Top Notch Experience | Full Scholarship at Top 40 U.S. Program despite average GMAT and GRE

Profile:

- Indian Male with Engineering background
- GMAT – 660 (Q50, V29); GRE – 315 (Q166, V149); GPA – 9/10
- 7 years work experience in Data Science and Advanced Analytics with exposure to several impactful projects; Fortune 25 firm
- Domain knowledge in Retail and Healthcare
- Acquired knowledge in Finance through reading books and attending conferences


A step backward on my own:

I had my scores by the end of June and started out to apply for various business schools in Asia, US and Europe to meet the Round 1 deadlines. As I navigated through the application process by drafting my own essays and resume, I received reviews from my friends that the essays lacked punch and subsequently realized that I had wasted more than a month of precious time to create a below par application. It was at this instance that my friends directed me to seek the help of Avanti Prep and I decided to opt Greg as my admission consultant by initially leveraging GMAT Club’s moderator benefits, and then signing up for additional services beyond that.


Nature of our work together:

We began working together in November and Greg scheduled a free call to understand my interests and also explained me about how we would work during the course of my application. I decided to opt for his Hourly Services and we worked together for 17 hours encompassing a range of topics including School Selection (1 hour), Story Development (1 hour), Resume Reviews (4 hours), Essay Brainstorming (1 hour), Essay Reviews (5 hours), Recommender Strategy (1 hour) and Interview Prep (2.5 hours). Additionally, I also opted for Greg’s Scholarship Strategy (1.5 hours) to increase my scholarship amount in schools that I did not secure a full scholarship.

Although the official duration of service was 17 hours, the actual value derived from Greg’s reviews and my interaction with him was way more than the mentioned numeral, both in terms of benefit and even in terms of the actual time provided. Given the 17 hours invested, we utilized Questrom as the main focus of the Essay Reviews and Interview Prep, as it became my top choice and gave me the best chance to apply our work together to the other schools that I was applying. Through the process, Greg helped me to show my strengths, communicate detailed career goals and school interest and overcome my low verbal score through my essays and interviews.


Results:

I applied to 9 schools overall and received interview invites from 7 of them. I received admit offers from Questrom (full scholarship for MBA + MSDT), Katz (large scholarship), Cox (large scholarship) and Mason (large scholarship + GA). I was also waitlisted after interview at Simon, Maryland Smith and Krannert. Given my scores, our School Selection process was very meticulous. Using Greg’s direction to research various schools, I started to love Questrom, and we based our future work keeping Questrom in focus. Since I had already secured an admit from the school that I wanted to graduate with full ride, I did not make an effort to convert any of my waitlists.


Experience working with Greg:

The first thing that comes into my mind when I think about Greg is ‘Above and Beyond’. He did not let my scores be a deterrent for applying to Top 50 U.S. business schools. When he evaluated my profile, he conveyed to me that I have chances of securing an admit to the respective schools that I had shortlisted and began focusing on my strengths. He pushed me hard to bring about the experience that I had gained by working on several different projects and helped me leverage those insights to craft a brilliant resume and an impactful essay. Several weeks of deliberation over my essay with Story Development, Essay Brainstorming, Essay Reviews and tremendous attention to detail transformed my essay from a naive one to a sophisticated one. Looking at my final Questrom essay, I believed I had a chance.

I parallelly used Greg’s offered insights and advice to draft essays for other shortlisted schools and I was able to answer a variety of questions by referring to the time we had spent on Story Development, Essay Brainstorming and Essay Reviews. I am immensely happy to say that I received interview invites from almost every school that I had applied. I was even surprised to receive an interview invite from Cox within 90 minutes of submitting my application.

During the Interview Prep, we did a realistic Questrom mock interview and then a methodical feedback conversation covering every question, ranging from the main questions to the easier questions to the tougher questions. Greg gave me a chance to answer all the questions in a real interview format and then explained me how my answers could be improved. The Story Development and Essay Brainstorming played a crucial role yet again to connect my experience and strengths to answer the diverse questions that could be targeted at me during the interviews. Greg even pointed me to use the skills that I had gained outside of work to improve and diversify my interview responses. This helped me to get accustomed to the variety of questions that could be asked and I felt very confident during my interviews.

Finally, for an Indian applicant, the Hourly Services may seem expensive but Greg’s services are one of the most affordable you can obtain from an International Admission Consultant. The value you derive from Greg’s expertise is unmatched and you will start appreciating your results even before you reach the finish line. When I did reach the finish line, the return on my investment was already worth several multiples as I received a full scholarship to the school I loved the most despite my scores being only around average for that school.