Almost all Indian
candidates who aspire for a global education strive to secure a (very) high
test score. A super high score is considered (mistakenly) by many to be the
ticket for securing admits to prized schools. Make no mistake, good test scores
are important. Read my article to understand why adcoms value test
scores. However as Chad Losee, Managing Director of MBA Admissions and
Financial Aid at Harvard Business School says, “You are more than a
standardized test score”.
I’ve
reproduced below a table from Poets & Quants which shows that successful
applicants to top MBA programs have a wide range of GMAT scores:
So
what can Indian candidates do to improve their profile?
· Talk
Beyond Academics: An academics-focused environment leaves many Indian
applicants with a strong academic background (GPA) and (as discussed earlier) a
high test score as the bright spots in their profile. The top global programs
attract an elite candidate pool which mirrors the two bright spots mentioned
earlier. Thus (unfortunately for Indian applicants), these cease to be
differentiators. Analysis of past successful cases I’ve worked with show that
all of them communicated their involvement and interests in co-curricular and
extracurricular areas. You become ‘interesting’ for the adcoms.
· Show
‘differentiated’ leadership: Many advisors coach their clients to
demonstrate leadership. It’s obvious isn’t it? Top programs want to see
demonstrated leadership - it represents evidence that you’ll replicate this
trait while in B School and beyond as an alumni. With almost all applicants
trying to demonstrate leadership through their essays, resume, LORs etc., what
leadership examples will stand out? I call these differentiated leadership
examples. Leadership in unique, challenging environments while dealing with
challenging personalities. Cue: The flavor of these
examples in a MNC set up vs. an Indian family-run business set up can be very
different. The geography and location of these examples can be an arresting
factor. There are many more variables that are worth communicating in your
leadership and other essays – I promise you, they all add up to hitting it out
of the park for the adcom.
· Inject
action-orientation in your application: How you write your essays,
resume, what examples you choose etc. are a reflection of your personality. If
you write about initiative in a passive tone or choose passive examples you’re
unlikely to convince adcoms who go through thousands of papers in a span of a
few months.
· Customize
communication for each school and express fit with school values: What
values do you possess and do they mirror those of the school you’re applying
to? Have you done enough in your application to communicate this to the adcom?
Many applicants write a basic story and make no or cosmetic changes to their
application pieces. I believe this is being unfair to both the schools they’re
applying to and to themselves. I ask my candidates to think about applications
as they would if they were to participate in a speed dating competition. Would
you have the same story for every potential date irrespective of their
personality, values etc. – No! So why should it be different while applying for
different schools?
There are literally
hundreds of different things that Indian applicants can do to make their
profile standout. Ultimately all these initiatives or traits have to be baked
in to support a tight-knit and convincing story. In future articles, I’ll
address some of these different initiatives Indian applicants can take.
For more tips on this or other topics
or to get regular updates on new articles, write to me:
sumeet [underscore] verlekar [at the
rate] berkeley [dot] edu
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