Ask Jennifer@Accepted.com: Application-writing advice for the best global B-schools

[sarfraz_y]

Dear Jennifer

Appreciate all the help you are providing us mba-hopefuls with. Here's a brief profile of my background. I'll ask my question at the end:

- 28 / Male / India / Entrepreneur
- BCom with 75% marks from Sydenham College, Mumbai Univ. (one of the best in town)
- MMS (MBA with a different name) in Finance from one of India's best business schools - JBIMS, Mumbai (2003 batch)
- Post MBA 15 months with Tata Consultancy Services as Assistant Business Analyst in New Delhi
- Quit TCS to launch a startup that I've been running successfully for the past 4 years. Incidentally it's a venture in the Pet (dogs, cats) industry and is the only company of its kind in India and has received extensive media coverage both on TV and in print.
- Active Extra curriculars - Held leadership positions in diverse clubs in college from Dramatics to Poor Students Education Relief
- Chairperson of the placement committee at JBIMS
- Actively involved with an animal welfare NGO for the past 15 months
- GMAT score of 740

I am very clear on why I wish to pursue another MBA and my career direction post MBA (which incidentally is to get into Management/Strategy consulting with Mck, BCG, Bain) and I should be able to express this clearly in my essays. I'll also be able to explain what I plan to do with my startup if I join B-school.

Now I am only looking at applying to the following 5 schools - Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg & INSEAD. I am not interested in applying to any other schools since I already have an MBA and am doing reasonably well for myself so I only want to go to the schools of my choice else I would continue with what I am doing at the moment.

With this information, could you please answer the following questions for me:

1) Do I stand a chance at any of the schools of my choice?
2) If Yes, then in which school or schools do you think I stand a stronger chance?
3) Any aspects of my application that you feel I should pay extra attention to, in general or with regards to specific schools?
4) Any other school that you think I should apply to (given my career focus- Consulting/Big 3)?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Sarfraz

[noelatwork]

Originally Posted by Accepted

Hi, Jkanishka. Two years is short, but you seem to have a good amount of leadership in your work. I do think you might stand a chance. I don’t really see a reason to wait unless you expect to gain a significant amount more leadership and responsibility in the next year. I also believe that reapplying (if you are not offered a spot this year) improves your chances in most schools (except INSEAD and maybe HBS). So even if it doesn’t work out this year, you will be in a better position next year.

Regards,
Jennifer Bloom, CPRW
Accepted – Helping you write your best!

Hi Jennifer,

Are you trying to tell us that being a REAPPLICANT helps?
Please clarify as this was not the information I could gather from elsewhere..

Thanks
NoeL

[chandu_v]

Hi Jennifer,
Appreciate your efforts to help all of us (the MBA hopefulls) through your valuable suggestions.

I am an Indian Telecom R&D engineer and have applied to ISB class of 2010. I was intially not focussing on U.S B-schools. As I was looking at 1-year programs and also had cost concerns.

However, after going through some resources and university websites, I feel that I should give a serious try to some of the top U.S B-schools as well.

Could you suggest me with some schools that I can consider ? I have given my profile (in some detail) below.
(If possible) Could you please base your suggestion based on schools which are favorable to Indian students and where it would be possible for me to secure funding...

Here is my profile:

Education
++ B.Tech, Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras (Class of 2001)
-- CGPA: 6.4/10

GMAT
++ GMAT 760 (Q51, V41)
-- AWA 4.5

Professional Career
7 yrs of experience as R&D engineer in the area of Multimedia systems.
++ Joined a startup in the field of DSP when it was 1 yr old and been with it since then. Significantly contributed to the growth of this organization.(Organization has been critically acclaimed Internationally and has received lot of awards for its focus on innovation and for coming up with top quality products. It has been a topic of study for some B-schools.)
++ Filed 3 US patent applications (Currently filing my 4th)
++ Published 7 papers in international conferences.
++ Played a role in defining IP strategy for my team.

+- Currently working as a Lead Engineer, leading a small back-end R&D team.

-- Limited exposure to delivery and customer interaction. (Crux of it was in the first few years of my professional career)
-- Limited international exposure (Travelled to couple of countries to attend IEEE conferences)

Extra-Curr
++ Help HR team in recruitment and training activities
-- Nothing much beyond this.

Leadership profile
++ Throughout mt career, practised "leadership through initiative" and "leadership through innovation". Have many examples of solving technical problems and process related problems to justufy the same.

++ Started, built and lead a back-end R&D team. Built the team out of fresh graduates. Held the team together through various lows and drove it to success. Team made a significant impact on the image of the organisation through papers, patents, IP demonstrations and product differentiation. Team helped the organisation address new markets and get some key customers.

Motivation for MBA
· Move to Corporate strategy, product management and business development
· Move from solving technical problems to solving business problems.
· Move from taking in requirements to laying down the requirements.
Domains of interest: Telecom, Consumer Electronics, Hi-Tech


Thanks and Regards,
sarat

[applicant]

Hi,

Could you please explain the difference between the 1st (What do you hope to gain from Fuqua MBA) and the 4th (What impact do you hope to have in the world) Fuqua essays?
There seems to be a lot of overlap between these 2 as the career goals would invariably involve your intended impact.

Regards,
Applicant

[Accepted]

Originally Posted by sarfraz_y

Dear Jennifer

Appreciate all the help you are providing us mba-hopefuls with. Here's a brief profile of my background. I'll ask my question at the end:

- 28 / Male / India / Entrepreneur
- BCom with 75% marks from Sydenham College, Mumbai Univ. (one of the best in town)
- MMS (MBA with a different name) in Finance from one of India's best business schools - JBIMS, Mumbai (2003 batch)
- Post MBA 15 months with Tata Consultancy Services as Assistant Business Analyst in New Delhi
- Quit TCS to launch a startup that I've been running successfully for the past 4 years. Incidentally it's a venture in the Pet (dogs, cats) industry and is the only company of its kind in India and has received extensive media coverage both on TV and in print.
- Active Extra curriculars - Held leadership positions in diverse clubs in college from Dramatics to Poor Students Education Relief
- Chairperson of the placement committee at JBIMS
- Actively involved with an animal welfare NGO for the past 15 months
- GMAT score of 740

I am very clear on why I wish to pursue another MBA and my career direction post MBA (which incidentally is to get into Management/Strategy consulting with Mck, BCG, Bain) and I should be able to express this clearly in my essays. I'll also be able to explain what I plan to do with my startup if I join B-school.

Now I am only looking at applying to the following 5 schools - Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg & INSEAD. I am not interested in applying to any other schools since I already have an MBA and am doing reasonably well for myself so I only want to go to the schools of my choice else I would continue with what I am doing at the moment.

With this information, could you please answer the following questions for me:

1) Do I stand a chance at any of the schools of my choice?
2) If Yes, then in which school or schools do you think I stand a stronger chance?
3) Any aspects of my application that you feel I should pay extra attention to, in general or with regards to specific schools?
4) Any other school that you think I should apply to (given my career focus- Consulting/Big 3)?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Sarfraz

Hi, Sarfraz. Yes, I do believe you stand a chance at these schools. I would say the most difficult one would be Stanford and the “easiest” will be INSEAD, but they are all obviously very competitive programs.

These programs are interested in evidence of your leadership of people through difficult situations, so my advice to you is to think about the most challenging situations you faced and how you problem solved and motivated people to work together to tackle them and succeed.

From what I gather, Michigan Ross and MIT Sloan also do excellent recruiting in consulting.

Good luck!

Regards,
Jennifer Bloom, CPRW
Accepted – Helping you write your best!

[Accepted]

Originally Posted by noelatwork

Hi Jennifer,

Are you trying to tell us that being a REAPPLICANT helps?
Please clarify as this was not the information I could gather from elsewhere..

Thanks
NoeL

Hi, Noel. I find that reapplicants do fare better than first-time applicants. Part of that is obviously that their applications improve in the year between applying, but part of it (in my opinion) is the commitment to the school that reapplying shows (this explains why reapplying does not help with the likes of HBS; HBS pretty much thinks everyone is committed to them!).

Regards,
Jennifer Bloom, CPRW
Accepted - Helping you write your best!

[Accepted]

Originally Posted by chandu_v

Hi Jennifer,
Appreciate your efforts to help all of us (the MBA hopefulls) through your valuable suggestions.

I am an Indian Telecom R&D engineer and have applied to ISB class of 2010. I was intially not focussing on U.S B-schools. As I was looking at 1-year programs and also had cost concerns.

However, after going through some resources and university websites, I feel that I should give a serious try to some of the top U.S B-schools as well.

Could you suggest me with some schools that I can consider ? I have given my profile (in some detail) below.
(If possible) Could you please base your suggestion based on schools which are favorable to Indian students and where it would be possible for me to secure funding...

Here is my profile:

Education
++ B.Tech, Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras (Class of 2001)
-- CGPA: 6.4/10

GMAT
++ GMAT 760 (Q51, V41)
-- AWA 4.5

Professional Career
7 yrs of experience as R&D engineer in the area of Multimedia systems.
++ Joined a startup in the field of DSP when it was 1 yr old and been with it since then. Significantly contributed to the growth of this organization.(Organization has been critically acclaimed Internationally and has received lot of awards for its focus on innovation and for coming up with top quality products. It has been a topic of study for some B-schools.)
++ Filed 3 US patent applications (Currently filing my 4th)
++ Published 7 papers in international conferences.
++ Played a role in defining IP strategy for my team.

+- Currently working as a Lead Engineer, leading a small back-end R&D team.

-- Limited exposure to delivery and customer interaction. (Crux of it was in the first few years of my professional career)
-- Limited international exposure (Travelled to couple of countries to attend IEEE conferences)

Extra-Curr
++ Help HR team in recruitment and training activities
-- Nothing much beyond this.

Leadership profile
++ Throughout mt career, practised "leadership through initiative" and "leadership through innovation". Have many examples of solving technical problems and process related problems to justufy the same.

++ Started, built and lead a back-end R&D team. Built the team out of fresh graduates. Held the team together through various lows and drove it to success. Team made a significant impact on the image of the organisation through papers, patents, IP demonstrations and product differentiation. Team helped the organisation address new markets and get some key customers.

Motivation for MBA
· Move to Corporate strategy, product management and business development
· Move from solving technical problems to solving business problems.
· Move from taking in requirements to laying down the requirements.
Domains of interest: Telecom, Consumer Electronics, Hi-Tech


Thanks and Regards,
sarat

Hi, Sarat. Most of what you’ve done sounds very technical in nature. For your applications you will need to focus on the non-technical experiences (the strategy and HR recruitment are good examples). Your GMAT is good and because of that I think the top 20-30 schools may be sincerely interested in you – if you keep the focus away from just the technical.

In terms of money, most of the programs do not notify you of eligibility for scholarship money until after you have been accepted. But I highly recommend you read this recent blog post by my fellow Accepted editor on the availability of money for the MBA.

Regards,
Jennifer Bloom, CPRW
Accepted – Helping you write your best!

[Accepted]

Originally Posted by applicant

Hi,

Could you please explain the difference between the 1st (What do you hope to gain from Fuqua MBA) and the 4th (What impact do you hope to have in the world) Fuqua essays?
There seems to be a lot of overlap between these 2 as the career goals would invariably involve your intended impact.

Regards,
Applicant

Hi, Applicant. Yes, Fuqua’s essays this year are a challenge! Here’s my take on the questions:
The first Fuqua question is really just asking about your goals – describe them and tell us about the business skills and knowledge you are hoping to gain at Fuqua to achieve them.
The Fuqua long-answer essay is asking for examples from your own experiences in which you have demonstrated “adaptability, imagination, and emotional intelligence” in your leadership. What “consequence” (impact) were you able to create as a result? Then, I tend to believe that the impact you plan to have as a leader of consequence will be about more than just your professional goals but will tie in more with the non-professional impact you plan to make in the future. The best essays will be able to link those future consequences with the past impacts you have made and will demonstrate that you are a master at engaging skillfully with colleagues, clients, and or community.

Good luck with these challenging questions!

Regards,
Jennifer Bloom, CPRW
Accepted – Helping you write your best!

[askme_scor]

Dear Jennifer,
I would like to request your inputs on my profile and your suggestions on some of the schools i can look at.

Education: Completed Btech in Computer Science with 67 % in May 2008

Workex:
One month summer training in NHPC (Natianal Hydroelectric Power Corporation) in Network Security in June’06 (full time, During Summer vacation while I was in college)
Two months training in NIIT (in java) in 2007 (full time, During Summer vacation while I was in college)
Three months full time job in software support in a firm after Graduation from May to August 2008
Presently working in a leading Power company in Business Development Department (core strategy group of the organization) as Graduate trainee. My promotion is due in December ’08.
By August 2009 I would be having full time work-ex of 14 months after graduation and 3 months full time job training while studying.
By the time I will be applying (December '0 my work-ex would be around 6 months after graduation.

I am going to take GMAT in December ‘08.
Currently my score is coming around 650, so I expect it to rise well above 700.
Beside these some other activities are:

• Founding member of Linux User Group (LUG) in JUIT (My college)
• Won 2nd Prize in “Make Bhai Make “ a movie making competition at college fest Le Fiestus’06
• Was a member of Event Management committee of college fest Le fiestus’05
• Won “Gold Medal ” in Avantika International Talent Search Essay Competition in 2001
• Secured a percentile score of 78.9 % Bright Career Scholastic Aptitude Test in 2001
• Implemented a experimental project “JUIT Online Radio Service “in a team of four which aired for a month and had subscriber count of 200
• Designed and Implemented final year project “AXE-CSA”(human Simulation) in team of four using QT framework in Linux. ( A+ grade in it)
• Have taken a 2 month course in Combustion (video compositing and visual effects) in Picasso Centennial Canadian Animation College, Delhi.

Beside these I am having 2-3 community service certificates also.

And also I can get good LOR from my lecturer who was my final year project instructor and second from my reporting head in the present company.

Now college’s I am interested in are:

• NYU (Stern)
• UCLA (Anderson)
• Columbia University
• Cornell University (Johnson)
• Carnegie Mellon (Tepper)
• UC Berkeley (Haas)
• UNC - Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
• University of Michigan (Ross)
• Duke University (Fuqua)
• University of Virginia (Darden)
• University of Iowa (Tippie)
• Rochester (Simon)

I am basically looking for MBA in finance and more specifically in Corporate Finance.

Can u please suggest me in which business schools I have chances of getting in for August ’09 and for August ‘10 and if there is any other good business schools for Corporate Finance program.

Thanks

Regards,
Priyesh Khunteta

[blueblueblue]

Hey Jen

If its not a problem, i need your thoughts on my profile and future aspirations.

M / 24 / IT - 3 yrs by fall 09
680 GMAT (Q-49, V34)
112 TOEFL (internet based)
Graduated with a B.E in Comp Sci from Anna Univ and scored 67 %
Scored 96% in my 12th grade Board Examinations

My achievements at the work place and extra curricular wise are preety good, I would think. On completing the mandatory training for any fresher who joints the firm, I was drafted into the Dow Jones Project for application maintenance of their Contract Management Application. Here I was the Secondary Support personnel for the first 4 months and was consequently made Technical Lead of that application when the primary resource left. As technical lead I managed to stabilize the applciation while still on probation together with delivering the pilot project for the Contract Mgmt app, which was basically a utility to upload IP and Source related info in bulk. Improved performance to the extent where Source related info could be added in thousands in a matter of 10s of seconds where earlier uploads were done in 100s with an excution time of several minutes.

After that led a team of 4 for the contract mgmt application and was then made On Call Manager for the Dow Jones account where my primary tasks included formulating taskforces and overseeing execution of critical tasks.

I was also the Champion of the Cognizant - Dow Jones Team Building taskforce and member of the Business Dev taskforce. As member of the Biz Dev taskforce I founded the Cog - DJ Newsletter - a monthly newsletter that covers the various happenings within the growing account. I have also managed to work on a couple of proposals for the likes of Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal - the later being one that we succesfully captured. I extensively worked on the RFP, SOW and POC for this proj, which prompted the Manager of the Biz Consulting Practice of my firm to take me under his wing.

This transition was as recent as a couple of weeks back and my responsibilities now include working fulltime on proposals, acc plans and portfolio analysis together with other collaterlas for clients in the Information, Media & Entertainment Practice, which means I will have a year's worth of exp in this before i start my MBA

Extra curricular wise, I was a former State Tennis player and drummer for my band in college. We played at quite a few prestigious festivals around the country.

Looking to make a shit towards Marketing Consulting post MBA and was looking at applying to Duke, Cornell and NYU along with UNC. Your thoughts on my chances?

Thanks in advance
Rajiv