreet.com

shriniv7,

Please feel free to set up a Ding Analysis session with us via the link - https://www.crackadmission.com/contact-us/

shriniv7 disappointed to know that you didnt get many invites for interview. Here's my take

1. Yes, your GRE is definitely not a motivator for the schools to invite you unless you did a stellar job with the essays (hard for me to comment at the moment). With solid essays, I would have expected you to have a couple of more waitlists (do you?)

2. Your resume is missing the big picture. I always recommend writing about the companies you worked at in a single line. Dont expect the adcoms to know whether this company or the startup you worked at was a big deal or not. You must mention the scale of business, revenue or valuation, number of employees etc. You should also briefly detail how does your role adds value to the org, which you have clearly missed in your older stints. What does a travel consultant even do- would be nice to add in a line how this position was critical in driving this organization's immediate business goals (what were these goals)? Its on you to present that. The story should come clear by simply looking at the resume, for example how have you progressively picked opportunities that led you closer to a target domain/ industry/ job function. You have a long list of achievements but its hard to comprehend what you really did there to help the organizations achieve their goals.

Now I might be picking on the details here but hoping this would help you in the future- you have used many percentage figures that actually would not mean anything to the reader.

I have no idea what "Book of Business" means. Or what does increasing the accounts by 287% means? For all we know, it could mean that you grew the number of accounts from 2 to 8 in 11 months which is okayish but it makes more sense when you put it in absolute numbers and tell why was this important for this company (what was the company struggling with and how you added value in real terms).

Similarly when you say you reduced the time spent by 30%, it does not mean anything to the reader. Convey what is the impact in terms of man hours saved or manpower reduced and why this was important for the organization. These are a few of the many potential improvement areas that I see in your resume. Treat your resume like a repository of your most significant business cases that you've contributed to. Include points that make good business sense.

I think you may have had misses in your essays too, so I recommend you do a deep dive with someone who really understands the various parts of an application and the purpose behind.

Feel free to connect should you want professional guidance.

Aanchal Sahni (INSEAD alum, former INSEAD MBA admissions interviewer)
MBAGuideConsulting
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